AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“If you have to trust, pick someone who’s never let you down.”
~ Meredith Morgan
(played by the award-winning Meredith Wade)
Raising Ryder: Episode224
I shift my feet outside David’s loft in Dallas. Cranked on an adrenaline high, I’m primed for a ten-mile run. What I got was a ten-floor sprint. Ignoring Coley’s plea to not be a huge dick, I pound on the door in total dick mode.
Dressed in Duke Law sweats not only doesn’t David look surprised to see me, he’s wearing the expression of someone who received death-in-the-family kind of news. In a way, it is a death. The death of his secrets.
“Coley told you I was coming.”
With a curt nod, he widens the door.
I walk inside. Even though I haven’t been here in a year, the loft hasn’t changed. Unlike his sterile office, the open foyer/great room/kitchen boasts high ceilings, multiple skylights, tan walls, and dark wood floors. Like his sterile office, it’s lacking personal effects. No pictures. No paperbacks. No knickknacks.
He shuts the door behind me. “Coffee? Hot chocolate?” He crosses to the kitchen area and picks up a basket of single-serve pods next to a Keurig.
“You drink hot chocolate?” Can’t picture him getting on his chocolaty Zen before crushing the opposition at trial.
He sets down the basket. “Nicole gave it to me last Christmas.”
Because we both have roles to play, it’s what he expects, and my leftover adrenaline needs somewhere to go, I shoot him a defiant look. “I’m down with hot chocolate. Just jazz it up with a couple shots of Bailey’s.”
For once I don’t get nailed with a disappointed stare. Instead, he opens the cupboard over the Sub-Zero fridge and pulls out a bottle. Not Bailey’s, Crown. He doesn’t offer it to me, he pours and drinks his own shot. Something I’ve never seen him do. “When you were little, you ate hot chocolate mix straight out of the package.”
My chest runs rough over the fact that he remembers that. “I’m not here to—”
“I know why you’re here.” He tosses back another shot so fast I wonder if he’s a recent convert to The Church of Liquid Courage. “You want my story.” He sets the glass in the sink and washes his hands.
“I want Mom’s story.”
“Since that’s hearsay,” he turns, “I can only offer mine. Take it, or leave it.” He walks around the island, drags a barstool out with his foot, and motions for me to sit.
I stand. If mom hadn’t slipped about Mark, David might have kept him buried forever. And it might’ve been easier on everyone.
He rests against the island, like he’s preparing his opening statement. “Meredith was modeling when I met her, and she was...” He doesn’t finish. He doesn’t have to. Her name lifts his voice, lights his eyes. It’s almost as if he can still see her in that moment now. “But she was twenty, and I was thirty-seven.”
“People make it work.” What the hell is wrong with me? I sound like I’m on his side.
“It didn’t work. Not when we were at different places in our lives. I officed eighty hours a week, and she did plays on evenings and weekends.” He paces in front of the barstools, the move practiced, perfected, and one-hundred-percent courtroom, like he’s climbed into his alter ego the way I climb into mine. “Six months later, enter my baby brother, who’d lost yet another job and moved to my town looking for a handout. I handed him my guest room, a position in the service department at the Nissan dealership off 75 and, without realizing it, your mom.”
I say the first stupid thing that pops in my head. “He liked cars.”
David pauses his pacing. “Except for your mom, working on cars was the single thing we had in common.”
Exactly like us. The one time we connected was the summer we refurbed the Mustang. But after we screwed the last wingnut on the air filter into place, we swerved out of the garage and onto opposite sides of the highway. His said—Straight and Narrow. Mine said—Live Free.Mom had always been the median between the lanes. “Why did you let him move in on her?”
“Mark was more her style. Tattoos. Motorcycle. He fit into her schedule.” He tries to fix a tie he’s not wearing and his hands fumble. “He was also a serial skirt chaser. I never should’ve introduced them.”
How weird is that I wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t?
“He moved her into a trailer park and bitched about her out-of-town auditions. When your sister came along, he stayed out all night. When he found out she was pregnant with you, he didn’t bother to come home at all. She deserved better. I tried to tell her that.”
“She did deserve better.” She deserved... David. The thought shocks me even though it feels right. “That’s why you helped her buy the house.” I know by the look that shoots across his face that he didn’t just help her, he took care of her. “You bought the house.”
“She needed somewhere to raise you and Nicole.” He crosses his arms like I’ve suddenly put him on trial.
