Ryker
RYKER
I stand in the middle of the hallway and stare at the front door, whiplashed and sort of dazed. I’m not even entirely certain at this point that I didn’t somehow imagine this whole thing. Maybe the door is going to open again, and Lake will walk in. He’ll send me one of his sardonic smiles and ask if I’ve decided to become a statue.
I wait.
Nothing happens.
The door stays stubbornly shut, and the anxious feeling in my gut churns on.
I drag my fingers through my hair and let out a shout of frustration.
I’m honestly not sure how we got to this point in so little time. How the argument grew out of control so quickly.
How we even managed to get into an argument in the first place.
I replay what we said. None of it makes sense. None of what Lake said makes any goddamn sense. There was no reason for him to fly off the handle like that.
Eventually, I turn around and go back to the living room. The apartment is very, very quiet. Unusually so. It’s missing Lake’s presence. It’s missing the promise of his presence.
I’m supposed to eat dinner, but even if I was famished before, I don’t have any appetite at all now. Instead, my nerves are on edge and every sound—the bang of the neighbor’s door, a shout from outside—makes me jump and jerk toward the hallway.
Still no Lake.
Thirty minutes later, I go and get a beer from the fridge. I’d go for something harder, but we don’t have anything at home, and it’s not like I’m gonna go to a bar and get drunk right now.
I pick up my phone and debate calling Lake, but then I put it back down. It doesn’t feel like a conversation we should have over the phone. I’m not even sure he’d pick up, to be honest.
It’s better to let him calm down and come back to me.
So instead, I putter around the apartment for a while and then finally settle in on the couch with the remote. I click through old episodes of sitcoms, mind a million miles away. The canned laughter sounds unnerving in the empty, quiet apartment, but I turn the sound up anyway because that way I won’t hear all the distant sounds from outside.
And then I wait.
I jerk awake at the loud noise. It takes me a moment to figure out it’s my phone. I rub my fingertips over my eyes.
Why the hell am I on the couch?
Oh. Right.
I grab the phone and hope it’s Lake, but it’s a number I don’t know.
“H’llo?” I mutter into the phone.
Somebody clears their throat. There’s a beat of silence, then Lake’s voice.
“Hey,” he says. “It’s me. I… I need you to come and pick me up.” There’s another pause and then a soft “Please.”
I sit up straight, totally alert now. “Of course I’ll come. Where are you?”
I’m out the door two minutes later.
I’ve never picked anybody up from a precinct before, so here’s to new experiences, I suppose.
Lake stuffs his hands into the pockets of his jeans and keeps his head down while we walk toward the car. Once there, we stop. Lake’s shoulders drop, and he taps his head against the driver’s side window for a good few seconds before he stops and turns to face me.
“I’m sorry,” we both say at the same time.
Lake frowns at me. “What are you sorry for?”
I shrug. “For getting into a fight with you.”
He eyes me thoughtfully. “I’m pretty sure that fight is on me.”
“We’ll call it even.”
He sends me the tiniest of smiles. “You’re way out of my league. You know that, right?”
“The brainwashing is finally starting to take, huh?”
This next smile is a bit more like the Lake smile I know and love. He replaces that with a sigh soon after.
“I just…” he says. Then, he shakes his head, looking impossibly lost all of a sudden.
I take his hand and link our fingers.
He blows out a big breath.
“Do you want something to eat?” I ask.
He sends me a relieved look and nods.
We find a diner that’s open in the middle of the night and slide into a booth. A tired-looking waitress drops off a couple of menus and for a little while we’re both occupied choosing our late-night meals. The waitress comes by again, takes our orders, and walks away.
“Tell me about your game,” Lake says.
I indulge him. For a while, we both do our best to talk about hockey. Lake makes all the right noises and says all the right words, but it’s clear his heart isn’t a hundred percent in it. Neither is mine. The game feels like ancient history at this point.
It doesn’t matter.
The waitress comes over with our food. Pancakes for him, an omelet for me. I press the side of my foot against his, and then we eat for a while in silence.
Once we’re done, Lake looks down at his hands and then up at me.
“Scott wants to run for governor and looking me up was just a way to make sure I wouldn’t spill the beans about him accidentally knocking up his brother’s girlfriend.”
He says it all in one big rush of breath, and once he’s done, I add my own deep exhale into the mix.
“Fuck,” I say, and, “Baby.”
“Yeah.” He toys with his knife and fork. “It wasn’t so much that he wanted to get to know me, more that I was a liability he had to deal with.”
“I can’t picture my life without you,” I say. “Just so you know. Fuck him. Good riddance.”
He sends me a small smile and drops the fork on the plate.
“I freaked out,” he says. “And I’m honestly not even sure why it hit me so hard, because it’s not like I even wanted him in my life to begin with, but then when it turned out he was basically just screwing me over… it just started to feel like the world was out to get me. Or something. I’m so sorry about earlier. None of this was about you. Or us. And now you should be sleeping because you have another game tomorrow, but instead you’re here dealing with my mess.”
“I can go a night with less sleep. And we can always have a nap later today.”
Lake sighs and rubs his hand over his mouth before he leans his elbows on the table and frowns at me. “Why aren’t you mad at me?”
“I tried for a minute. It didn’t stick.” I smile at him, but he still looks worried. “Even if I was angry, it wouldn’t really matter in the long run. We’re still us. You and me. In this relationship together. So, we’d work it out.”
I can see from his face that he’s tempted to make a joke or say something self-deprecating or sarcastic. He would with anybody else. With me, he pushes those instincts aside. Instead, he goes gentle and open. Here we are, him and me. Lake and . and Lake. And we’ll be fine no matter what happens. The knowledge is a solid ground under our feet. The inescapable gravity of us.
He licks his lips, and his eyes move over our surroundings. The place is almost empty, and the waitress is busy flirting with the cook by the large window behind the counter.
Lake reaches across the table and takes my hand.
It’s such a simple gesture, but to us it’s an important one.
I squeeze his fingers, and we smile at each other.
“Are you going to tell me how you managed to get arrested now?” I bite back a smile.
Lake groans and thumps his forehead against the table a few times before he looks up.
“It was just a teeny tiny misunderstanding.”
“I’m listening.”
He waves me off. “It’s not even worth mentioning. Should we get milkshakes?”
I lean back and wait. He caves in just a few minutes.
“I… might’ve had a minuscule fender bender,” he mutters.
“That doesn’t sound like something to get arrested for.”
“I might’ve backed into a police car.”
“And?” I prompt when he doesn’t say anything else.
“And I didn’t have my license or any other documents with me. No phone either.”
“And?” I say when he clamps his mouth shut again.
Lake rolls his eyes and gives a dramatic sigh. “And it turns out—to my total surprise, by the way—that not all people appreciate some light sarcasm.”
“You were mouthing off to a cop?” I ask. I’m not sure if I should laugh or if disbelief would be a more apt reaction.
Lake raises his index finger. “I was not mouthing off.” Then he seems to consider those words for a second. “Although the word ‘fuck’ was used liberally and in a variety of versions.”
I blow out a breath and shake my head. “Only you.”
“If it’s any consolation, I’m not too happy with myself right now either. It was pretty fucking stupid, and I have no idea what the consequences will be. Guessing by my luck so far this might be my last meal as a free man before a SWAT team charges in here and carts me off to prison.”
“I’ll look into conjugal visits.”
He gently kicks my shin with the toe of his sneaker.
“We’ll get a lawyer if it comes down to it.”
He drags his fingers through his hair and thumps his forehead against the table.
“They’ll expel me.”
Lake still looks a bit contemplative, but then he nods.
“There’s more,” he says.
“Lay it on me.”
He glances out the window before his gaze locks on me again. “Scott knows we’re married. I don’t know how, but he had a copy of our marriage certificate. Like leverage. Run to the press and I’ll do the same. That kind of thing.”
A part of me expected to be at least a little bit rattled by this—the knowledge that people might find out. That there’s a likelihood now that Scott or whoever else might do something with the truth. Twist and bend it. Turn it into something ugly.
It’s an illogical kind of fear. An abstract fear. I’m not even sure what, exactly, I’m most apprehensive about. The unwanted attention? Some nameless, faceless nobody judging us from afar? The life we’ve carefully built for ourselves being picked apart? Things changing? I’m not sure.
But then I look at Lake, and everything else becomes noise.
Because Lake is here. He’s here. With me. And no matter what happens, he isn’t going anywhere.
I know that, deep in my bones.
We’re not going anywhere.
“He can very much go and fuck himself,” I say. “There’s zero chance I’ll let him have a say in what you and I do or say.”
Lake presses his lips together for a moment before he nods. He eyes me carefully, with at least some caution. It’s that look he sometimes gets when he’s not sure if I fully understand what I’m getting myself into.
I keep my eyes on him. I don’t look around to check whether anybody’s looking at us. And I take his hand in mine.
“I love you,” I say, without making any effort to lower my voice into a covert whisper. Because that would imply I want to hide this, and I don’t. “That’s the only thing that matters. I love you, and I want you.” I shrug. “I’m going to have a life with you.” I repeat the words I told him once before. “Fuck everybody else.”
It looks like he doesn’t even breathe for the longest time, but then he’s smiling at me, wide and open. And he squeezes my hand.
“Fuck everybody else.”
I nod toward his empty plate. “Are we done here?”
He nods. “I’d say so.”
“Then let’s go home.”