“That’s perfectly normal. That’s just all the hormones racing around. Sometimes you can feel a bit crazy, but that will also come right.”
“I think he also thinks of me like I’m a baby still. When I’m not,” she said. “I’m thirteen. I’m not three. And he needs to give me some space too. He’s always crowding me. And sometimes I just want to be alone, you know?”
“I can talk to him, if you like?” I asked.
She looked up at me and started nodding. “Okay. He listens to you.”
“Mmmmm, I wouldn’t say that,” I said.
“Are you kidding? You pushed him out of my room! Trust me, he listens to you. He doesn’t listen to a lot of people.”
“I’ve gathered that,” I said playfully.
“Nah, I guess he’s cool. Sometimes,” she said and started walking again. “He and my mom were really close. They were twins, you know.”
“I didn’t know that,” I said.
“Their dad used to work a lot, he wasn’t around that much, and Gran used to travel a lot too, so when they were kids, they really only had each other—that’s what Mom always said anyway.”
I listened with great interest now, hoping to gain a better understanding of Ryan.
“Grandpa was very strict too. He used to shout at them if they didn’t do well at school and stuff. If they didn’t work hard, they weren’t allowed friends to play. I think that’s why Mom ran away.”
“She did?” I asked.
“Only for a few days. I’m not supposed to know that, but I once heard my gran talking about it. She said my mom was going through her ‘rebellious stage.’ It’s weird, I can’t imagine my mom as a rebel.” Emmy turned and smiled at me.
“Well, when my mom died, I went through a box of old photos and I found this pic of her from when she was seventeen. She had a massive purple Mohawk and a safety pin through her ear. She was a total punk, and if you met her, you would never have guessed it,” I said.
Emmy laughed. “You know, my uncle used to have bleached blond hair and an earring. My mom showed me a picture of him from their prom, he looked so lame.” She laughed.
“Really?” I said conspiratorially. “Well, at least I know something else about him.”
“I’ll tell you something else too, but you’re not allowed to tell, it was a huge scandal.”
At that, I turned around. “Promise.”
“So, you know he was engaged once?” she asked.
“Nooo, really?”
Emmy nodded. “Her name was Sasha. I didn’t really like her. She was a bit weird. She had short red hair and these piercing green eyes. Anyway, she worked with him, and Ryan and my grandpa had a huge fight about it one night. My grandpa said something about ‘crapping where you eat.’ I didn’t really understand it, but he said he was disappointed in Ryan, that he’d given him a company to run and he wasn’t running it the right way, or whatever . . .” Emmy talked and I leaned in. This story intrigued me. “And then, his fiancée like cheated on him with this other guy who also ran the company with him—he’s a cousin of ours, no one talks to him anymore. But then he and Sasha stole a deal from the Stark company and set up their own business together. It was a really big deal and my mom used to say that Ryan wasn’t really the same after that. She broke his heart and betrayed him.”
“Really?” I said. This was interesting. This was very interesting indeed, and it certainly gave me some more insights into Ryan.
CHAPTERFIFTY-EIGHT
Ryan
“So?” He got up off the bench he’d been sitting on for over an hour. “Successful?” he asked, looking down at the packets that Emmy was carrying.
Doris nodded at him. “I think we got what we needed, didn’t we?” She turned and gave a small smile, and Emmy reciprocated.
It was so good to see Emmy smile again. She hadn’t smiled in a while. This was probably what she needed, a female energy in her life, not him all the time. Besides, Doris had this way about her, he was coming to see it. She had this bright and breezy, sometimes silly quality that made him smile. God, she even made him laugh on occasion.
“So, I guess we should all get going then. I still need to take Doris to her car.” He looked over at Emmy, and her smile faltered.
“Can’t we all do something now?” she asked unexpectedly.
