“LET’S SEE YOU SMILE, SULLIVAN!” More paparazzi start pulling up in the half-filled parking lot.
I lift Sulli out of the seat. I’d like to carry her inside, but she asks softly, “Can I walk, Daddy?” I put her down on her feet, and she takes my hand.
At this point, the pink leotard rides up my fucking ass, but it’s not even on my list of concerns. One cameraman almost cuts in front of us.
“Back the fuck up,” I curse and another cameraman grabs that guy’s shirt, pulling him out of our way.
“He’s new!” someone shouts, disassociating with that other guy.
That’s it. I pick Sulli up in my arms.
“Daddy.” She wiggles to be set down.
“Just until we go in, Sul.” Two seconds later, I’m pushing open the doors. The gym is sort of fucking empty, but everyone still looks towards us. Even if I didn’t wear this costume, I’d still be stared at.
“Wooow.” Sulli gawks at the rows of equipment. From ellipticals to treadmills to stair climbers. She’s never been in a gym like this one before.
Like I promised, I put her down and then guide her towards the weight benches in the back. I find my little brother on one, Connor spotting.
I scan both of them quickly, but they seem…fine.
“Hey!” I shout angrily.
Lo turns his head, wide-eyed with a what the actual fuck expression—his arms give out. My lungs plummet until Connor seizes the bar, right before it can hit Lo’s chest.
I let out a tight fucking breath.
Lo sits up and motions to me, then to himself, then to Sulli, back to me. He bursts into a smile. “Is it my birthday? Because it’s either Halloween or you forgot to tell me you’ve become a part-time ballerina.”
“He’s my grumpy fairy godmother,” Sulli explains, smiling up at me.
“Only one-third accurate,” Connor says, wiping his hands on a towel.
“Two-thirds goddamn classic.” Lo takes a photo of me.
I don’t mind.
“Uncle Connor?” Sulli walks closer to him but then notices a shiny barbell and heads that way. Still, she asks, “Why are molocooles wet?” She forgets how to say molecules, and he doesn’t have to answer because she tries to pick up the fucking barbell.
I’m already pulling her back a foot or two.
She looks at me like can I touch?
I crouch, pick up the weight, and let her look at it. At this, I focus on my little brother. “What’s going on with you?”
“With me?” Lo pockets his phone and uncaps his water bottle. “You’re the one who showed up in a tutu. Were paparazzi still outside?”
“I don’t fucking care.” I don’t care about the tabloids or my costume. I care about my little brother. “What’s wrong? You texted me.” My jaw hardens.
His face falls. “Christ…you ran over here, didn’t you?” Guilt eats at him for a quick second, and he rubs the back of his neck.
“I’d fucking do it again. You okay?”
“Yeah. I just wanted you here, not need. Just want.” He watches Sulli put her ear to the barbell like she does conch shells. “Do I need to start putting SOS in my texts so you can tell when I’m dying?”
I groan, “No. I only need one Lily in my fucking life.”
Connor banters, “SOS I can’t find the remote.”
Lo laughs because that was an actual fucking group text Lily sent when we all lived together. “SOS Ryke has a leotard wedgie.”
“Like father, like daughter,” Connor muses, referring to Sulli’s famous wedgie picture.
I shake my head. “Fuck you and fuck you too.”
Sulli pats the barbell. “Fuck me!”
Fucking fuck.
“Ohh, shit.” Lo winces.
Connor lets nothing pass his features. I rub my temple and say strongly, “Hey, Sulli. Don’t ever say that again. That’s fucking bad.”
It’s hard because I can’t tell when I curse until five seconds later, and even then, I have to think about it. Sullivan frowns, not understanding.
Lo proclaims, “I will go batshit crazy if Luna says that.”
“Not fucking helping.” I run my hand over my face once and then figure this out. “Every time you say bad words, you have to eat another veggie.”
“No.” Her lips downturn. “Daddy…”
I hear my brother whisper to Connor, “He’s a sucker for this.”
“Give him a minute.”
“One vegetable,” I say. “That’s it, sweetie.” It’s my fucking fault she curses, and she acts like I’m subjecting her to criminal punishment.
“Okay,” she says so fucking sadly. I almost tell her never mind, we’ll let this one pass, but then I glance at my brother and he mouths, law, lay it down—and he mimes a gavel.
So I kiss the top of her head and stand up.
Lo starts slow clapping. “Progress.”
Connor joins the slow-clap. “Minimal progress.”
I have to bite my tongue from calling them prick and major prick. “You’re lucky Sulli’s here.”
Connor, who usually pisses all over the word luck, lets it slide this time.
“Damn right,” my little brother says, “or else we would’ve missed this.” Lo never motions to my costume.
His words burrow much deeper than right here and right now.
*
Day two without Daisy, and I miss her like fucking crazy. I wake up around 5:00 a.m. again, my blankets not rumpled, not fucking entangled like someone kicked and rolled and turned. The bed never squeaks.
I don’t see her fucking smile or hear Nutty scuttle around while checking each and every door. The white husky stays with Dais at Camp Calloway. The thought slowly hardens my jaw.
I’m jealous of a fucking dog.
I scratch at my disheveled hair, the dark room quiet and fucking lonely.
Truth is, before we had Sulli, Daisy and I could be apart and communicate fine through text, maybe a two-minute phone call here and there—but we never needed to be together at all times like my brother and Lily. I feel the change in us.
No one will ever be like Lily and Lo, but for fuck’s sake—I miss Daisy like I haven’t seen her in a year, and it’s been two fucking days. I rub my face, trying to snap out of it, but I’m certain that once I see Sulli, Daisy’s absence will slam at me all over again.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, feet on the floor, I grab my phone off the fucking nightstand. Green paper lanterns sway overhead with the hum of the ceiling fan. I click on my first contact and press FaceTime. So the screen isn’t pitch-black, I flip on fucking lights and then return to my same spot.
Daisy answers on the second ring, and I instantly meet sunny, green eyes amid dimly-lit surroundings. She moves back-and-forth, her hair in a messy fucking bun, and the longer I search her features, the greater her smile expands. Frogs croak softly and birds chirp in the fucking background, the sun not yet risen, but wherever she is outside, a lamp must illuminate her.
“Hey there,” she whispers, resting her cheek on her hand, grasping rope?
She’s swinging, I realize.
I picture her alone in the quiet, gentle fucking morning, swinging beside the lake. Racks of kayaks nearby, campers still sleeping while she’s wide awake.
She can’t restrain her smile. “You’ve missed me?”
More than you fucking know. I wear the answer all over my face. “How’d you fucking sleep?” I rest my forearms on my thighs, bent forward as I peer at my phone.
“Mmm,” she practically fucking moans. “The best I’ve had.”
My brows rise, disbelieving that it’s the fucking best ever. “That so, Calloway?”
She laughs, not able to pretend for long. “The best for not being at home with you. I slept for a good six hours. I only woke up a couple times.” Daisy adjusts her phone and chucks something. She rotates the camera. Nutty bounds towards the lake, paws splashing water, and then the husky enthusiastically brings a stick back to Daisy.
My relationship with Dais was never founded on words, so when dead-silence arrives over a call, it’s not tense or strained. It’s fucking peaceful.
I’d rather share the quiet with Daisy than sit in silence alone.
Her swing creaks, and she faces the camera again. Very softly, she says, “I miss you too.”
“Yeah?”
“Oh yeah.” She picks at the rope. Back-and-forth, back-and-forth, always fucking moving. “Every mountain reminds me of you.”