Kiss the Sky by Krista Ritchie, Becca Ritchie Page A

care more about scratching the wood if this was my
house. But it’s practically Scott’s. So
scuff away, Daisy. “You’re totally right.” She nods. “I guess it would be
like rubbing one out?”
    “Girls can jill off,” Lily says.
    “What?” Daisy and I say in unison.
    “You know…” Lily turns bright red again, only her flush
looks like an allergic reaction. Red splotches her arms and neck. Her eyes flit
to the camera and then back to us. “Jack and Jill went up the hill. Guys can
jack off. Girls can jill off.”
    Daisy cracks up laughing, hitting her leg with each
full-bellied sound. “Holy shit…That’s awesome.”
    I smile too. I love my sisters for so many different
reasons.
    I slide a piece of pizza out of the box with a napkin.
“You’re sixteen,” I say to Daisy. “Men shouldn’t be thinking about screwing you
while they look at your photos. They should know better.”
    “I’ll be seventeen in a month,” she says. “And it probably
happened to Brooke Shields, so…” She shrugs like that makes it okay. It
doesn’t. No one likes that they’re calling Daisy a sex symbol in the media just
because Lily is a sex addict. Daisy was only a high fashion model before all
the publicity, in background shots, a few small campaigns. Nothing big. Now
she’s a supermodel, posing more suggestively, wearing less and less clothes.
    I don’t even want to think about what will happen when she
turns eighteen.
    When she can legally pose nude.
    I wish she would care more, but she entered the modeling
industry at such a young age that I’m not sure she’ll ever see her body as
something other than an object to the male gaze.
    “Girls!” Scott calls. “We only have the psychic for another
half hour. You need to come back.”
    We shuffle out of the kitchen and into the living room,
pizza and drinks in hand. I pass Connor the plate he requested and sit beside
him, which happens to also be next to
Scott. I’d kick Scott somewhere else but I don’t want to put him next to Lily
(a sex addict with a stable boyfriend) or Daisy (a sixteen-year-old high
fashion model with impulse issues). Seriously, my little sister dove off a
forty-foot cliff in Mexico.
    I wish I was exaggerating.
    Lily slumps beside Loren on the loveseat, and he pulls her a
lot closer so her legs are over his lap, splayed across him. She leans into his
chest as she picks the pepperoni off her pizza.
    “Do me next,” Daisy says with a roguish grin, plopping on
the floor. She leans against the legs of Ryke’s chair
and holds out her hand to Madame Charmaine. The psychic’s peppered hair is so
thick and frizzy, like she brushed her curls. Sun spots even mar her skin.
    Ryke has kicked up his feet on my cedar coffee table that was
transported from the Princeton house. At
least there’s that ugly purple tablecloth on top.
    But I can’t restrain myself from saying something. “ Ryke , I can see the mud on your boots.”
      His brows rise and he
runs a hand through his brown hair. His features are harder and more brooding
than Loren’s, but he has the same lean and muscular build. Not bulky but
incredibly fit. He nods to his brother. “Please tell me this isn’t a regular
fucking thing with her.”
    “Oh yeah.” Loren steals the pepperoni off Lily’s plate and
pops one in his mouth. “Don’t leave the toilet seat up unless you want a ten
minute lecture.”
    “It’s called respect,” I retort.
    Lily raises her hand. “I agree with Rose.”
    Ha! Take that, Loren.
    But he ignores me and playfully bites Lily’s neck. Her face
lights up in a giddy smile.
    My achievement is popped in an instant. I just feel…strange
at being thwarted by Lily and Lo’s constant blinding love. Instead of being agitated
by their in-the-face groping, I’m a little more aware of what I have. I turn to
Connor, and for some reason, I can tell he’s been watching me, studying me,
understanding everything. I trace his features: the smoothness of his
unblemished