Thrive (Addicted #4)

by Krista Ritchie

“I don’t want to have another Wednesday like that.” I remember back to the beginning of the week, when Lo proposed, when I declared how much I wanted to follow the blacklist—the perimeters my therapist created: no public sex, stick to morning and nights, no nooners in sight. I’d never seen the list. Until Wednesday.

“Also, word of advice. If you want to have blow jobs in your office, you really do need an assistant.” What the fuck? My face falls. My dad looks at the desk like he can see right through it. He can’t. “Lily, try not to breathe so heavily next time. You give yourself away.”

Before I was sober, I’d sit at a bar with Connor and people would fawn over him. Six-foot-four with those obnoxiously confident blue eyes. Connor Cobalt is catnip for pussy and cock. He knows it and he almost just doesn’t care.

This is a moment that will define the rest of my relationship with him. I can sense it. “I’m going to ask you this one time, and I want you to be completely one-hundred percent honest with me.” Ryke nods. “Okay.” “Are you attracted to Daisy?” He stares directly into my narrowed eyes. And he says, “No.”

Poppy is probably easier to get along with, pretty laid-back, but I always gravitate towards my fiercest sister. She’d be a lioness on Animal Planet, for sure.

Really Sam can be described in two words: Pretty boy.

“Don’t say ‘you know whose’ name.” I drop my hand. His brows harden. “Voldemort.” I punch him in the arm. Though I fell into that Harry Potter reference-trap too easily.

There’s something sad about Ryke Meadows that he won’t let us see, but it’s quiet moments like this, where he’s gone, that I feel it anyway.

I think, sometimes, we have more faith in each other than we do in ourselves.

“All they need are some wands,” I whisper to Lo. “I’ll never understand Ravenclaws,” he tells me. Connor and Rose would belong to the smartest house in the wizarding world. No question. Before the sorting hat even touched their heads, it’d scream Ravenclaw!

I’m going to love Lily how I want to love her. Overwhelmingly, uncompromisingly. Look away if you have to.

We’re going to have our happy ending. It just may take us awhile to get there.”

People make mistakes every day, some small and some big, but I just wonder when I’ll stop making them. Or is this a lifelong thing? Do we all just wander through life, fucking up and trying to put ourselves back together only to continue on again?

He’s a coward. A guy that I thought was the best goddamn person in the world—is nothing but a fake.

“I don’t care about sex. I care about you being healthy and not drinking.” I’m suddenly overwhelmed with pride. For her. But also fear for me. I’m falling behind. I can feel myself regressing while she’s barreling ahead. I have to get my shit together.

“What if I told you that you don’t have to get married?” Now he has our attention. Lily’s eyes snap open fully, and my back straightens like a board. “What?” we both say in unison. “You don’t have to get married,” Connor repeats. “Not in one month. Not in six months or seven. You choose the time, the date, the place, everything on your terms, no one else’s.”

He takes a deep breath. “I want to marry Rose on that day, if you’ll let me.”

“And darling,” he says to me, his grin lifting his lips, “you’ll be a great best man.”

Connor kisses Rose’s forehead and I read his lips: I love you. I bite my gums to stop the waterworks from beginning all over again. Every moment of Rose’s wedding has been a surprise, and with each one, I think that we’ve all realized how well Connor knows her and how much he truly, truly loves her.

“Revenge isn’t a benefit, Lo. It’s self-gratification, an emotional response with very little logic and even less reward.”

I love that he’s hornier than me. I love that I can laugh during sex. But mostly, I love that being tangled together in the backseat of a car is no longer wrong. It won’t turn me into a compulsive monster anymore. It’s a level of control that I never thought I’d reach. Yet, here it is.

Connor easily lifts Lo into his arms, his head hanging like he’s…I hold his neck so it doesn’t look like that.

“It was mine,” Connor says. I can’t see his expression from the backseat, but he covers his eyes with his hand. Something he almost never does. “It was my alcohol.” Rose reaches out and holds Connor’s hand between their seats. I kiss Lo’s forehead. You wait for me, Loren Hale. “Promise me,” I whisper, blinking back tears.

Ohhhhhh. My eyes widen in alarm, never believing or registering that this could actually happen: Rose pinching a pregnancy test between two fingers. “You’re not…” “I’m late.”

“What does yours say?” she asks. “Negative,” I declare before I even pick it up. She flushes the toilet, and I grab my stick. “Two lines that’s…” I snatch the directions, my heart catapulting to my throat. No…

“We’re going to have our happy ending. It’s just going to take us a little while to get there.”

“Lily…” I wait for him to finish his thought, one of my hands gripping my white comforter. Very softly, he says, “I wouldn’t be here without you.”

We aren’t connected by our addictions. But by our childhood. Souls fused together from the very, very start.

He whispers something to her, his lips brushing her ear, not discreet about it. They’ve never been. And then she smiles brightly, her fingers falling to the band of his jeans. Their embrace takes me aback, like a swift kick. And it’s in this single moment, that I know for certain, they’re together.

My father is really quiet in the front seat. He keeps clearing his throat like he’s choked up. I frown, what happened in the jail?

In one breath, he says, “I’m going to get sober.” My mouth slowly falls.

I read between the lines. To have his son back in his life, my dad is willing to be sober.

Rose says, “Then I’ll try to get pregnant right afterwards, just so I can have a girl.” Connor grins, a blinding one. “I don’t pray to anyone but myself, but I may make an exception, just so we can have a boy first.”

Our love is rare. It’s one I can’t abandon, even if I tried. When she screams, an identical one rips through me. When she cries, my world rains with grief. When she loves, I truly, truly fly.

And she says with a big inhale, “I’m eight weeks pregnant.” I go cold, like a car impacts me on the right side. Glass shattering. The car swerving. Spinning. The airbag popping into my chest, knocking the wind right out of me. The shock and fear pummels me into a state without thoughts.

The perseverance to do anything, to be anything. To thrive. Someday, that word will belong to us too. After years of coming up short, it’s all I’ve ever wanted.

It takes me a minute to finally say what’s been inside of me for years. “Thank you.” Without my brother, I wouldn’t be sober. I’m not even sure I’d be alive. His decision to enter my life and never let go was one that saved me.

“Life moves too quickly,” he says. “I don’t want to speed through a single moment. Not anymore.”