“I’ve already called Mom,” he says. “She offered to get him to school, and I’m off tomorrow, remember?”
I give my brother a soft smile, grateful he’s here. Truth be told, I don’t want to be alone when my nerves are still on fire and jittery.
Once the house is clear, we head back inside. Drake starts sweeping the tiles coated in red and brown dust footprints, and stares at the picture I place on the entryway table. No doubt he’s looking exactly where I am.
“Think he ever wonders about us?” I whisper.
Drake dumps the dust into a plastic garbage sack. His face is coated in dark scruff, but I still catch the tension in his jaw.
“No.” He speaks with such finality it’s hard to argue. “I don’t think we even cross his mind.”
I turn back to Ryder’s face in the front row of the picture. Dark eyes, chestnut hair, but he’s stiff. I can’t imagine the man in the picture tossing his head back and laughing at made up words to Broadway musicals, or painting toenails with such intense focus his tongue sticks out the side, or reading sexy fantasy romance books even though his face turns red at some of the scenes.
Drake seals off the garbage bag, and tells me he’ll be in the back dumping the bags in the bin outside.
A few flashing lights draws my gaze out the window. Lingering officers talk with a guy next to a black Range Rover. He’s wearing a ball cap, but there is a familiarity about him. Trim, yet meaty where muscles ought to be meaty, dark hair, and sweats that shouldn’t be allowed to be out in public since they’re too perfect for his lower body.
He reminds me of Ryder. The way he’s standing casually but his fingers are flicking by his sides. Ryder always did that.
Wait. I squint. That . . . that guyisRyder.
It’s an out of body experience. Like my consciousness is begging me to stay back, but my feet are moving forward.
Drake is in the backyard, far away since the house is massive, and I’m glad. He doesn’t need to see this. I’m going to the past, and I’m going to let it have a piece of my mind.
“It was a misunderstanding.” His raspy voice sears through my heart. Memories of that rough, rock salt sound against my ear fill my skull to the brim.
What am I doing? What am I going to say? It’s been nearly a decade.
The cop at his side asks him another question. I think I hate the officer because it makes Ryder talk in that voice again. It makes me come to an awkward halt somewhere in the middle of the road.
“Look,” Ryder says. His back is to me, fingers still twitching. “I thought someone was breaking in. Griffin forgets to lock his door all the time. I need to take care of his stupid cat.”
He’s become a solid brick of well-honed muscles beneath a black T-shirt and the kryptonite of womankind—gray sweatpants. He still has the same messy hazelnut hair and same subtle side-to-side sway he does when he’s trying to stand still.
I can’t do this. I cannot do this.
New tears burn my eyes as I whip around, desperate to look anywhere but at Ryder Huntington. Not tears of sadness. Not stress tears. These are hot from loss. From unforgettable feelings of being abandoned and tossed aside.
My fists clench until the curves of my fingernails carve half-moons into the meat of my palms.
This vitriol is a shield. Without it, I’d be looking at Ryder with longing and regret and a thousand questions of why. Why did he do the things he did? Why did he ghost me so many years ago? Why did he turn on my brother and break his heart?
“Ava?”
My quick sprint back to safety comes to a halt. Emotion stings behind my eyes, but I refuse to reveal even a glimmer of tears as I turn around. I will not break into hacking sobs, and I hate that my resolve is partly for his sake. Ryder hated when I cried, not because they were loud or annoying, but he always told me when I cried it felt like his chest was splitting in two.
I don’t want to see him with the panicked look of helplessness, or worse—what if he stopped caring to the point my tears would leave him utterly indifferent?
I lift my chin, hugging my middle like a shield against whatever is about to happen.
Ryder’s eyes widen when he takes me in from leggings, to oversized sweater, to the knot of scattered blonde hair on my head.
“This is the designer we mentioned,” the officer says.
Ryder’s face pales. Good. He deserves it. He deserves all the bad karma, all the things. He deserves to . . .
Ugh, my heart is a traitor. Here I am, desperate to spew my disdain, my resentment, and the more those rich, dark eyes soften as he looks at me, the more I want to fling my stupid arms around his neck and hold him close.
