Addicted for Now (Addicted Series 2)

by Ritchie, Krista

“I’m not uncomfortable, Lily,” Connor says. “I’m just not looking forward to the two hour lecture from your sister about female privacy.” But he must know what I’m trying to do because he stays here, and when he lowers his hand, he nods to me like I’m doing something right.

  Lily pales a little, realizing Connor is not going anywhere. “Don’t you think you can give me more privacy if you went in the other room?”

  “Believe me, you don’t want to know what I think right now.”

  Her eyes flit around the room again. She knows she’s been caught, but she won’t admit it. Normally, I’d yell, maybe say a few encouraging words, and then dial Allison’s number so she could give Lily a proper lecture. But yelling does nothing, and Allison isn’t her therapist anymore.

  I know what I have to do.

  “You have an exam to get to,” I remind her. “So why don’t you finish what you started and then we’ll head on out.”

  She blinks a couple times. “What-what are you talking about?”

  “Finish up and then we’ll leave,” I repeat, unwilling to clarify. She has to admit it herself.

  “I’m done, so can you hand me that towel?”

  “You’re done?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I don’t smell like garbage anymore, so I call it a bathing success.”

  “Maybe you misunderstood me,” I say dryly. “Finish fucking yourself.” I’m angrier than I thought. In my head, I meant to say finish pleasing yourself but my mouth had a different agenda.

  Her eyes bug in horror, and I refuse to back down. Stay strong. Be tough. She doesn’t need a hug or to be coddled anymore.

  “Can I talk to you alone?” she asks, refusing to look at the two guys that make this situation really fucking uncomfortable. That’s the point though. This isn’t allowed to be easy for her.

  “No,” I snap. “I know what you were doing. You know what you were doing. And Connor and Ryke do too. It’s not a fucking secret.”

  Her nose dips below the water, and in seconds, she’s about to submerge to hide from us. I reach out, and put my hand underneath her arm, holding her upright to face her problem.

  She stares dazedly at the bubbles and a part of me wants nothing more than to climb into the bath and pull her into my arms. To hug her and tell her that everything is going to be okay. But that’s how it begins. She self-medicates her sadness and anxiety with sex, and I let her do it too many times before. I have watched this girl fall into the cycle of addiction, and she’s jumping onto those tracks again.

  “I can’t be around you twenty-four-seven,” I tell her. “You have to figure this out, Lil. You can’t masturbate.” How many times do I have to say the words for her to understand them? How many times did I have to hear no more booze to fully accept it? It never gets easier. This is going to be a long-term battle. And I’m prepared to be there for her every fucking step of the way. Even if she wants to drown in this water, I’m going to pull her back up until she’s healthy. Until she can stand on her own two feet.

  “You don’t understand,” she starts.

  “Lo,” Connor cuts in. “If we don’t leave soon, she’s going to be late for her test.”

  I nod and then grab the black cotton towel off the rack. “Turn around,” I tell Ryke, since Connor has already shifted his view.

  When Ryke faces the wall, Lily stands, and I wrap the towel around her. “Get dressed and talk,” I say roughly, reminding her I’m still mad.

  I lead her into the bedroom and look back to Connor and Ryke. “Can you two check the bathroom for porn and toys?” I ask them. “Destroy the room if you have to.”

  Ryke looks a little too excited to fuck with my shit.

  I follow Lily into the walk-in closet. “What don’t I understand, Lil?” I ask as I kneel and push past her shoes, grabbing a large black metal case.

  “It helps me. I just needed one minute. That’s it…” Her words trail as she slowly pulls on her underwear and bra. It’s hard not to look. Her frame has always been small and wiry, something I’m attracted to. But when she spins around to search for a pair of pants, I have a clear view of her bare back. Her shoulder blades jut out and her ribs are almost visible by her waist. She’s been losing weight again.

  “Have you been forgetting to eat?” I ask. She used to do that a lot. Sex occupied her mind more than necessary things—like bathing and eating. If I didn’t force her to shower, she’d smell like sex for a whole week. It’s not that she doesn’t want to get fat. I think she’d prefer to be curvier. She just literally forgets.

  She sidesteps to look at herself in the full-length mirror, and her face slowly falls. “Oh…” She tries to squeeze that inch of fat she was so proud she gained, but she can barely grab at the tight skin on her belly. “Shit.”

  She avoids my gaze as she zips up her jeans.

  “It’s not because I’m into self-love again, I promise,” she tells me. “I’ve ruined everything for everyone, and it’s the only thing that makes me feel better anymore. I don’t have any good distractions like you. I don’t have any morning runs, and I’m not about to start a company. School ends in a week, and I just need something for myself.”

  “If you’re trying to convince me to let you masturbate, it’s not working,” I snap. “It’s not going to happen, Lil.” I stand to my feet, the black case in my hands. I bought it for her birthday last year. She used to keep all her toys in this worn Victoria’s Secret box. At the time, I thought it was a great present, now I’m ready to light it on fire.

  When she finishes dressing, her eyes fall to the case in my hands. “What are you doing with that?”

  “I’m throwing it away.”

  Her head whips back and forth, and she tries to tug the case from me in desperation. “You said we could still use them,” she pleads. “Together, I mean. Not by myself. I won’t ever use them by myself.” It’s true, that I kept them, intending to use them on her when she was ready. But I don’t know if she’ll ever be ready, and leaving them here for a what if isn’t worth the risk.

  “They’re not staying.”

  She tries to bring the case to her chest, but I hold it firm in my hand and shoot her a look. “We’re not five-years-old fighting over a fucking comic book,” I tell her. “If this was a bottle of Maker’s Mark, what would you want me to do?”

  Her eyes widen at the comparison and she suddenly lets go.

  “I’m sorry.” It sounds more like an impulse than something sincere.

  “I don’t accept your apology.”

  Her mouth drops, and I point between us. “Me and you,” I say. “We’re in a fight. And if you don’t start listening to me, we’re going to have serious problems, Lily. I’m holding up my end. I haven’t touched a drink. You have to start holding up yours.” Though I know it’s harder in a different way, but the porn and the masturbating shouldn’t be her big issues. It should be the actual sex.

  She stares at me for a long moment, and I wonder what she actually heard of my speech. “We’re in a fight?” she asks, shock and hurt crossing her face.

  I knew I shouldn’t have started with that.

  “Yeah, how does it feel?” It doesn’t happen often.

  She looks panic-stricken and I realize that the fear of losing me…of losing us is what really motivates her. She motions to the case. “Burn it. Do what you need to do.” She shoves it against my chest and tries to push me out the door. I force myself not to smile because the “tough love” is actually working. I’d rather not ruin it with a momentary grin.

  “No masturbating,” I tell her again.

  She nods wildly. “I know. None. Not at all. Scouts honor.” She holds up three fingers. I don’t believe her completely, but at least she’s come around from denying it.

  Now I just have to bring her to the exam on time.

  { 39 }

  LILY CALLOWAY

  I don’t have time to think about my fight with Lo, being caught by all three
guys, or the fact that paparazzi sprung up like woken zombies as soon as I arrived on campus. Someone leaked my class schedule to the press, and I sprinted into the building to avoid them.

  I’m going to fail the exam anyway, but Lo and Connor would never let me skip. I leave the guys in the lobby to wait, and I jog up the staircase to the second floor. My plan is to slip into the back of the auditorium before anyone can see me. I’ll take the test, turn it in, and leave. How hard can that be?

  I swing the door open and stop cold at the top of the auditorium-style room. All three-hundred students are already nestled in their seats while TAs walk up the aisles to pass out the exams.

  I’m late.

  And there’s no open seat anywhere in sight. Oh wait…

  I spot one in the middle aisle of the middle row. There’s not much room to squeeze past people, and I imagine disturbing everyone as I hop over thirty bodies to reach my seat. I don’t want to be that person. Everyone always gives the late-arrival dirty looks, and since I’ve been on the news for the past couple of weeks, I can’t imagine the looks being the normal kind of dirty. They’d be dirty with an extra pinch of malice.

  My throat goes dry and my palms turn clammy. I’m about to sprint out and make up some lame excuse to Lo, but the professor notices my lingering presence.

  “Miss Calloway,” he calls.

  I freeze, and like a tsunami, all three-hundred bodies rotate to set their inquisitive gazes on me. If this is what being an actress feels like, I want no part of it.

  “Come see me down here, please.” The professor motions for me.

  I suck in a shallow breath and descend the carpeted stairs, trying to avoid all the eyes. Not even halfway there, some guy coughs into his hand. On the second cough, I hear “whore.”

  That’s original.

  Two more steps and someone else calls me a skank, louder this time. I glance towards the noise and I see a girl elbowing the guy in the ribs.

  Five more steps and the voices start to rise as people talk to their friends.

  “All right, settle down,” the professor tells them.

  “Go back to Penn!” a guy yells. Voices escalate and cheer in agreement.

  “Better yet, go to Yale! I hear they like filth!” I don’t know what that person has against Yale, but I try to keep my cool. I’m almost to the bottom of the auditorium, and I silently curse myself for walking in on the second floor.

  “Shut up!” A girl’s voice pitches over the talking. Huh…someone’s on my side? “We’re trying to take a test here!” Maybe not.

  “Quiet!” the professor shouts, angrily now. “Everyone. The tests are out, and that means the next person who speaks gets a zero.” The room hushes instantly, and I finally reach my destination.

  The professor is middle-aged and always wears a nice button-down with slacks. He takes out a manila envelope from his briefcase and hands it to me. My name is scribbled across the front.

  “I’ve spoken to your other professors,” he says in a low voice so only I can hear, “we’ve agreed that your presence for finals week will only disturb the other students. Your exam today and your finals from all your classes are in that folder. You can turn it into my mailbox by the last day of finals.”

  “So they’re like take-home tests?” I ask, a little confused.

  “Essentially, yes. There’s no reason for you to be on campus for one last week. You’ll distract everyone. You’ve already wasted…” He looks at the clock. “Five minutes of their time. For some that could cost them a letter grade.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right. Just return the exams on time, and if you could, exit out this door.” He motions to the one behind him, the one where I won’t need to walk up all those stairs.

  I say a quick thanks and then disappear quickly out the double doors. I peek into the envelope, all the tests nestled inside. It’s generous. They could have easily just failed me. But it also reminds me how my life is changing. I can’t even sit in a classroom anymore. What is next year going to be like? Will the professor give me all the tests to take home? Or maybe they’re hoping I’ll be expelled from Princeton before that happens.

  But with my father’s lawyers defending my stay here, I know I’ll be back next year.

  Walking down the hall, I find Lo, Connor, and Ryke sitting in the lobby where I last left them, waiting for me. They talk quietly amongst each other. I raise my hand to wave and call to them, but a body steps in front of me, blocking my path.

  “Hey, aren’t you the infamous Lily Calloway?”

  He speaks loud enough that I see Lo’s head perk up. His eyes hit mine and they fill with concern.

  “Are you deaf?” the guy laughs.

  I meet his pretty green eyes and scan his blond hair, a twenty-something guy, tall with muscular arms. He sports a black and orange Princeton tee.

  “I’m Lily,” I confirm. My eyes flicker past his body again. Lo is on his feet, but he hesitates towards reaching my side.

  Is he still angry at me?

  Oh jeez, we’re still in a fight, aren’t we?

  My heart beats crazily, and I focus my attention back on the blond. “I’m also leaving.” I sidestep and he follows suit, trapping me to this spot in the hall.

  I hear Lo’s shoes on the tile floor, and I try to relax.

  “Why would you want to do that?” Blond Guy asks. “I heard that you love going down, and I’ve got something here for you.” He grabs my hand, and fear bobs my throat. Oh my God. I never thought this could happen in a hallway (slightly empty, albeit) during the middle of the day. Maybe he thinks I’m as wanting and easy as they say I am on the news. Maybe he believes I won’t care or fight him. That has to be it.

  But I’m not that girl. Sure, I may have played into his advances a year ago, but now they literally curdle my stomach. I recoil and try to untangle from his strong hold, but he grips my hand and places it right on his pants.

  Whatever I feel—it doesn’t last long because Lo grabs his shoulders from behind and throws his back into the wall.

  I flinch, not accustomed to physical aggression from Lo, not even when he pinned Mason against my car. And he eases off the guy within a second, his eyes pulsing with something hot and black.

  “This is why America invented the sexual offender registry, you sick fuck,” Lo spits.

  “I didn’t touch her,” Blond sneers, the veins in his neck bulging. “Your slutty girlfriend was all over me.”

  “I was not,” I snap, about to charge him myself. I don’t have nails, but I’m not below slapping.

  Ryke grabs me, and I squirm, trying to go help Lo. “Lily, stop,” Ryke says, holding me tighter.

  “You want your dick to be touched so badly, fine,” Lo growls, and he does something that causes me to pause, going quiet and motionless in Ryke’s arms.

  Lo slams the guy again, his back digging further into the wall, and he puts his hand over the guy’s pants. The icky feeling I had for touching Blond vanishes. I’m not the only who did it. Though, Lo volunteered his hand.

  Blond thrashes, and Lo must grip hard because his face contorts into a pained wince. “Get the fuck off me.”

  “What? You don’t like it anymore?”

  “I can sue you for harassment.”

  “Let’s play that fucking game,” Lo replies. “Let’s see whose lawyers are better. I’m a goddamn Hale. My family eats shitty fucks like you for brunch. Don’t you ever force yourself on a girl, ever again.” Lo loosens his grip, and then he steps back from him. Blond hesitates to retaliate, but his eyes ping from Lo, to Ryke, to Connor, and he mutters a curse and retreats down the hall.

  Ryke looks ready to run after him and take a swing.

  Lo’s chest rises, his hands clenching and unclenching. I see Jonathan in his words and actions, and I know the same comparison must infiltrate his head. Sober Lo still does mean things, and I’m not sure what the right way to protect me was—or what I could have done to help. But I do reali
ze how much he hates even the notion of turning into Jonathan Hale. And for sacrificing a large chunk of his heart to come to my aid, I am very, very grateful. What he just did for me—it wasn’t easy.

  His eyes find me. I step forward and put my arms around him, wanting to hold him and thank him all in one swoop.

  Drunk Lo wouldn’t have been here.

  I’d either have to give into this guy’s advances, scream for help and hope that a Ryke Meadows was around, or try to find a way to fight off a six-foot guy.

  Lo kisses the top of my head, and says, “Are you sure you don’t want a bodyguard? I can’t always be around you, Lil.”

  I’ve contemplated it. The idea of a guy shadowing me is a little unsettling, but after this, it’s definitely safer. “Only if you want me to.”

  “We can pick out someone who’s really ugly,” he offers with a small smile. It’ll make him feel better, and that matters a lot to me.

  I nod. “Okay.”

  I separate from Lo and hold up the manila folder to Connor, who has been staring at it in curiosity for the past couple of minutes. “All my exams,” I explain. “The professors don’t want me on campus anymore.” For obvious reasons. And right now, I don’t want to be here all that much either.

  Being a sex addict does not give guys the right to touch me. I didn’t think that would be an issue until now. Is this a problem that will persist for the rest of my life? Or something that will die when the media loses interest in me?

  Only time has the answers.

  { 40 }

  LILY CALLOWAY

  “This would go a lot faster if you’d just let me bubble in the two other scantrons while you work on that one,” Sebastian tells me. He sits on the Queen Anne chair smoking his cigarette as he watches me hunched over piles of papers and scantrons. I’m basically copying the answers from Sebastian’s old exams to my finals, which feels more like cheating than simply memorizing.

  But I’m fairly certain that actually letting him bubble in the answers would be cheating. “I’m not a cheater.” I cringe. “I’m not a complete cheater. Don’t tempt me to your dark side.”