It’s not sexual, but it’s connection and comfort, and he’s taken it away without telling me why.
Now he wants to give it back, and I’m weak to his palm stroking my neglected skin. The stroking is new. I find myself drawn to him, and I could so easily wrap my arms around him and drop my head to his shoulder.
I know he’d hug me back.
“I hate you,” I whisper.
He’s close enough that he hears, and he stops stroking, and squeezes my arm instead. It’s a pulse of contact. His grip is firm, and fuck if I don’t enjoy that hint of frustration ebbing through him to take his touch from gentle to harsh.
Ryker shoots a quick glance back, presumably at Alice, then he leans close to my ear. “Trust me, you’re angry right now, but you’ll thank me tomorrow once you’ve sobered up.”
He waits until I have enough composure to look him in the eye, then he gives me a soft smile, a gentle, all-knowing smile. He’s my best friend again, but more than that, there’s an older brother glow in his eyes like he knows best.
Like we’re family and I should trust him.
I pull away, and before I even know what I’m about to do, I’ve punched him in the face.
It’s a blur.
My knuckles throb.
I hadn’t fully curled my fingers into a fist, and I stare at my hand like it reacted on its own. Alice makes a noise like a stepped-on mouse, and Ryker falls back into the bar, knocking over his bottle of beer.
It clatters to the bar top, drawing more attention than my half punch. Ryker’s eyes widen as he touches his nose. It may not have been delivered with poise or skill, but it was enough for a trickle of blood to run from his right nostril.
He sees blood, and then he sees red.
Ryker snarls as he launches at me, but he doesn’t punch, he grabs my T-shirt and he’s pushing me back while chaos erupts around us.
There are hands on him, and there are hands on me, and they try to pull us apart, but Ryker doesn’t let go of my T-shirt.
“What the fuck is going on in here?”
Everyone freezes at the pure authority in the voice. I close my eyes in a long blink, knowing Liam is standing behind me. The hands attempting to pull me and Ryker apart disappear, but it takes Ryker much longer to release his grip.
Liam’s still waiting for an answer. I can’t see him, but I feel his presence at my back. He’s a wall of fury. A solid mass. I’m hit with a memory of us at school playing football. Liam, always the reliable goalie at my back, and me the loyal defender in front. We weren’t out for personal glory.
We were a team.
Ryker swipes a hand across his nose. “Nothing.”
He winces, knowing it was the worst possible answer to give his brother. I press my lips together despite the burn of Liam’s retinas on the back of my head. He likes to play the silent game, the man of few words, but I’m about to trump him.
“Who hit you?”
His fury comes out as ice.
A shiver works its way up my spine. There’s intent in his words. His brother is hurt and he fully intends to apply reasonable force to subdue the perpetrator.
In Liam’s eyes reasonable force falls somewhere between grievous bodily harm and murder.
Ryker doesn’t respond, and neither does anyone else inside the bar.
Liam is a police officer, he should’ve worked it out from the scene he stepped into, but the silence begins to grate on my nerves, and I can’t stand here forever.
I’ve got a budget hotel to find for the night after all.
I turn to him and the room spins before settling with him at the centre. I’m not drunk, but I am stressed, and angry, and upset. Liam’s still wearing his uniform. His nostrils flare, and the skin twitches at his right temple. His eyes are dark, and theypull at me, demanding I stay staring at him as he takes me apart with his silence.
