Page 65 of No Good Fight

Wanting is mine. I’ve always wanted her. Since she was my best friend’s little sister with stars in her eyes and her entire future ahead of her.

Choosing has to be hers. I’ve already stayed away for her benefit before.

Now? Now, I want her to pick me because that’s all she wants.

Not because she has no choice.

12

RYDER

My eyes snap open before my body fully catches up, and for half a second I’m already reaching for the side table where I left the—nothing. Not a gun. I didn’t bring one downstairs. I stare at my empty hand, then at the soft gray light creeping around the edges of the curtains, and hear the sound again.

Kitchen.

Alex.

Everything comes rushing back as my brain catches up to what’s going on and why I’m on the couch.

I stand too fast, and my neck complains from the couch. The monitors are still on. The scanner is low. The front porch is empty. The driveway is clear. I take all of that in before I turn toward the kitchen.

Alex stands in front of the open cabinet wearing leggings, one of her oversized sweatshirts, and my jacket pulled around her like she slept in it. Her hair is messy, her face pale without makeup, and there is a crease on one cheek from the pillow. She has a mug in one hand and the expression of a woman who got caught doing something illegal with dishware on her face.

“You own too many mugs,” she says.

My pulse is still trying to return to normal. “That’s not what woke me up.”

“I was being quiet.”

“You shut a cabinet.”

“Quietly.” She raises an eyebrow, begging me to contradict her.

I rub a hand over my face and step into the kitchen, careful to stop at the island instead of moving too close. “You okay?”

She looks away from me and reaches for the coffee pot. “Define okay. I’m over here trying to pick a fight with you over shutting a cabinet, so I’m gonna need a reference.”

“Did you sleep?”

“A little.” She pours coffee into the mug, then glances over her shoulder at me. “Did you?”

I look toward the couch. The blanket I never used is still folded over the back, and the pillow is on the floor where it fell sometime after dawn when I crashed.

Alex follows my gaze.

“Subtle,” she says.

“I slept some.”

“You look like the concept of sleep hurt your feelings so you rejected it and instead took a power nap.”

I can’t hide the smile or the snort that comes with her joke. “That’s close enough to the truth.”

Her mouth twitches, but it doesn’t hold. She takes the creamer from the refrigerator without asking, and watching her move through my kitchen like she belongs there hits me so hard I have to curl my fingers around the island edge.

She notices my hand.

I let go.