Thrive (Addicted #4)

by Krista Ritchie

My shoulders relax, and I whisper, “Do we have superpowers in our world?” “Yeah,” he says, “but you’re not invisible.” Damn. “What can I do then?” “Fly,” he says, “with me.” He lifts me up quickly, onto his back like we always do. And he races towards a door, my hair blowing behind me. My lips rise in a weak smile. He says, “Want to get lost with me in a palace?” I rest my chin on his shoulder, a couple tears dripping but they come from a fuller place in my heart. “Yes.”

SO. CUTE. :')

I do it pretty much every night and every morning, and together, we still manage to go into another dimension of pleasure.

uhhh. EVERY night and morning?? loren..... this is enabling. i'm SCARED.

I doubt she would’ve approved of this alternative, but it’s just one night of insane sex. I won’t let Lily get used to this and make it a new routine.

4. HOURS. lily, please don't relapse.

I produce a half-smile. “We all can’t be into ball gags and handcuffs.”

IMDEAD.

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

connor is a literal poet. I SHOULD'VE READ THIS AGES AGO. i had to write an essay about revenge for my class. this would've been perfect.

“You would be an awful lay if you were a guy,” he explains the source of his humor. “Huh.” He kisses me and clarifies, “You wouldn’t be able to last that long.” True. “How am I as a girl…?” I grip his biceps, distracted as his thrusts turn slow and deep. Oh God. My back arches, and my lips part in need. His amber eyes graze me as though I’m the most beautiful broken thing he’s ever been a part of. “You’re perfect.”

There will always be bad days, but it’s how we live those bad days that counts.

“It’s real to me,” he says. “It took you years. It wasn’t an overnight thing, Lil.” His gaze falls to my lips. And after a long moment, he breaks the quiet. “I want to marry you.”

“What if we get married on 6-16?” He’s grinning. His sharp jawline and cheekbones just plain gorgeous. “Whatever you want.”

AW WAIT. THAT'S SO CUTE.

Two addicts constructing a future together: when I think of it like that, it all begins to sound like make-believe. Too rooted in fantasy to ever come true.

“Get her bikini strap!” Daisy yells. Lily tries the dirty move, unclipping Rose’s black bathing suit top, but Rose swats her hand away. “Cheating!” Rose accuses. “I win.” Connor grins and speaks to her in French.

“There’s too much sugar in that, Daisy. I thought we agreed to just eat the vegetables.”

SHE'S EATING LITERAL FRUIT. HELLO??? i hate their mom sm.

“Are you tough, son?” he repeats, drunk out of his fucking mind, upset about something he heard. “Just tell me,” I say lowly. “Why can’t you fucking tell me?”

wait. i'm scared.... WHAT IS IT.

He clears his throat. “Your father is being accused of molesting you.”

OH, YEAH. omg.

I reach into the cupboard behind me and find a bottle of Glenfiddich. Three-fourths full. I pop off the crystal stopper and put the rim to my lips. I hesitate for only one second before the sharp liquid slides down my throat.

And then I freeze, my eyes growing big. “Lo?” His limp hand sticks out from behind the island. I awaken with pure panic, my heart on a freefall. “Lo!” I rush to the space between the sink and the island, and I find Lo half supported by the cupboard, his head drooped to the side, his body slumped. I drop to my knees and touch his face, his eyes closed like he’s sleeping. I feel his slow pulse, beating sluggishly. Tears stream down my cheeks. “Lo, Lo…” What’d you do? What’d you do? I spot the whiskey bottle next to him, almost all gone. “LO!”

“Lily!” Rose rushes in the kitchen, dressed in a black robe. “What…” Her voice dies off. I’m tangled with Loren Hale’s limbs while he’s completely, dangerously unresponsive. “Connor!” Rose shouts, fear breaching her voice. It terrifies me ten times more. “I’m trying to get him to the car,” I tell her, my body trembling. “I’m taking him to…to the hospital.” “CONNOR!” Rose screams.

“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.”

You wait for me, Loren Hale. “Promise me,” I whisper, blinking back tears.

“You shouldn’t have had alcohol anywhere in the fucking house!” Ryke yells. “I brought it home after a company party. I didn’t think⁠—” “You’re living with an alcoholic, Connor! Do you not even care about him?” Their shadows stand tall behind a gray curtain, inside the nice hospital room with a couch and a bathroom. The door is shut so hopefully no one can hear them in the hallway. “I know you’re upset⁠—” “You should be upset!”

“I trusted him,” Connor says in a low voice. “You can’t trust a fucking alcoholic,” Ryke growls. “I trusted my friend,” Connor retorts. “I see him every day, Ryke. If I knew about the allegations, I would’ve never kept him out of my sight.” “You know what I fucking think?” Ryke asks, fuming. “I think you get off being the superhero to my brother. I think you like the way he looks at you—like you’re invulnerable. While he stands beneath you, weak, looking for guidance and you take advantage of all of that⁠—” “Stop,” Connor says forcefully, and I can see his chest rising.

i understand ryke's frustration, but omg. connor is already feeling so guilty.

“Lo,” I whisper, my fingers making circles on his black shirt. “I just want you to know that if you leave this world, I won’t be in it for much longer.” He’s a piece of me. You cut it off, and it’s like going through life with no lungs. That is how deep our love really goes.

“I don’t want to be the weak one.” It’s one of the most human things he’s ever said. I kiss his forehead, and he kisses my nose just as quickly. I smile a smile that is filled with tears and hopes and unspoken promises. “You won’t be. Not for long.”

I can’t run as fast as him. I can’t keep up, not even when my calves burn.

aw, but you WILL. :') at the end of hothouse flower.

Ryke wraps his arm around my shoulder and says, “Maybe one day you’ll be able to outrun me.” Yeah. Maybe one day.

“Female menstruation?” I ask with the rise of my brows. “What’s this about, Rose?”

THE PREGNANCY OMG.

“I need a baseline,” she says. “To know that they work before I try.”

IMSCREAMING?? THIS IS HOW THEY FIND OUT THEY'RE BOTH PREGNANT?? OMG.

Birth control is 99% effective, so Connor’s superhuman sperm somehow penetrated my body’s defenses. He won.

BRO ROSE. I CANNOT. connor knew what he wanted and he got it!

“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…

GIRLLLL.

If I’m pregnant…Lo will be devastated. He has expressed that he doesn’t want children, not when alcoholism is hereditary. And we’re not in a good place to have a baby. I don’t know if we ever will be.

I nod, and my gaze drifts to the counter where her test lies. She is fixed to the floor, too scared to confront her own fate. So I do it for her, approaching the pregnancy stick. Two lines. Just like mine.

Rose has her arms crossed. “I hate your smile.” “You love my smile. That’s why it annoys you, darling.”

“How about you not verbally fuck your husband when I’m in the room, thanks?” I flash a smile. Rose looks at me like I’m crazy. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about.” Connor leans against the kitchen counter with a growing smile, popping a grape in his mouth. Yeah, even when he eats, his lips pull upward in a rich grin.

HE'S SOO!!?!

As I open the door, I hear Rose’s voice in the background. “I was not flirting with you, Richard.” I can pretty much feel his grin overtake his whole face.

my parents.™

“You should be more worried. I mean, you and Connor do it like…” I trail off. “Like what?” Her eyes pierce me through the skull. “Like…rough, and you’re into bondage.” “So?” she says.

PERIODDD ROSE. they're FREAKS, lily!

Miss you. – Lo

STOPP. HE'S ALWAYS TEXTING FIRST. he loves her so much omg. :')

“Then call Lily,” he says, “your fucking fiancée, who would be in tears if she saw you right now. Did you fucking think about her when you drank? Did you consider what this would do to her?” No. I can’t think about her when I drink. It hurts too much.

my babies omg. she's at home pregnant while he just relapsed.

I stare at the headrest, slammed with tonight’s events. With my brother being dragged by the jacket, away from me. I rewind to screaming at him—saying that I wish he never existed in my life. I rewind further to forcing him to drink alcohol. “Connor,” I whisper, hot liquid pools in my eyes. What have I done?

“We’re in Earth-616. This isn’t an alternate universe.” I clutch the phone tighter, tears falling. “We’re going to have our happy ending. It’s just going to take us a little while to get there.”

MY EYES ARE WATERING.

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.

Rose almost tips over, her heels caught on a rock, but Connor catches her around the waist and tucks her close to his chest.

so cute.

I feel hot, raging tears roll down my sharp cheeks. “You spend so much of your fucking time trying to save me,” I breathe, “and you don’t even realize that you’re killing me.”

Ryke holds my face between both of his hands, his brown eyes boring into mine, flecked with hazel. “Stop defending him. Not to me, okay?”

“I have been so fucking attracted to that girl. And I never planned on doing a fucking thing about it. I never was going to try. And I tried…I tried so fucking hard not thinking about her like that.”

don't get me wrong, i love ryke and daisy, but i hate how they justify him being attracted to her when she was a minor, whereas they describe any OTHER older people, like models, seeing her that way as perverts and creeps. just because we know ryke shouldn't make it okay....

It hurt to watch her with other guys. I spent years being the best friend of a sex addict. I spent years loving a girl who opened her door to every guy but me.

“How much did it hurt?” I ask. “Did what hurt?” “Watching her with other guys.” He flinches back like air escapes him. After a short pause, he says, “It felt like someone was drowning me in fucking salt water and lighting me on fire.” I almost give him a weak smile. “Same.”

I wouldn’t want that kind of guy dating my daughter. Not that I’ll ever have one.

ha..... ha.... so..... basically....

Jonathan answers first. “He’s going to be a part of this family.” He turns back around and I hear him say under his breath, “Like he was always supposed to be.”