Page 73 of Hothouse Flower (Calloway Sisters 2)

“Ryke Meadows?”

My eyes open. An officer stops by my cell, cutting into my thoughts. My stomach still flips. I don’t move off the bench, but he unhooks a set of keys on his belt and sticks one into the lock. They’ve come to officially book me.

He swings the cell door open. I’m about to stand, but he says, “There’s someone here to see you.”

I stay fixed to the bench, my limbs solidifying into stone as soon as the person saunters down the hallway, buttoning his suit jacket. My father stands there.

My fucking father.

With a hard gaze like mine.

With a severe jaw and dark brown hair and my fucking eyes.

I look more like him than my brother. But Lo would say it’s better to fucking look like Jonathan than to be him, to act like him, which Lo wades into on occasion.

; But if Lo was here, he’d want me to make nice. He’d want me to bury the resentment. Back in Utah, he asked if I could do that. I told him the truth. I don’t know. A part of me wants to try. The other part just wants to push Jonathan so fucking far away.

One side is stronger.

“You can close the fucking door,” I tell the officer.

My father cocks his head. “Don’t be a little shit. You’re sitting in a cell right now.”

“I never asked you to fucking be here,” I retort.

“But I’m here, Ryke. And I’m not going anywhere. Whether you want me to or not, you don’t have much of a choice.” And then my dad steps into the jail cell. “Can you give us a few minutes?” my dad asks the officer.

“I’ll have to lock you in.”

I expect my father to pull out a wad of cash, to threaten or bribe, but instead he just nods and says, “That’s fine.”

I frown, watching as the cop shuts me in a cell with my father, and my dad doesn’t balk, not fucking ashamed to be here. He just stands opposite me, hands in his black slacks.

After the loud bang of the door shutting, the cop disappears down the dark hall.

Why are you fucking here? I should ask him. But I’m back at that country club, quiet, seventeen and hateful, no matter how much I just want to let it all go.

“I have my team of lawyers sorting through this mess,” he says. “It’s being taken care of. You should be out of here in fifteen minutes.”

I open my mouth to tell him that I don’t want his help, but he cuts me off.

“You are my son. I don’t know how many times I have to fucking remind you of that—it’s like Sara fucking burned my name out of your head.”

My jaw locks tight. I don’t want to reignite all of those issues. I don’t want to hear him call her a bitch or shout about how she’s brainwashed me. I just want to sit here in fucking peace and deal with the charges myself.

“Ryke,” he says my name like it means something to him. “What do you want from me?” He extends his arms, his palms flat like he’s opening himself to me, like he’s trying so fucking hard. “Or am I just swinging at an invisible ball, here? That’s it, right? There’s nothing I can fucking do. You’ve made up your mind that you don’t want to have a father anymore.”

Something snaps inside of me. “Stop acting like this is your noble way of getting your son back,” I growl, rising to my feet in hot anger. I point at him. “This has never been about just wanting me in your life.”

He frowns with clear confusion, not contrived. “Then what has it been about? Please, fucking tell me.”

My stomach hurts. I don’t want to have this conversation. I don’t even want to look at him. “Just get out of my fucking life!” I run a hand through my hair, pulling at the strands. “Fucking leave!”

He doesn’t even flinch. “You’re angry at me. I understand that.”

“Oh, do you?!” I just keep shaking my head, my neck aching. “You shit on me for years. You shit on Lo. And now you want to be my father? How fucking convenient. My mom blows your cover, the world knows my fucking name and my relations to you, and now, now you want to say, that’s my son, right there. Look at him. He’s mine.” I point. “Fuck you!”

“I’ve always wanted to be a father to you—”

“LIAR!” I scream at the top of my lungs, my throat burning. “You fucking liar! If you wanted me as a son, then why the fuck did you choose to protect yourself over me?! You chose to hide me so you could save your fucking reputation! So tell me, Dad, how the fuck am I supposed to feel anything but hatred towards you?”

He looks away, and that empowers me.

“And now,” I continue, opening my arms. “You’ll do anything to have me back in your good graces. You want me to come forward to the media, to tell them how you could never molest my little brother. How that evil deed isn’t in your fucking nature.” I’m boiling alive, my blood coursing through my fucking veins. “Ten years later, Dad, and you want me to protect you again. That’s all I am to you. Someone you can use when it becomes fucking necessary.”

He just watches with a hard gaze, not recoiling, but there’s something deep in his eyes, something foreign. Something sad.

I take a step towards him, pointing at my chest. “You can’t fucking use me anymore. I won’t be the son by your side, making you look like a fucking hero when you’re the worst fucking villain.” I breathe hard, trying to catch the air in my lungs.

I don’t remove my searing glare off of him.

“Are you done?” he asks roughly. He takes my silence as an answer. “Maybe you should remember, Ryke, but I never once asked you to say anything about me to the media. That’s never what this has been about, and if you continue to think that, then it’s your own delusion guiding you to that goddamn place. Not me.” He shifts on his feet, but he doesn’t break my gaze. “I can live with these allegations. What I can’t live with is losing you, losing Loren. I would die protecting the two of you, and if you can’t see that then I don’t know what more I can do to show you.”

He doesn’t say I’m sorry for putting you through hell. I’m sorry for kicking you aside and yelling at your brother like he was a piece of shit loser day in and day out. “Why can’t you just fucking apologize?” I ask. “Why can’t you admit that you fucked up?”

“Because I didn’t,” he tells me, burning a hole through my chest. “I made a tough decision back then, and if I was put in the same position, I’d make it again. If I didn’t lie about you, Ryke, then the alternative would be to admit to something that would send me to the place you’re standing in right now.” He motions to the cell. “And then where would Loren be?”

My stomach drops as I think of my brother, conceived from statutory rape. My father would have gone to jail and my brother…born from a mom who didn’t want him. Would he have landed in foster care? Or would Jonathan have given him to Greg Calloway to raise? Were they even fucking friends back then?

“I love you,” he tells me. “I’ve always loved you. Whether you can believe it or not is up to you. I’m not here under false pretenses. I don’t want your fucking statement to the media. I don’t want your forgiveness. I just want you in my life. I want my son. If that means having to listen to your insults every goddamn dinner we have, fine. But I’d rather have that than nothing at all.” He spreads his arms wide. “Your decision, Ryke.”

I run my hand through my hair. I want to believe him. In the core of my soul, I want this all to end, and I want the fucking father that he claims to be. But beneath this unconditionally, fucked up love—there is years and years of pain. How does that ever go away? “How am I supposed to accept you?” I ask, my voice low.

“Ask me anything. I don’t have a problem being honest, even if you don’t like my fucking answers.”

I don’t know why I realize it now of all fucking moments—but I curse just like him, just as frequently, just as badly. What does that mean? He rubbed off on me? He was around enough that he could influence me somehow. That even if he lied about me—he was there, trying to be a part of my life.

I take in my surroundings, the metal toilet, the sink, the bars behind my father, the grimy cement wall behind me. My father is giving me an out. I’ve only ever seen black and white when it comes to my family. But maybe this is too gray—maybe there’s no right and wrong choice. There are just decisions that will hurt my brother and decisions that’ll hurt me.

“Why am I even here?” I ask, needing someone to verify my suspicions.

He scrapes his finger against the pole, irritation pooling through his eyes. “That would be Samantha Calloway’s fault. She apparently emailed her friend mid-flight to call the cops on you. She went a little fucking overboard on her anger.” He looks at me. “Her daughters are all a bit nuts, so you know exactly where they get it from.”

“She called the fucking cops on me,” I retort. “That’s not nuts that’s—”

“It’s nuts,” he rebuts.

“It’s fucked up.”

“That too,” he says. “But what do you expect when you stick your dick around a fifteen-year-old girl when you’re twenty-two.”

I glare. “I didn’t—”

“I know,” he says. “Like Greg, I believe you, son. But Daisy is their youngest daughter, the last to leave. You’re encroaching on Samantha’s fucking territory.” He checks his watch. “Like I said, you’ll be out of here shortly. She has a few fake statements that’ll hold you in here for another ten minutes.”

“They’re going to book me soon.”

He nods. “They’re backed up in there. I’m sure they’ll want to fingerprint you in a half hour.” I do the math easily. He’s saying I’ll be out of here before they can even fucking charge me. He smiles at me, knowing I understand.

“I resisted arrest—”

“I talked to the officer. They’re dropping it.”

I breathe through my nose, my heart beating quickly. I don’t know why all of a sudden I feel so fucking overwhelmed. I realize that I’m thankful that he’s here. And the sad thing—I don’t want to feel that way. I’d rather stay angry. Why do I have to hate all the good parts of a person? My mom—I think she fucking taught me that. Every time I thought about my brother in a good light, she’d crush that vision, she’d focus on the bad, and so I did too.

I can’t do it anymore.

I rub the back of my neck. “What about Lo?” I ask my father, not willing to dodge this topic.

“What about him?”

“You’re fucking terrible to him,” I say in a deep breath. “What you say to him—it makes me sick. You beat him down, and then he returns to you like a wounded dog. I can’t be around you when you treat him like that.” I’d rather Lo not be around him either, but we’ve tried that way, and look where we are now. Lo loves our father, and he’s going to keep going back, even if it kills him.

My dad absentmindedly unclips and clips his Rolex watch on his wrist. “He’s not you, Ryke. He dropped out of college. He can’t even fill a resume. He shit his life away, and if that means I’m a little tougher on him, fine. But I’m not going to fucking watch him continue to throw his potential down the drain.”