Page 71 of No Good Fight

My stomach dips.

Reva and her murder garden immediately become less important.

“Today,” I repeat.

“If you can,” Ryder says.

“If you were anyone else, I’d think that you’re trying to get me to do what you want by being nice and amenable. But I know that you’re letting me do this on my time, at my pace. So…I appreciate you.”

He comes back into the living room but stops on the other side of the coffee table. The monitors glow between us, five little windows of all the reasons I’m not at my own apartment with my own coffee and my own sad, lumpy couch.

“He means today would help,” Ryder says. “He also means you get to decide how and when you talk about what happened to you.”

I look down at the book in my lap, at my thumb denting the cover near Reva’s name. “You practice that speech before your run?”

“No.”

“Liar.”

“Maybe in the shower before bed last night but not this morning before the run.”

“That’s better. Hydrated emotional growth.”

His breath leaves in a quiet laugh, but he watches me too carefully after it. “I can go with you.”

I don’t want to tell him I’m afraid, so I lie. “I have work.”

“I know.” Damn him for caring.

“And you have to go to the fire department for your shift.”

“I know that too.”

God he is so infuriatingly there when I need him.

I set the book on the couch beside me and stand before the conversation can get heavier. My coffee mug gets picked back up because it gives me something to do that doesn’t involve touching Ryder.

Why did I tell him that I needed space? Oh yeah, I’m a triggered hot mess who doesn’t know how to want him while recovering from abuse.

“I’m going to work,” I tell him. “Then I’ll think about the report this afternoon when I get some shit done.”

Ryder’s jaw shifts, but he nods. “Okay.”

“That was too easy.” I freeze, waiting for more. For the other shoe to drop.

“It wasn’t easy.” He rolls his eyes like we’re back in school. “You make my life extremely difficult, you know this.”

“No.”

“No.” He takes a drink of water, throat working as he swallows. “You really don’t. I’m just not turning it into a fight when we both know you need to get the report filed, so you have an official trail of the shit that Preston is pulling against you.”

I stare at him for a second because that is unfairly attractive and also inconvenient to my emotional stability.

“Please stop improving while I’m mad at you,” I say, walking past him toward the kitchen. “It ruins the mood.”

He follows at a slower pace. “You’re not even actually mad at me, Allycat. You’re frustrated that you have to do something and let people in, and I’m the one you can take it out on. So tell me, what mood am I ruining?”

“The one where I’m right and you’re overbearing.”