23. Ryan Fairview
“ W hat the fuck!” I barked, nearly jumping out of my skin when I looked up to find Cal’s massive form silhouetted in the bay windows of my room.
He had his hood up, but his face was exposed, and his bandana was nowhere to be seen. The warm light from one of the street lamps outside illuminated his face enough that I could see his eyes no longer had that dead, empty glaze to them. They were warm and full of remorse again and maybe a tiny hint of amusement.
“I have to say, I’m relieved that you find the fact that I punched you in the face more inappropriate than the fact that I jerked you off.” He grinned at me, and I sputtered in fury.
“We will not be talking about the other thing that happened! As far as I’m concerned, that never happened, and it never will again!” I spun on my heel and was about to storm out of the room when he suddenly had his hands on me again.
Wrapping a large hand around my bicep, he spun me back around and pushed me back against the door. It clicked shut behind me, and I let out a strange growling noise that I had never made before.
“Get your fucking hands off me, you pervert!” I hissed, and to my surprise, he immediately let me go, holding both hands up as if to show me he meant no harm.
“Listen, I just want to talk. I need to explain?—”
“I don’t want you to explain! I want you to get the fuck out of my life!”
He winced as if I had struck him, and for some reason, his wide brown eyes stirred a strange feeling in my gut. How could someone so fucked up and dangerous look so vulnerable?
“Ryan… please? Can I just talk to you for a second?” His voice was softer than I had ever heard it. He wasn’t making jokes or being sarcastic. The way he said my name made it feel like he needed me to hear him out.
I stared at him for a long moment, and he nibbled on his lip ring, almost like he was… nervous?
I narrowed my eyes and crossed my arms over my chest.
“Fine. You have two minutes. Go.”
He winced again.
“Can we sit down?”
“No.”
“Okay, fine… well. First of all, I wanted to start off by saying that I’m sorry for… forcing myself on you like that. No matter which way you swing, that wasn’t cool at all. I just… You called me that name, and I have a lot of fucked up trauma around it,” he muttered. He wasn’t looking at me anymore. He was awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck beneath his hoodie and staring at his feet as if he were ashamed to tell me that he had any sort of weakness.
He looked so young all of a sudden, like a little lost boy who just needed someone to listen to his story, and I felt myself softening against my better judgment.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked, surprising myself with how gentle my tone was.
He glanced up at me, looking just as shocked as I was that I had bothered to ask.
“Umm… I won’t bore you with the details, but my mom used to call me that when I was a little kid. She wasn’t a very nice lady.”
So I was right. That phantom woman was his mother, and she had definitely been abusive when she was alive.
“She’s a big reason I do what I do.”
I narrowed my eyes. “And what exactly is it that you do?” I asked.
Cal sighed. “If I’m going to get into this, you should really sit down. It’s a long story, and you’ve had a rough day.”
“Yeah, no shit. I’ve had a rough couple of days, thanks to you,” I snapped, and he winced again.
“I know. Please sit down? I promise I’ll keep my hands to myself,” he said, gesturing to my massive California King.
I’m not sure what possessed me to humor him, but I did. I stalked to the end of my bed and sat down, watching him warily as he paced back and forth in front of me.
“So… where do I start…” He was muttering, and I had to admit, he was cute when he was like this. It was like I could almost see his thoughts scattered in a disorganized mess outside his brain, and he was fishing through the mess for the right thing to say to me.
“So my mother was an absolute piece of work. When my sisters and I were little kids, she used to keep us locked in the basement in cages.”
I choked.
Cages!?
I tried to speak but inhaled the wrong way and suddenly couldn’t stop coughing.
“Ginger snap? You okay?” Cal rushed forward and slapped my back aggressively as I tried to remember how to breathe.
I waved him off, still struggling to get the spit out of my lungs.
“Wh-what?” I exclaimed. “She kept you in cages? Like with bars and a lock?”
He nodded, looking disturbingly calm as he continued to explain.
“Yeah. Sometimes, she would forget to feed us for days. My younger sister, Naomi, was only three years old. My older sister and I were so scared Naomi was going to die from neglect, so we broke out and tried to escape.
“We… Well, I ended up killing our mother. It was self-defense, so we didn’t get in trouble when the police found us, but…yeah. It was a really shitty time in my life.”
“No fucking kidding,” I managed, completely unable to wrap my head around the fact that someone could be so cruel to their own children.
“So you see, when you called me… that word… It brought up some real garbage memories of a time when I had zero control over my own circumstances. My reflex was to get the threat under control… It just made me need to… dominate you.” He looked like the words felt like glass coming out of his mouth.
I raised a skeptical eyebrow at him. “And you needed to dominate me by doing… that?”
He shrugged. “Honestly, if you were anyone else, I probably would have just killed you. I think I did that because, if you haven’t noticed, I have a huge crush on you.”
My mouth fell open at the brazenness of his admission.
Who just went around saying shit like this to people? Especially to complete strangers?
This man had no boundaries. He had literally no idea what an appropriate way to interact with people was, and I guess after what he had just told me, I could understand why.
What kind of upbringing did he have after he had escaped someone so evil?
I wasn’t sure I even wanted to know the answer to that. I already felt like he had shared more than I had any business knowing.
Understanding that it wasn’t his fault that he was the way he was made it a little bit easier for me to forgive him for everything he had done since I had met him, but still. He was dangerous . There was no place in my life for someone like him.
“Well, you’re going to need to get over your crush, Cal,” I said sternly, and he looked like he was about to legitimately pout at my words.
“It’s not reciprocated, and I’m straight.” There was a strange little niggling feeling in my head that told me I was lying through my fucking teeth, but I ignored it. Even if I was willing to admit that everything I had believed to be true about myself was a lie, I could never pursue a relationship with someone like this. It would ruin my life.
I had worked so hard to get to where I was. I wasn’t about to throw that all away just because this man was looking at me like I had the power to break his heart.
“Okay… can we at least be friends then?” he asked, shuffling closer to me. His gaze fell to the bruise on my cheek, and he frowned, nibbling on his lip ring.
I sighed, rubbing the corners of my eyes.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Come on, please? I’m a great friend! Just ask anybody… Well, maybe not anybody. You can ask my buddy Vox… He doesn’t really speak, but if you ask him if I’m a good friend, he’ll at least give you a thumbs up to confirm.”
Suddenly, a strange feeling welled in the back of my throat, and before I could stop it from happening, I laughed.
You would have thought Christmas had come early, the way Cal’s entire face lit up.
“You have a nice laugh.” He said, taking another tentative step toward me.
I forced myself to sober and shook my head to shake off the overwhelming urge to smile at him.
He was really fucking cute when he was like this. Like a golden retriever begging for a milk bone…
Okay. Maybe I should stay away from the bone references when referring to Cal.
“Come on, Ryan. Please? Let me be your friend.”
“Why do you want to be my friend so bad?” I honestly couldn’t understand this man’s obsession with me. No one was ever obsessed with me. Theo was the attractive one. She was the badass who signed up for underground fights and made all the girls drop their panties. I was just the creepy dude who spent more time with the dead than the living. No one ever wanted to get to know me.
Cal looked at me like I was crazy.
“What do you mean? You’re cool as fuck! Look at this spooky ass house you live in! It’s so rad! You know, most people would have probably renovated this place and made it into some sterile, modern version of what it is, but you haven’t. You kept it the way it was, and it’s honestly one of the coolest buildings I’ve ever been in.”
I gaped at him. He thought I was… cool? Literally no one has ever thought that about me. Especially not someone like Cal. Cal looked like an older version of a lot of the kids who had always picked on me in high school.
Tattooed, jacked bad boys who were too cool to show up to class and never seemed to worry about good grades.
A strange, warm feeling twisted in my stomach at the fact that he thought I was cool.
“Uhm. Thanks… I guess? I wouldn’t be able to afford to renovate this place anyway,” I mumbled. I could barely scrape together enough to update my crematorium.
“Oh! About that, that’s another perk about being my, uhm, friend. Here, this is for earlier,” he said, digging deep into his hoodie’s pocket and pulling out a giant wad of cash.
He dropped the money into my hand, and my cheeks flushed as I realized he was paying me for… what exactly?
Giving me a handjob?
Humiliation and rage bubbled in my chest, burning away any good feelings that had been growing.
I glared at him, and he looked confused for a moment before realization dawned on him.
“Oh shit! No, no, no, this isn’t for that! This is for taking care of that body. That’s another thing I’m sorry about. I shouldn’t have left you to deal with that by yourself. I hope the money helps make up for it.”
I relaxed slightly, but I still wasn’t sure I liked the idea of getting paid to dispose of a murder victim’s body. It made it all feel too real.
Though looking at this stack of cash, I gasped as I realized it was all hundred dollar bills. I was holding thousands of dollars in my hands right now. This was more than enough to fix my cremator, which would allow me to take in way more service requests.
Plus, that guy was an abusive asshole who hit Caleb. He totally deserved what he got. I was surprised to find that I didn’t really feel any guilt about helping Cal get rid of him. If anything, I was happy that he couldn’t hurt Caleb anymore.
“Okay… are you sure this isn’t too much?” I asked, still feeling off about accepting payment of any kind from Cal.
“Of course not. How do you think I can afford all my sick cars? Murder pays exceptionally well, Ryan. Know your worth.” He winked at me, and I pursed my lips.
“Does this mean I still have to work for you?”
He sighed. “No, not if you don’t want to. I want you to be my friend because you want to be. But I wasn’t lying before when I said my boss would see you as a loose end if he doesn’t feel like you’re part of the operation. I can try to protect you, but the people I work for are ruthless. It’s way bigger than you can imagine. Even if you relocate, you may never be truly safe from them. If you think you can stomach it and can cremate the odd body for me and stay on the payroll, he probably won’t think twice about you.”
“Why would you even bother trying to protect me from these people? You don’t even know me at all,” I said, feeling shaky again. This was a lot to absorb in one sitting. I was suddenly feeling glad he had made me sit down.
Cal frowned and stepped closer. I knew I should tell him to stay back, but the words died on my lips. He reached forward and gently skated his thumb over the bruise he had left on my cheek, his dark eyebrows pulling together in a concerned frown.
“I already told you. I really like you. I don’t want you to get hurt, and I don’t want you to be afraid of me.”
I swallowed, resisting the urge to lean into his gentle touch as his eyes locked on mine. “Besides, it’s my fault you got dragged into all this in the first place. You gotta believe me that I didn’t mean for this to happen. I’m so sorry I put you in this position, Ryan. You deserve better.” He tongued his lip ring, and my stomach fluttered with something that felt like anxiety but wasn’t.
“Okay, fine. We can try to be friends.”
The smile that spread across Cal’s face made me forget for a moment how insanely bad of an idea this was.
Theo was going to fucking kill me.