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“Yeah, maybe you shouldn’t believe all the gossip you hear because I never had sex with Kiera. I turned her down, but obviously that wasn’t acceptable because she went to my best friend for it.”
When my mouth fell open, he frowned and put his back to me, his hands fisting at his sides before his rigid shoulders wilted. Sagging his head, he moved toward his couch and plopped onto a cushion to cradle his face in his hands.
“You turned her down? But why?”
“I don’t know.” He ripped his hands through his hair yet again. Moments later, he calmed enough to add, “Because I didn’t want her to be my first, I guess.”
“Oh.” My small voice lacked the true feelings swirling around inside me in so many ways, but I couldn’t think of anything else to say. Feeling lame, I sat on his bed, my hands folded in my lap and my hair slipping over my shoulders as I concentrated on his brown and blue-speckled carpet.
Breathing in and then exhaling loudly, Ryder patted his hair back down over his head, probably trying to restore some of the disorder brewing inside him. Once he was calmer, he lifted his face to pin me with an intense look. “Where’s your necklace?” he demanded so unexpectedly I pulled back and blinked.
“My…my what?” I pressed my hand against my chest where a gold chain usually hung around my throat. When I realized I was still wearing Ryder’s coat, I hurried to shrug it off.
Ryder frowned. “Your necklace,” he repeated. “The one your stepdad gave to you for no reason at all. You haven’t worn it since after the night at the bowling alley.”
“I…” I shook my head. How did he know that? How did he know to ask about that, of all things? “I have no idea where it is,” I lied. “It’s not like I wear it all the time.”
Ryder’s face turned dark with anger. “Yes, you do,” he snapped, surging to his feet. “You wore that thing every freaking day until that night. I want to know what’s going on. You show up at my house, freezing to death and crying, looking for Todd. It doesn’t take a genius to see something horrible just happened. So what did he do to you?”
I just stared up at him, stunned. “I…” Shaking my head frantically, I fumbled. “Todd didn’t do anything.”
Ryder stormed over to stand above me, looming close enough I had to look up to see his narrowed eyes. “Not Todd. Your stepfather.”
My mouth fell open.
“What…did…he…do…to you?”
“How did you…” I shook my head for probably, like, the tenth time in the past thirty seconds. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Ryder sighed and spun away to hiss a curse under his breath.
When he calmed himself again, he came back around to eye me warily. “Look. I know something happened, and it has to do with Dr. Struder.”
I just stared at him, the muscles in my face growing tighter and tighter. “You’re wrong,” I whispered just as a quivering tear seeped out of the corner of my eye.
Ryder fisted his hand and brought it to his mouth as he returned the stare. “No, I’m not,” he whispered back.
“Everything’s fine.” I tried one, last feeble attempt to convince him.
He snorted. “You wouldn’t have left your house without a coat if everything was fine. You wouldn’t be here right now if everything was fine. You wouldn’t have accepted my invitation to stay if everything was fine.” With each sentence, his volume inched higher and higher until he was nearly yelling.
I glanced worriedly toward the closed bedroom door, hoping he hadn’t just woken his parents.
With a disgusted sigh, he gave up on me and moved to his dresser. He yanked the second drawer open and barked, “Okay, Fine. Don’t tell me. I have enough problems of my own right now. I don’t want to deal with your messed up life too.”
He grabbed a hold of a shirt and spun around, holding it out to me. I winced, but Ryder just kept holding it, sending me a stony glare. When I realized he had no intention of smacking me with the shirt, I straightened and looked up at him with a questioning squint.
“You want something to sleep in?” he asked. “Or do you want to sleep in that?”
His gaze roved over my body, taking in my soaked wet blouse and ripped-in-the-knees jeans. It definitely wasn’t an outfit I’d ever slept in before. When I didn’t immediately take the wad of clothing from him, he tossed it onto the bed beside me with a grumble under his breath.
“You want me to take you somewhere, I’ll take you somewhere. If you want to leave, you can do that. I don’t care. Just make up your mind.”
He spun away as if he were finished with me. My mouth trembled as he muttered, “If you want to go back home to stepdaddy, then that’s just dandy with me too.”
Panic beat in a fluttery pulse through my neck. “You said I could stay.”
“Then stay,” Ryder hissed. He flopped onto the couch and ripped off his shoes and socks. After he finished savagely removing his footwear, the rage in him seemed to droop. He lowered his head and hugged his ribs as if it were everything he could do to keep his heart and soul from spilling out of his body. Then he ran a hand over his dry face and lifted his eyes to look across the room at me.
