Extra Bonus #77: The Night of the Donnellys: The Before (Ryke Meadows) (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 "The Wave" by Miike Snow while writing this bonus scene.

SPOILER WARNING: This bonus takes place during UNLUCKY LIKE US and will contain MAJOR spoilers from the book and will ruin your reading experience if you have not read Unlucky first.

I’M WASHING DISHES after tonight’s dinner: grilled veggie burgers and sweet potato fries. But the mountain of bowls and plates are also from lunch and breakfast. I’m wrist-deep in soapy water and scrubbing silverware. If I had to choose this fucking mountain to climb or an actual crag, I’d choose the real rock.

I almost smile imagining Daisy blowing soap suds at me, me splashing her back, and the chore turning into a playful mess. It’s happened before, but she’s not behind me right now. I’ve always been okay with the peaceful quiet, but sharing it with her is ten thousand fucking times better than standing in it alone.

Always has been.

As I place a plate into the dishwasher, a fist raps the front door.

I look up.

Everyone I trust has a key, but most still knock anyway. Except Rose and Connor. They would barge their fucking asses straight into my house like they own the place. They do the same thing to Lo and Lily, so it’s not like they’re singling me out. And yeah, I've also been known not to knock. But since the door isn't flying open, I rule them out. 

“Who is it?!” I call out.

I barely hear the response, but I catch enough of it to wipe my hands on the dish rag and stride over to the front door.

As soon as I open it, I catch her pushing black-framed glasses up the bridge of her nose. Her brown hair is in a loose, messy braid, and she balls the sleeves of her mossy green sweater in her fists.

“Hey,” Willow greets with the timid lift of her hand.

I frown, not expecting my sister to drop by tonight, but it’s not that fucking unusual. Outside of us sharing the same father (different mothers), she’s my wife’s best friend.

“You alright?” I ask.

She’s barely making eye contact, then gives me a sheepish look.

What the fuck.

I scrape a hand through my thick hair. I like to think I have a closer relationship with my sister than when we first started. Years have passed. We’re way beyond the awkward fucking stage where I intimidated her.

How she’s avoiding my gaze now is giving me flashbacks to a time with her that I don’t like revisiting.

“I should’ve…called or texted,” Willow mutters under her breath. “I was going to, but I didn’t want you to ask questions over the phone. I thought it’d be better as an in-person thing and I’d chicken out on seeing you if we just texted.”

Why would she chicken out? My brows knot, more confused. “You never have to fucking call beforehand,” I remind her. “You can always just show up…” I trail off, seeing how she casts a quick glance behind her.

Her car is parked at the curb of the cul-de-sac, and I spot Garrison behind the wheel. He’s turned towards his teenage daughter in the backseat.

Vada has her arms crossed and is speaking a mile a minute.

Fuck.

“Is this about the girls?” I ask, since our daughters are best friends.

“Is, um, Daisy around?” Willow says, peering behind me like Daisy might pop out from the couch and say boo.

It is something she’d do.

Daisy’s the easier one to speak to, and that’s a fact that I wouldn’t contest. A year ago, how I reacted towards my firstborn daughter dating two bodyguards at the same time versus how Daisy handled the situation was night and day.

But that’s what we’ve always been.

The dark and the sun.

“She’s walking Goldi,” I tell Willow. “She should be back in a few minutes.” I swing the door wider, and Willow follows me into the living room. “You want anything to drink?”

She shakes her head, declining and sitting stiffly on the window nook. She glances outside again.

I force my ass onto the couch, my muscles flexed and body hot. “Did something fucking happen?” I ask her.

She nudges her glasses, her eyes downcast to her lap. “It’s sort of complicated…I think maybe we should wait for Daisy.”

“You can’t talk to me?” I question, trying not to be too hurt, but she must hear it in my voice.

Willow is really quiet, processing how to respond.

I rub my hand over my furrowed brows. “Have I been that big of an asshole lately to where you’re afraid to fucking talk alone with me? If I have been, I’m sorry—”

“You haven’t been,” Willow says softly, neck flushed. “I just don’t think we’ve ever dealt with this before…” She intakes a breath, then mutters to herself, “Come on, Willow.” Gradually, she raises her gaze to mine. “You are…very hard to confront, Ryke.”

“I’ve been told,” I say tensely, still on guard—which is why she shies from the intensity or darkness of my eyes again. It’s hard to change when I don’t know what the fuck is going on. “I would never come at you, Willow.”

In my eyes, my relationship with my sister is more or less gentle. I’m rougher, harsher with Lily, who’s closer to my age. Still, I know I’m unapologetically myself with everyone, including Willow, and I can be too blunt. So maybe that’s what she’s scared of—me being coarse and frank.

“I know you wouldn’t,” Willow mutters, balling more of her sleeves in her hands. “I’m not that excited to have this conversation, I guess. I don’t want you to feel like I’m critiquing your job as a father.” She says that part almost bashfully, and I scratch the back of my head, a pit dropping in my stomach.

“What’d Nona do?” I ask her.

Willow winces.

“Willow, fucking please,” I push harder. “This is fucking torturing me.”

She peers back at the window, then to me. “Garrison and I were on some fandom sites on Reddit and Fanaticon, and I stumbled on a pop culture forum where they were posting pictures of the girls.”

I tense more.

“Someone uploaded a video of Vada riding Winona’s motorcycle. I know you let Winona have one, but Garrison and I agreed it’s too dangerous for our daughter. She doesn’t even have a motorcycle license like Nona.”

I shake my head, pissed and disappointed. “Winona knows better.”

“I can show you the video,” she says, as though thinking I need evidence.

“I believe you,” I tell her but take her phone anyway to watch the footage. It’s grainy, but clear enough that I spot Winona and Vada in the parking lot of a Target. Vada takes Winona’s teal helmet and mounts the white motorcycle. Then she zips off down the street while Winona goes shopping.

Greer, her bodyguard, leads the way.

He didn’t say a thing to me about this fucking exchange. Then again, he’s only supposed to protect my daughter. Not Vada. She’s none of the bodyguards’ responsibility, and I guess they don’t fucking care if she’s breaking the law.

“Where’d Vada ride to?” I ask Willow.

“I don’t know. She’s being kind of cagey.”

I replay the video.

They’re sixteen. I feel this more and more as shit like this happens. They want their privacy—not just from the media but from us. Their parents.

Winona might be my second kid, but she’s so different from my firstborn that every step raising her feels new.

Sulli never had a rebellious phase as a teenager. Fuck, she told us everything up until…up until she started dating Akara and Banks. She felt like she couldn’t tell me about them, and I don’t blame her.

Willow explains, “I really don’t want Winona to keep letting Vada ride her motorcycle. It’s dangerous. There’s a reason some doctors call them donorcycles. No offense.” Her voice spikes.

“I’m not offended,” I tell her, handing the phone back. “And trust me, she’s going to get fucking grounded for this. We told her specifically not to let any of her friends ride the motorcycle with her or alone. It’s been a privilege that’s going to get taken away.”

“Forever?” Willow asks hopefully.

I hesitate.

“A couple years?” she asks.

“I don’t know. I have to talk to Daisy.”

Willow looks away again, frowning. “Why is it so important Winona has a motorcycle?”

“I can’t treat her differently than I did Sulli, and we gave Sul a motorcycle after she got her license too.” It’s more than that.

“But Sulli was always careful. Winona is…” Her voice tapers off.

“Winona is like Daisy, I know,” I tell my sister. She can be reckless and fearless, and it scares the shit out of me sometimes—especially knowing I can’t always be beside my daughter. With Daisy, I could be—I can be. She’s my soul, my sun, the light of my fucking world.

Winona is growing up, and the last thing she wants is her dad tagging along everywhere. She has friends her own age and paths she wants to carve without her parents.

“You’re not nervous with Nona riding that thing?” Willow asks.

“Sometimes, I am,” I say, “but I can’t let my fears take anything away from my girls.”

Willow seems a little hurt. “It’s not an unfounded fear though. We’re not taking something from Vada. We’re just keeping her safe…and it’s getting harder when she sees her cousin allowed to do something she’s begged us to let her do.”

“I get that,” I say.

Willow looks at me like I’m a brick wall, unable to crumble, and I’m trying not to be a stubborn ass here. I really am doing my best to look at this from her side, but there’s so many more reasons why I feel like I can’t fucking forbid Winona from doing this.

I rub my hardened jaw. “Remember when I gave Moffy his bike on his sixteenth?” By bike, she knows I mean motorcycle.

She nods. “Yeah…he also flew over the handlebars.”

I nod too. “He ate the pavement pretty hard. Multiple fucking times. He kept crashing the thing. He wasn’t careful, and still, he had the motorcycle. He lost it for a few weeks, then got it back, then crashed it again. Until he was eighteen and Lily and Lo couldn’t tell him what to do.”

Willow frowns. “But Moffy isn’t your kid. Lo is the one who grounded him.”

“Lo set a fucking precedent, Willow, and it doesn’t feel right to treat my daughters differently because they’re girls.”

“It’s not because Winona is a girl.”

“You think she’ll feel the same way?” I ask her.

Willow lets out a soft sigh, glancing out the window. “They’re walking up the driveway.” She wipes a smudge on her glasses. “I just feel like you’re prioritizing the wrong things. Sure, she might resent the fact that Moffy was treated differently, but what’s more important? That resentment or Vada’s life? Winona’s life?”

It wedges something sharp in my chest. “Of course I care about their fucking lives, but I just don’t see a motorcycle as a life-ender, Willow. We all take risks every fucking day, and for me, for Daisy—that is living.”

Willow doesn’t have much time to consider this. The door whips open, and Vada and Garrison stroll inside mid-argument.

“It is a violation of my privacy, Dad. You shouldn’t have been snooping—”

“Hey, your mom and I don’t go searching ‘Vada Abbey’ on Reddit, SnapBubble, Fanaticon, Threads—you name it, we don’t do it. This, we just stumbled on, Vada.”

“It’s not fair.” Vada throws her backpack on the floor near the coatrack. “It was posted without our consent. Doesn’t that matter?”

“Not as much as you riding without a license or our permission—”

“Come on!”

“Take it down a notch, Vada,” Garrison reprimands.

Her cheeks heat, then she catches my gaze. “Sorry for yelling…do you know where Winona is?”

“In her room,” I say.

“Thanks, Uncle Ryke.” She sprints up the staircase, leaving her dad in the dust.

Garrison shakes his head over and over, shoving up the sleeves of his black hoodie. Tattoos cover his arm. “This is just great.” He sits beside my sister on the nook, and his gaze softens considerably on her.

“What the fuck is SnapBubble?” I cut in.

“A knockoff Snapchat,” Garrison answers. “It’s more popular than Twitter right now.”

“And Tumblr?”

“Tumblr is practically dead.”

Is he fucking with me? “For real?”

Garrison looks at me like I’m old and sad. “Jeez, you really live under an internet rock, grandpa.”

I roll my eyes. “You know I’ve never kept up with that shit.”

“Yeah, well us keeping up with ‘that shit’ is clearly backfiring.” He slips his hand into Willow’s.

She cups both her hands around his. “It doesn’t matter how we found the video. It doesn’t change the fact that she rode her cousin’s motorcycle.”

“Exactly what I’ve been telling her,” Garrison says in a heavy, frustrated sigh. “Did you tell him about it?”

“Yeah. He knows what’s going on.”

Garrison nods to me. “Cool, we’re on the same page then? Burn the bike.”

“The bike isn’t the fucking problem.”

I catch Willow whispering to Garrison, “Maybe we should wait for Daisy,” as if my opinion doesn’t count.

Fucking fantastic.

“How is the bike not the problem?” Garrison questions. “It’s literally the issue.”

I scrape a hand over my face, feeling like I’m already fucking this up. Now I’m looking at the door, hoping Daisy enters.

After seconds of tense silence, Garrison asks, “What’s with all the dead plants?”

“They’re not dead,” I say.

“The elephant ear in the corner is losing its ears, and that potted thing on the kitchen counter is brown.”

I shrug. “Ben used to water them. I don’t have a fucking green thumb.”

“No kidding.”

Garrison reminds me a little bit of my brother, and if Lo were here, he’d give me shit too.

Mention of Ben Cobalt reminds me that he’s off at college and living in Penn’s dorms. I miss my nephew, but college preoccupying most of his time is normal. Still, Winona doesn’t like talking about how Ben doesn’t come over as much anymore. I think she didn’t believe a lot would change when he graduated high school.

Thankfully the door opens a few seconds later.

“Hey, friends,” Daisy says with a smile, but with a quick look between Willow, Garrision, and me, she has to sense the tension. Her smile slowly fades. She unleashes Goldilocks, but the golden retriever remains patiently at her side, until she says, “Go eat.”

Goldi rushes to her doggie bowl in the kitchen.

Daisy says, “I’m guessing we all haven’t gathered for donuts and coffee.”

“I wish,” Willow mutters.

“I can make some,” Daisy offers. “Coffee, that is. You remember that one time we tried to make homemade donuts and all we could taste was the flour?” She’s talking to Willow.

Willow smiles. “They were so gross.”

“The worst,” she grins back. “I wonder if Krispy Kreme is still open.” She’s about to take out her phone.

“You should see this, sweetheart,” I say, knowing Willow and Garrison want her to be a part of this conversation—and at this point, I’m fucking desperate for her to be.

“See what?”

Willow passes Daisy her phone, and when Dais takes a seat on the couch’s armrest, I pull her to my lap. She falls backwards with a radiant smile, lying on me and lifting the phone up to her face. Though, she’s grinning solely at me, not at the screen.

God, she’s fucking beautiful.

She mouths, my wolf.

Now I’m wishing the Abbeys weren’t here. That our kids weren’t upstairs. That we didn’t have big parental decisions to make. That it’s just me and her, and I could fuck her on this couch. It’s the animal in me, fucking maybe, because I know I’m more grateful the Abbeys exist. Our daughters are alive. That we’re all breathing the same air.

Once Daisy watches the video, a wince replaces her smile. “Winona Briar Meadows,” she says at the screen, then lifts herself to a sitting position, still on my lap. “She knows Vada isn’t allowed to ride a motorcycle. She doesn’t even have a license for one.” Daisy frowns at me with a look like, what are we going to do?

“We have to take her bike away, Dais.”

She nods. “What do you think—for a few weeks?”

“A few weeks?” Garrison cuts in, jaw unhinging. “This shit is going to persist.”

“And next time, they’ll be sneaky about it,” Willow mentions.

Daisy frowns. “Yeah, but we have to give Winona a chance to do right. She screwed up, and if she makes the same mistake again, then we’ll take the bike away indefinitely.” She looks to me.

“That works for me, sweetheart.”

Daisy turns to Willow, who’s just staring at her hand in Garrison’s hand. “Hey, what’s wrong?” she asks my sister gently.

“What happens if the next time, we don’t catch them?” Willow asks her. “What happens if it’s too late and we only find out because Vada wrecks?”

Garrison adds, “Just take the bike away for good.”

We go back-and-forth for fifteen minutes before we come to an agreement together. When we’re done, I call up to them, “Girls! Come downstairs!”

Sleeping bags are chucked down the stairs.

“What the hell,” Garrison mutters.

Then Winona slides down the banister. Vada takes the stairs, and as both girls gather the sleeping bags, they waver at the intensity of my glare, Garrison’s glare, and their moms’ clear disappointment and disapproval.

“Um, I know things are not great,” Winona starts. There is a hundred-percent chance Vada ran upstairs and told Winona about this situation.

“You could fucking say that,” I say and stand to face her.

Daisy kneels on the couch cushion, her arms folded on the frame. “What you did is really serious, Nona.”

“I know that, but…can we go to the Cobalts tonight? Kinney and Audrey are doing a sleepover thing, and…Dad, I know what I did was wrong. You don’t have to look at me like that.” Her voice sounds small, way smaller than usual for Nona, and honestly, it’s fucking killing me.

Still, I stand my ground. “Imagine if you let Vada ride your motorcycle and she got in an accident and died—”

“She didn’t—”

“She could have,” Daisy chimes in. “She could’ve been injured. She could’ve been pulled over by a cop. She doesn’t have a motorcycle license.”

“Maybe she should get one,” Winona says like this is up for discussion. Her nervous eyes flit to Vada’s parents. “She’s a BMX racer. She’s even done motocross. She was practically born on a motorcycle.”

“She was born in a hospital,” Garrison cuts in.

Vada groans. “Dad.”

“We’ve exhausted this conversation, Vada,” Garrison says. “Riding on a racetrack and riding on a highway are two different things.”

“Yeah, a highway is safer,” she contends.

I shake my head.

Vada gapes at me. “You too?”

“Dad,” Winona pleads. “Mom.”

Daisy says, “It’s her parents’ decision, and we respect it. Just like you need to respect our rules.”

Winona winces. “I do, but you know, I have a greater chance of wrecking than Vada.”

“That’s not fucking true,” I tell her. “It has nothing to do with skill. Accidents like that can be random. You should know that.” She was in one. The car accident was one of the worst events we’ve all been through. Ben had been behind the wheel, and he still struggles to drive.

“Then why let me ride a motorcycle?” Winona asks.

“You’re not,” I say and extend my palm. “Hand over your fucking keys.”

“No, it’s my fault,” Vada says quickly. “She just did what I asked.”

“She broke our rules,” Daisy reminds her.

Vada’s face plummets.

“Fine,” Winona tells me, then digs in her pocket. She comes closer to place the keys in my hand. “When do I get it back?”

“It could be a while.”

Winona frowns. “Like forever?”

Daisy answers, “From now on, you’ll only be able to ride when you’re with us. Otherwise, the keys are ours.”

Her mouth drops. “I haven’t done anything worse than what Moffy did.”

“No, this is fucking worse,” I tell her what Daisy had told me during our talk. “You put Vada’s life in jeopardy.”

Tears build in Nona’s eyes, and I ignore the pang in my heart. Her chin trembles. “I wouldn’t hurt her. She’s my best friend.”

“You didn’t,” Vada whispers to her. “I was fine.”

Winona rubs at her wet cheeks, then says to me, “You wouldn’t have given Sulli this harsh of a punishment. You would’ve given the keys back after like a month and then trusted her.” It’s probably what she thought we’d do.

“Should we trust you?” I ask her.

Winona wavers, not wanting to lie. She knows she’s not as forthcoming with us as Sulli had been at her age.

Vada hugs the sleeping bag in a loose grip. “Eliot drove a golf cart into the pool when he was sixteen, and he still has car keys.”

“Apples and oranges, Vada,” Garrison tells her. “He’s also not my kid.”

“It just feels like the guys consistently get away with more than us,” Vada says.

“It’s not because you’re girls,” Daisy interjects.

“It’s because we’re the youngest, isn’t it?” Winona asks.

I tell them, “Your rap sheets together, the four of you, are getting fucking longer.” Vada and Winona exchange a solemn look, then Winona shrugs to her.

Vada shakes her head, downtrodden. “You don’t even realize all that we deal with at school.” She didn’t mean for us to hear that. Her eyes widen, cheeks reddening.

I shift my weight.

“What’s happening at school?” Garrison asks.

Willow stiffens. “Is everything okay?”

“It’s high school,” Vada says vaguely, adjusting the sleeping bag in her arms.

Winona is looking at the ceiling, avoiding.

“Nona?” Daisy asks.

She shares another look with Vada, and after tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, she confesses, “It’s just the T-bags. They broke into our lockers and taped some stuff to the inside of the doors.”

“They’re still harassing you?” I charge for the door. To track down their fucking parents. To call Dalton Academy—I already dig out my phone.

“Wait!” Winona shouts, stopping me in my tracks. “We’re handling it. You’ll just make it worse.”

I don’t see how.

Willow asks them, “What’d they tape up in your lockers?”

“Bathing suit pics,” Vada mutters. “Of me and Nona from this summer—the ones that were in tabloids.”

Garrison stands up now. “I’m calling the school.”

Vada doesn’t stop him as he leaves for the kitchen.

I run a hand across my jaw.

They’re sixteen.

I glance at my wife, her gaze faraway. One of Daisy’s greatest fears is the media sexualizing our daughters like they did her, and they jumped over Sulli, mostly posting about her Olympic pursuits and swimming accomplishments.

They haven’t sparred Winona. Even underage. We’ve had to slap so many fucking lawsuits at these trash magazines.

I didn’t think Vada would make this many tabloid pages, but where Winona is, Vada has been going instead of Ben. They’ve been more attached at the hip this year.

“We’re dealing with it,” Winona says to everyone.

“You shouldn’t have to deal with it, sweetie, that’s the fucking point.”

Vada and Winona smile for some reason, and I have no clue why until I catch Vada whispering to Winona, “Our dads aren’t so bad.”

“Forces of good,” Winona says back.

Daisy smiles over at me before taking Garrison’s seat to be closer to Willow. They talk quietly with one another, and just as Garrison returns, saying he didn’t get ahold of anyone, my phone buzzes in my fist.

“I can call tomorrow,” Daisy offers.

Winona rocks uneasily on her feet. “Then you should know a girl told me she overheard the new principal saying he has the hots for you.”

I glare. Daisy’s modeling days are long gone, but she’s still a sex symbol in the media. Plenty of people have the hots for my wife, but I’m not loving the fact that one of them is our daughter’s principal.

“Down boy,” Daisy jokes to me.

I feel rabid. Like I could sick myself on every fucking perv in the world right now and rip at their jugulars. “I’m not up, Calloway.”

I keep forgetting Winona and Vada are old enough to catch these innuendos, but it’s also just hard for me to censor myself.

As I glance down and read the text, the air is knocked out of me.

Lily & Luna are in trouble. They’ve been attacked. I’m with Lo on the way there. I’m dropping a pin of the location. Hurry. – Paul Donnelly

I waste no time asking questions or even contemplating anything other than, go, go, go find Lily. Go find your niece. Go be with your brother. I sprint into the garage like my feet are on fire.

“Ryke?!” Daisy calls out and runs after me.

Motorcycle keys are already in my palm, so I don’t spend more time hunting for mine. I’m taking Winona’s Ducati. I zip up my leather jacket.

“Ryke, what’s going on?” Dais is in the garage, barefoot and alarmed. Willow and Garrison are in the doorway with our daughters behind them.

While the garage door lifts, I speak under my breath to my wife, “It’s Lily and Luna. Call Rose and security.”

Daisy pales. Lily is her sister. Luna is her niece. This hits close to home for everyone, for all of us, and it feels like shrapnel whizzing in every direction. “Are they okay?” she asks.

“No.” I mount the bike, kick the kickstand.

She hands me my helmet.

I hear the rain patter the asphalt outside. Last thing I say is, “I love you, Calloway.” I wish I could wait to hear what she says back, but I don’t. Helmet on, I’m gone.

Thanks so much for reading this month's extra bonus! As you can tell this is "the before" so you will be getting "the during" of this night in Ryke's POV next month. We went into a writing spree once we got started, and it was really fun to fill in some blanks about the girl squad and the Abbeys during this time. Plus parenting moments are some of our favs!

This concludes all your August content. But next month will be jam packed with Addicted POVs. Along with Ryke's POV, you'll be getting Rose's POV during the Misfits Like Us timeline! So keep on the lookout :D

xoxo Krista & Becca

"The Night of the Donnellys: The Before (Ryke Meadows)," Copyright © 2023 by K.B. Ritchie