Main Bonus #80: Fight Night (Daisy Calloway) - Part One (Patreon)

IMPORTANT: Please do not screenshot and post any part of this bonus scene to other sites or share with non-patrons. All of the Patreon content is exclusive to Patreon and for current patron's eyes only.  Thank you!! xoxo Krista & Becca

RESOURCES:  Check out this narrative timeline graphic to visually see when this bonus scene takes place.

MUSIC: We listened to "Hummed Low" by Odessa and "Night Like This" by LP while writing this bonus scene.

“POPPY IS BEING a secretive bitch,” Rose announces like she’s not slandering our oldest sister within these four Vegas penthouse walls—one of which is glass and overlooks the dazzling city.

“Rose,” Lily and I chastise together.

“It’s not an insult.” Rose keeps her hands out of the hot tub while clutching her phone with matte-black nails. Lily shifts away from Rose in the water, like she’s reprimanding her for the mean comment.

We have magnificent views of the sparkling Vegas strip from our suite’s hot tub. We feel so high up that the moon seems closer than the concrete. I’m the only one who escaped the warm water. Willow wipes her fogged glasses with a monogramed Masquerade Hotel & Casino towel that I handed her, but I don’t get back in the hot tub.

Wet droplets roll down my bare skin. Just wearing a yellow bikini, I bounce a basketball I snagged earlier from the indoor court.

“You sure it’s not a dig?” I ask with a bounce. “Because it kind of sounded like one. Straight to the heart.” I mime an arrow through my heart and fall back onto one of the white cushioned chairs.

Rose snaps a hot glare at me, which only makes me smile bigger. “It didn’t pierce her fucking heart because she’s not here.” Poppy went to bed three hours ago. I think her ditching our sisterly time together pissed off Rose too.

“Does that make it any better?” Willow asks so quietly. I strain to hear her above the hot tub jets.

“Good question, Willow.” I sit up straighter and dribble the ball between my split legs. “Does it make it any better, Rose? Really?”

“Me being an ice-cold bitch is not the issue right now,” Rose retorts, then waves her phone at Lily, because I’m sure she wants Lily on her side first and foremost. It’s rarer when she’s not. “She’s giving us nothing. I asked her five times who her twerpy husband thinks the board is leaning toward, and she said, idk.” Rose silently rereads the message with flames for eyes. “I. D. Fucking. K. She couldn’t even text me a full sentence.”

Lily shrugs. “Maybe don’t call her husband a twerp.”

I gasp. “The idea.”

Willow smiles.

Rose cringes. “Samuel is a twerp until he commits to who he wants as Fizzle heir and doesn’t let the board steamroll him.”

“Name-calling, Rose,” I try to mimic Connor with a deep masculine voice. “So beneath you.”

Willow and Lily laugh, but Rose isn’t lightening up.

“I’m serious,” Rose says coldly, vacuuming the humor and levity from the hot tub. “If they choose Charlie, this is not going to be good for anyone.”

My stomach sinks at the thought.

“Sam wants Luna as heir,” Lily assures her. “It’s more likely she’ll be chosen.” Our brother-in-law, Sam Stokes, has been very frank with Lily and Lo about his desire to choose Luna as the race for the future CEO comes to an end soon.

“Is that a good thing?” Willow wonders, worried about Luna ever since the kidnapping and memory loss. We all are, and Willow and I haven’t exactly tried to pick our niece’s brain about being named the successor of Fizzle. We all decided it’s best if only Lo and Lily bring these stressful topics up to her. We all want to be as gentle with her thoughts and memories as possible.

“It might be,” Lily says with a peeking smile. “I get the feeling she wants it.” Luna is one of the few who didn’t come to Vegas with us, and I know it’s partly so she can practice her final presentation she’ll be presenting to the board.

I think she’d be amazing at whatever she puts her heart into, and Luna has such a big one. Her creativity is boundless. But corporate life is…different. I’ve been on the sidelines enough to see how it can be exhausting, demanding. We all know Lo will drill this into his daughter before she makes her choice.

If she’s picked at all.

Boards can be fickle. Which is why Rose is on edge. Her and Connor have tried to talk with the decision-makers, but as a show of power, they’ve basically told the two of them to stay out of it. That this isn’t their choice, and they don’t want their influence in the matter.

“She will make a terrific CEO,” Rose says pointedly, “if the board can get their heads out of their asses. But they’re likely Gorilla Glued there.”

I twirl the basketball on my finger. “Hey, I think we should all try this thing called positive thinking.” The ball thumps onto my lap after two slow rotations.

Rose texts. “I’m positively thinking this is a terrible situation for our kids to be in.”

Lily thinks about this, then nods. “Yeah, it’s not great. But it could be worse.”

I smile. “See, Lily knows how to do it. Positive thoughts.”

“They make you fly, Rose,” Lily says very seriously. “You can’t soar without them. It’s a known fairy fact.”

 “Tinker Bell,” Willow chimes in with the evidence.

“I’m not a fucking fairy,” Rose says hotly.

“She eats them for breakfast,” I joke with the wag of my brows. “Wing by wing.”

Her eyes just barely, barely soften when she looks up from her phone. “I’d never harm Lily.”

My heart swells, and we all smile back with more depth and fondness because A.) she admitted what we’ve all known for years: Lily is magical, and B.) protecting our sister has been a big ole priority since last November.

There has been little else as horrific as the night of her assault. I mentally try to block out the images, as best I can, because it burrows a sickness and fear in my stomach.

We’re all on edge for various reasons while in Sin City, but I’ve loved our trip here. Not for all the activities in arm’s reach. Not for our humongous suite (one of the biggest on the strip) with five bedrooms, a basketball court, bowling alley, indoor pool and hot tub all within one grand space. Not for all the room to run around. Not even because the Fight Night my nephew organized has raised a ton of money for charity.

But because we’re all here with almost all of our kids. Life feels greater, more joyous, and fuller when we’re all together. I think almost losing Lily and Luna has brought us closer in a way. We’ve held tighter to these moments together because they feel fragile and so very irreplaceable.

While the Fizzle race has plagued Rose, Lily has been jumpier about the actual Fight Night portion of this trip. Which went down hours ago.

Lily wouldn’t even watch her oldest son in the ring. It was smart considering his YouTuber opponent had Maximoff in an illegal headlock at one point.

Before the event even started, she’d volunteered to babysit Moffy’s children so fast, Rose said our sister’s arms nearly broke when it shot up in the air. Not that Moffy and Farrow would let just anyone watch Ripley and their teeny-tiny newborn Cassidy. I understand wanting to cling so protectively to your baby and struggling more to let go. It took me a while to allow anyone outside of Ryke to watch Sulli.

Cassidy isn’t even the newest addition to our families.

My beautiful little sunshine grandbaby is. Seven Meadows was born last month to pure love and happiness. Ryke had tears in his eyes the first time he held him at the hospital, and I couldn’t restrain the steady stream down my cheeks. It was a perfect moment with our daughter and her husbands and the new life they brought into this great big world.  

During this trip, my hold-your-breath moments have come from the media swarming Seven and Sulli.

It’s their first big public outing since the birth. Cameras have been everywhere, not just to film the Fight Night, but paparazzi assembled in Vegas to capture any footage of our families.

My firstborn daughter is so much like her dad, though. Stubborn, determined, unrelenting—that when Sulli puts her mind to something, she’s going to do it and do it full-force.

One-hundred-and-fifty-miles per hour. No brakes.

I smile now just thinking about her braving the world, not shying from it. There is so much peace in my heart knowing she’s with men like Akara and Banks, who will protect her with the last fiber of their being. Who would claw through snow, sand, and cement just to reach her. Who love her so completely. Who see her radiant beauty in all its stunning light.

I’ve wondered if that’s the mark of a perfect match—knowing that if and when I leave this earth, she’ll be okay because she’s in their caring, loving hands.

I’ve wondered if that’s why my dad was so accepting of my relationship with Ryke in the end. Because he knew that Ryke would be there for me, always. Once we passed the four-month mark, that is.

I’m happiest to say that now that she’s had Seven, she still turns to me. I was a tad bit worried she might push me away in this effort to be independent and do it all on her own. I know she’s glad to have her dad, too. Ryke and I have flocked to her side while we’re in Vegas, and he’s cursed out about twenty cameramen who got too close.

He’s been forming deeper connections with both Akara and Banks, but I don’t think anything has bonded the three of them more than protecting Sulli and Seven from the media and paparazzi. I joke that Ryke is Seven’s bodyguard, and Akara said I’m not far off at this point.

It kind of reminds me of the time when Lily’s sex addiction first leaked, and Ryke and I were spending more time together. How my dad was okay with this older guy being around me because he saw Jonathan Hale’s son as my pseudo-bodyguard.

Grief tries to heavy my lungs as I picture my dad when I was eighteen. I’ve been thinking a lot more about him lately. I guess death does that, and it’s hard not to wish it’d been my mom and not him first. Guilt nestles snuggly alongside my grief because I don’t want to harbor any ill will towards anyone. Not even her.

Anyway, Ryke and I kept close to Sulli and her bodyguard hubbies when we went from the event arena back up to our suite. Loud, chaotic crowds can still unsettle me at times, and thankfully I brought Goldilocks, my service dog, with us. I don’t think I took a deep breath until we shut the door.

Akara, Sulli, Banks, and their baby aren’t staying in the penthouse suite. They have their own room on the same floor as Maximoff, Farrow, Jane, and Thatcher. But earlier, we all played basketball for an hour in the indoor court.

Meadows vs. Meadows

Banks and Sulli were on one team against me and Ryke. Akara sat out to feed Seven a bottle.

I still remember Akara watching Banks hold their son in the hospital, and how Akara had whispered to me, “He’s a natural with babies.”

It’s true that when Banks cradles Seven, it’s as though he’s held a thousand babies before. He’d grown up surrounded by more younger cousins than Akara. So he literally had held more babies than him, but it didn’t take long for Akara to learn and adapt.

Though, I think there is something extra special about how much Akara loves when Banks cares for Seven. The baby might look like Akara, but it’s been so utterly clear from the first day Seven entered this world that he has two fathers.

Sulli kissed her baby before peeling away from Akara’s side, then she joined us on the court.

I’m not that competitive and mostly tried to dribble between my daughter’s legs. She stole the ball with ease. “Sorry, Mom!”

I grinned at Ryke. “Oops.”

He rolled his eyes, a shadow of a smile forming while he ran backward, just to look at me a bit longer, then spun around to try and steal the ball from his towering son-in-law. I’ve never thought Ryke was remotely short until he stood beside the six-seven Marine vet. Sulli had already passed the ball to Banks.

Ryke failed to recapture the ball, but he was stalling Banks from reaching the hoop.

“Go around Ryke!” Akara shouted from the sidelines, cheering on Banks. “Shoot now. Shoot now!”

Banks tried to take a three-pointer, and Ryke slapped it out of the air, even with Banks’ height advantage.

“Ughhh fuck,” Sulli cursed.

Banks let out a deep rumble of laughter at her, not even paying much attention to Ryke or the ball. His competitive spirit is more on par with mine, but he was trying for Sulli.

Akara groaned, “Run! Run, Banks! Get the ball!”

Okay, cheering on Banks might’ve been the wrong word. More like coaching. Their close relationship together has been as endearing to witness as the one with my daughter. I never thought she’d be in a poly relationship. It’s just not anything that was on my radar.

But on a soulful level, this feels so right for her. She has double the love, double the romance, double the affection. It’s wild and epic, and when they’re all together, they look so very free. Like nothing in this terrible, beautiful world could ever harm them.

Sulli dribbled the ball across the middle of the court.

There had been absolutely zero chance I could have played basketball post-partum like she was now. Giving birth to her nearly killed me, but Seven's birth went so smoothly. No complications, no tragedies.

It’s so much of what I hoped for my daughter. She’s also in peak physical condition, so it makes total sense how she’d bounce back and recover so quickly. Aaaaand she’s also incredibly stubborn. I’m not sure she’d stop even if she did feel horrible.  

Banks slowed his stride, glancing over at the sideline. “You wanna get your ass out here, Nine?” he yelled lightly. “Or are you just gonna worry about mine?”

Akara grinned. “Turn around. Our wife has the ball.”

I barely tried to block Sulli who dribbled around me.  

Banks ran into her back, just to lift her up. She squealed and burst into laughter when he held her close to the hoop for a dunk.

I even caught Ryke smiling at them.

With that new score update, I took the opportunity to check out of the game. “I’ll switch with you,” I told my son-in-law.

“You sure, Daisy?” Akara asked.

“Positively positive.” I made spirit fingers at the cutest newborn alive. “Gimme gimme.” Akara set the swaddled baby in my arms. We exchange a heartfelt smile, knowing how precious this little one was, then he jogged onto the court to be with the loves of his life.

I tilted the bottle to Seven’s little lips, and he eagerly sucked the milk. 

Akara faked out Sulli by passing Ryke the ball instead of taking a shot.

“Kits!” Sulli slugged Akara’s arm.

He laughed and swatted her hair in her face. I’d always thought they would’ve been cute together, but that was a secret I’d never told Ryke until they actually got together.

My heart filled watching the four of them play with zero tension, no animosity between them. They were soaring across the court, all the weight gone, every shackle unlocked.

For Ryke, it’d taken longer than he ever wanted for himself. He’d hated being his own worst enemy.

My smile slowly faded as I looked around the cavernous indoor court. The walls were blinding white and the wooden floors squeaked from sneakers.

I knew we were missing a Meadows.

Winona is hanging out with the other girls. She’s fine, Daisy. I kept telling myself. I’ve been telling myself that all night, but she’s been having a hard year at school.

Ever since Ben graduated and went to college, she’s withdrawn a little more into herself. My loud, outspoken daughter has become quieter when I ask her what’s wrong. Or she’ll try to make light of the situation to keep me from worrying.

I know that trick well.

She spends nearly all her time in the woods when she’s at home. I think she talks to Vada the most of her friends. They’re closer in age than they are with Kinney and Audrey. 

 At the hot tub now, I spin the basketball on my finger, tuning out my sisters and Willow until I focus back on their conversation.

“He’s married to a doctor,” Rose emphasized. “He is the last one I’m worried about right now.” They must be talking about Maximoff.

“His eye did look awful,” Willow notes, wiping her glasses again.

“It broke my heart,” Lily says like a tragedy occurred tonight. “Moffy doesn’t take painkillers, Rose. His face probably feels like he was punched.”

“He was punched,” Rose notes.

“Yeah, well, I know what that feels like!” Lily shouts, her voice spiking abnormally. Then she shrinks into the water, nearly dunking underneath.

I jump back into the water with the basketball beneath my armpit, and I pull my sister up. “No turtling.”

Lily peels wet strands of hair off her cheeks and keeps her head above the water.

Rose looks remorseful.

“Can I say it?” Willow mutters under her breath. “I’m just gonna say it…I’ll say it.” She swallows hard and says more loudly, “I think this Fight Night might’ve been a bad concept for a charity event. After, you know, what happened.”

“I agree,” Rose concurs.

Willow jerks in shock. I smile more, especially as my best friend silently beams to herself like she just got approved by Athena. After all these years, Willow still looks up to Rose in a way, and to a certain degree, I think we all do.

The door suddenly opens, and I wolf-whistle at my broody husband. It isn’t pulling even a fraction of a smile. He shakes his head at me.

Oh no. Behind him, Connor, Lo, and Garrison spill out, and they’re all wearing severity and aggravation in different measures. I pull myself onto the ledge of the hot tub, dripping wet, while Lo decrees, “The girls snuck out again.”

Wowza. I sigh.

We all thought they might take the chance, even if they’re rooming in the penthouse suite with all of us. The suite is so humongous that they could easily sneak by and dip into the hotel hallway without us noticing.

I’m not near my phone, so I can’t check to see if Akara has any info on their whereabouts, but Connor already says, “Their bodyguards are keeping us up to date. They’re at a club downstairs.”

“A club?” Lily is wide-eyed at Lo.

“An eighteen-up club, love,” he clarifies.

“Apparently a lot of the bodyguards are already fucking there,” Ryke adds, which eases me a ton.

“Not that you’ll take good advice, but you should be careful where you insert fucking,” Connor tells him. “It sounds like they’re all fornicating in the club.”

Ryke growls out his irritation.

“Which bodyguards?” Rose is speed-texting while stepping out of the hot tub.

Connor grabs her towel. “Oscar, Donnelly, Price, Thatcher—”

“Thatcher?” Rose says hopefully.

“Playing favorites, Cruella,” Lo says, dropping into the hot tub next to Lily. He pulls her onto his lap.

“Like you don’t,” she retorts. Connor wraps the towel around her body. She pauses texting briefly just to glare up at him. The air thrums with this silent, fiery exchange between them. I’m pretty sure it’s textbook eye-fucking, but Lily swoons like it’s a rare eclipse.

My smile hurts my face, despite the ensuing drama. But this feels like fun drama. If I were Winona’s age, I’d want to sneak out with my sisters, too.

To know she has such close, trusting, and loving friendships is one of the best gifts the universe could bestow her. It’s everything I never had at sixteen but always wanted. And this might be exactly what she needs, a night out with her friends to take her mind off school.

“They’re in the hotel though?” Willow asks.

“Yeah,” Garrison says sharply, sitting on the pavement behind her. He rolls up his pants to his knees and dips his tattooed legs in on either side of her. She rests her cheek against his knee, and he tucks pieces of her hair behind her ear.

The quiet love and comfort they give each other is the sweetest thing to witness.

I pick myself off the ledge of the hot tub and dribble my wet basketball closer to Ryke. He stands with crossed arms, a face full of danger. It only beckons me closer. “Are we checking on them?” I ask him.

“Not fucking yet.” He watches me dribble around him.

“Not unless they leave the hotel,” Connor chimes in.

Garrison shakes his head profusely, and he snaps an anxious look back at the door. “This has to be the dumbest thing you’ve all agreed to in a while.”

“We’ve,” Connor corrects him, sinking down on a cushioned chair beside Rose. “You’ve agreed to this too.”

“Under duress.”

“Blame peer-pressure,” Connor states like it’s a lame excuse. “You had enough of a backbone to tell an investor off about a marketing strategy for Abbey Games, but you don’t have one when it comes to your daughter?”

Whoa.

Oxygen suctions out of the room. The only sound heard is the single bounce of my basketball, and I hold it in my arms as tension gnaws the air.

“Fuck off, Cobalt,” Ryke growls, instantly defending Garrison.

Lo is slicing a debilitating glare at Connor. “What the fuck was that for?”

Garrison laughs into a painful wince. “You think I haven’t thought about storming the club alone and dragging Vada out of there? How the hell do you think she would react to that, Connor? I’d be singling her out because Winona, Kinney, and Audrey get to stay. I can’t fucking do that. So it’s either we all do this together or not at all, and you’re clearly choosing not at all. So yeah, under duress I am agreeing, and I get to say it’s a dumb fucking decision because they’re sixteen and seventeen and in Vegas.”

“With bodyguards,” Rose adds, her eyes pinging back to Connor. His face is unreadable to me, except for the slight crinkle of his brow.

“Vada doesn’t have a bodyguard!” Garrison shouts, pissed off.

“Maybe you should get her one,” Lo says, his concern sweeping over Garrison.

Ryke nods. “You’ll feel fucking better.”

“We’ve just wanted her to have a normal life,” Willow says quietly to her brothers. “As normal as she could have, at least.”

“She’s not normal, Willow,” Lo professes. “She’s getting more famous being friends with Winona, especially as Nona gets older.”

Ryke goes rigid beside me. He scrapes a rough hand through his thick brown hair. We both haven’t enjoyed the publicity surrounding Winona and her appearance. She looks just like her mom! Will she model too? Winona Meadows—the next generation’s sex symbol! It’s reminiscent of what I went through, and when Sulli escaped all of that, I was hopeful she would, too.

“Or we could all go down there,” Garrison shrugs tensely. “We could hang out at the club.”

Lily frowns. “They might go to another club to get away from us.”

“We don’t want them to leave the hotel,” Lo adds, his frown deepening at Garrison. “As the number one helicopter parent, why are you trying to take that title away from me?”

“I don’t like it here. I don’t like Vegas. It’s full of drugs and sex, and Vada is rebelling hard-core this year, man.”

“You think this is easy for me?” Lo touches his chest. Heavy silence strains the air.

As much as we all thought about enforcing more rules to protect the girls after Luna’s kidnapping, we didn’t want them to be afraid to leave the house or foster terrible anxieties.

We’ve been nervous at times, but that doesn’t mean they need to be.

Ryke rakes a hand across his hard jaw. “It’ll only be a couple fucking hours. If they’re not back by then, we’re going down there. We can give them that.”

“They’re not alone,” Rose emphasizes this point. “We have so many eyes and ears down there watching Vada, too.”

I bounce the basketball to cut into some of the tension. “Sounds like a good plan to me.”

Willow looks up at her husband. “Maybe Vada will rebel more if we keep hovering,” she contemplates. “What if this is the right thing?”

Garrison buries his face in his palms, groans, then smears them down his jaw, until they rest on Willow’s shoulders, holding her closer to him.

“I’m sorry,” Connor says genuinely. The depth in his voice causes all of us to look at him, but he’s only staring at Garrison. For a moment, I think his mood has to do with Charlie and the Fizzle CEO race, but then he says, “Something is going on with Ben. It’s been bothering me all night.”

Rose is tense, but she has an empathetic expression like they’ve discussed this already.

“What do you mean?” Garrison asks. “Is he okay?”

“He won’t say. He’s being purposefully vague.” Connor’s jaw muscle tics.

“I could try talking to him tomorrow,” Ryke offers, since he has a close relationship with Ben.

“You might have to,” Connor says, before whispering to Rose in French. They converse privately together, and I take the moment to smile up at Ryke.

He’s a great uncle, but that was never in question. Ryke has always been a great brother, a great husband, a great father, a great person. Being a great uncle just comes naturally, too.

I spin the basketball on my finger near his broody face.

“Calloway,” he warns.

“What are you gonna do,” I whisper with a rising grin. “Bite me?”

I shriek into bright laughter when he catches me around the waist and lifts me on his muscular shoulder like a sack of potatoes. I am a potato princess! I try to crawl down his back, but Ryke has other plans for me.

He carries me to the door, and I wave an upside-down goodbye to my sisters and brothers-in-law, and yes, I’m including Willow in that. She might be my best friend, but she will forever and always be a sister to me, too. Even before she technically became my sister-in-law. “Later alligators!”

“In a while crocodile,” Willow calls back.

Ryke carries me all the way to our bedroom, and when he tosses me on the king-sized bed, my heart pumps a little faster, a little harder, a little livelier. The darkness swirling in his eyes is a stroke of danger and love. My favorite combo, made of years upon wild years together. In the loud and the peaceful silence. The restless and the quiet.

“He’s come to jump my bones,” I tease. “Can the wild animal capture his feral mate? Tune in on this episode of—”

“Me fucking your brains out,” he finishes, dragging my ankle to the edge of the bed and ripping my bikini off of me.

“Fuck,” I moan out. “Yes.” 

It's a very special month because we're not only back with a bonus scene from Nobody Like Us, but Daisy's POV is finally gracing Patreon in all its splendid glory. We love getting back inside her head and showing a little more of her feelings on everything that's been going on. This night in particular is a big turning point, and it's not the end. You'll be seeing more of this night with the Meadows fam in Part 2 💛

xoxo Krista & Becca

  “Fight Night (Daisy Calloway)," Copyright © 2025 by K.B. Ritchie