And she asks so quietly, “What else do you need?”
What do I need? No one has asked me this before. The answer hits me at once. “A break.” I need more time away from everything.
“I’ll make it happen,” she assures me, her hands dropping to my chest. I stare into her yellow-green eyes, and I sense that she’s feeling my heart pound against her palms.
“What would I be without you?” I blink and a single tear drips down my face. We both know the answer to this—we both recognize what she’s doing for me. Remind me. Burn me. Love me.
I kiss her forehead, my chest alight with passion and pain.
“Ensemble,” she whispers in French. Together.
“Ensemble,” I murmur.
Together.
46
ROSE COBALT
Please come to Sunday luncheon. I promise Jonathan won’t be there, but we’d love to see you all and the babies. – Mom
I delete the fifth text she’s sent this week. We’ve been skipping the Sunday family luncheons since the media shit storm. All conversations would’ve surrounded the press conference, which is now in nine days. I can just picture myself at the patio table, brandishing a fork at my mother or even my father for pressuring my husband to lie to millions of people and do what they want instead of what he wants.
“Is that Mom again?” Lily asks, hands braced on the steering wheel. She drives my Escalade while I give her directions. My car is filled to maximum occupancy. We’ve been switching seats every three hours since it’s a long drive, but currently Connor sits in the back row, the babies on either side of him in rear-facing car seats. Loren and his half-sister, Willow, are in the middle chairs, an aisle of space between them.
Willow moved into our house not long ago, and when I asked her to join our mini-vacation, I was worried she’d decline. We’re not the quietest group of people, and I thought she might need a break from us when, ironically, we needed a break from everyone else.
I was glad she said yes, especially during a twelve-hour car ride with Loren. He tones down his asshole comments when he’s around her. I wonder how different he would’ve been if he had grown up with a little sister instead of meeting her later in life.
“Rose?” Lily asks, eyes flickering from the road to my cellphone.
“She wants us at next week’s luncheon,” I say, “which is not happening.” We’re on a weeklong secret trip, and we’re excluding luncheons from the itinerary.
A white Ferrari drives parallel to us, Coconut’s head sticking out of the open window. I can see Ryke’s hand clasping the top of the window frame, sitting in the passenger seat.
Daisy must step hard on the gas. One second later, the Ferrari goes from forty-miles per hour to about a hundred on the quiet, nearly deserted street.
They speed ahead of us.
“Uhh…” Lily gawks. “I’m not supposed to follow them, am I?”
I’m all for comradery, but I do not want to join their death brigade.
“No way,” Lo tells his wife. “We’re not driving off a cliff with Thelma and Louise.”
Willow digs through her Jansport backpack and takes out a water bottle. “Do they know where they’re going?”
“Nope,” Lo says. “I hope he gets lost.”
They were supposed to follow us, so we wouldn’t find them lifeless in a metal heap fifty miles ahead. We even went as far as denying them the address.
“Knowing Ryke and Daisy, I’m sure that’s their goal,” Connor chimes in.
I crane my neck over my shoulder, noticing Connor rattling a toy over Jane’s car seat. I just barely spot her tiny hands reaching out. Connor smiles, more relaxed than he has been of late, and it causes my lips to rise as well, hoping that our destination will serve as a much-needed sanctuary.
“Christ,” Lo says with a cringe. “I swear every time you smile like that a demon sprouts wings. It’s unnatural.”
Connor looks up and catches my partial smile before it morphs into a withering glare. My husband grins more, but I direct my hostility at Loren.
“Do you know what else is unnatural? Your face.”
Lo looks more amused, and he turns to Connor. “Did you hear that, love? Your wife thinks I’m pretty.”
I’d let out a growl, but the promise beneath this banter from Loren to Connor overpowers any irritation, a promise that says: I’ll always have your back. You’re my best goddamn friend, no one is going to keep that from changing.
Connor rubs his lips, but I see his grin as well as everyone. “She wouldn’t be wrong.”
Lo rotates back to me and flashes a half-smile.
I stretch my arm and raise my palm at him like shut up, but I struggle to reach, seeming non-threatening.
“You want a high-five, Rose?” Lo mocks.
I growl this time, about to flip him off, but my phone’s GPS beeps. I hurriedly swivel back to focus on my primary task. “You have two miles and then you turn right,” I instruct Lily.
The windy roads curve around mountains and create odd forks combined with all-way stops that have had Loren scratching his head. Lily is a better driver than him, so I have faith.
Birch and maple trees jut into the crystal blue sky, no other car driving along the road. When we’re all quiet, we can almost hear the wind rustle the leaves. The stillness contrasts our normal city atmosphere and the chaotic media presence.
“It’s so quiet,” Lily says what travels through my mind.
“As long as we weren’t followed,” I mutter.
“We weren’t,” Connor assures me. His confidence reminds me that we’ve both worked together to ensure a paparazzi-less vacation. When we left our neighborhood, our bodyguards drove in one direction and we left in the other. Connor and I mapped out our pit stops, calculating the most obscure, non-crowded areas. We were only tailed for an hour outside of Philadelphia.
“Willow?” I ask.
She checks her cellphone. “No pictures of you on Instagram or Twitter since yesterday.”
I asked her to keep track, wanting to include her into our group, even if Lo called me a fun sucker.
“There they are,” Lily exclaims, slowing our Escalade at a lookout point on the mountainside, the Ferrari parked. Ryke and Daisy stand on the metal railing to view the sprawling green landscape, a massive drop on the other side. Their unleashed dog sniffs the grass beside them.
“Jesus,” Loren curses.
I roll down my window the same time as Lo.
He beats me to the punch. “Hey!” he shouts. “Crazy Raisins!” Ryke and Daisy both look over at the same time.
Lily mutters under her breath, Crazy for Raisy, to correct his misuse of their couple name. Her preciousness makes light of their rebellion. I’m all for self-expression, but I don’t want to find my little sister in the hospital with her boyfriend. Ever.
Since they’re still standing on the metal railing, I add, “Follow us, please! Daisy, you don’t need to be driving in the dark!” She bought the Ferrari two weeks ago, her first car purchase.
“How many times has she driven a car?” Connor questions from the backseat, his tone even-tempered.
She never really drove before she received her motorcycle license, and I can’t recall a time where she ever sat behind a wheel. I lean further out the window. “Daisy, how many times have you driven any kind of car?!”
She hops off the railing with Ryke, and he hugs her around the waist, nuzzling her neck with his head. Something foreign wedges in my ribcage. Jealousy? No, not quite. Their love isn’t as blinding as Lily and Lo’s but it’s a bright ray of sugary sweet sunshine that almost everyone can see.