Chapter Seven #2
“I get it. You two were in hell together. I’d have wanted someone to hold on to, too.
” He pauses, exhales through his nose. “Doesn’t stop the part of me that wants to be angry anyway.
He’s my brother, and you needed him, and I can’t be jealous without being an asshole.
Fuck, Max. I’m sorry. I’m trying to wrap my head around this. ”
I study him, his grip on the wheel, the muscle ticking in his jaw. He’s not attacking, he’s admitting. That matters.
“I’m not mad at you,” he says finally, although the muscle in his jaw gives him away. “I’m just…jealous. And I’m glad that he was there for you but I hate that it wasn’t me.”
“But you saved me,” I say quietly. “You got me out of there. You brought me back.”
“Can I ask you something without it coming out wrong?”
“You can try,” I say, bracing.
He exhales. “How could you be with me after being with him?”
Yikes. The honesty of the question stings.
“Because…” I hesitate, searching for the words to explain exactly how confusing my feelings for all of them are.
“Because you’re you, Ryder. Because I could never not want to be with you.
I love Wyatt, I do, but that doesn’t take anything from what I feel for you.
Being with him didn’t erase you. It never could. ”
He sighs. “When I got you back, I didn’t even stop to ask what we were. I just—” He shakes his head, eyes fixed on the slick black ribbon of road. “I should have.”
“No.” The word is out before I can stop it. “Don’t say it like it was a mistake. It wasn’t. I missed you so much I couldn’t breathe. Being with you…” My voice falters. “It heals something inside me.”
For so long, sex had been something done to me. A transaction, a way to stay alive, to keep someone else calm. But with these men—first Jake, then Damian, then Ryder, and finally Wyatt, it has always been a choice.
I look down at my hands, then back out at the rain streaking past the window. “The love I have for all of you, it just…exists. I wish it didn’t feel like a crime to say that.”
He gives a low, humorless laugh.
“I’m sorry, Ryder.”
“Don’t apologize,” he says with a heavy exhale. “That’s not what this is. I’m not trying to be the man who makes you smaller just because I want you to fit in my hands.”
My throat tightens. “You’re not.”
His hand slips from the wheel, searching for mine. When he finds it, his fingers close gently.
The forest rushes past, colors bleeding together—flame, rust, gold. Alone they’d be fading, but together they burn brighter, a patchwork of resilience stitched out of ruin.
“It’s complicated,” I say with a sigh.
He squeezes my hand once. “Yeah,” he says. “But it’s us.”
We ride in silence for a long time, hands looped lightly together, and then finally the trees thin, street lights cropping up in their place, and ahead, a flicker of fluorescent light shimmers through the drizzle.
The gas station is half-drowned in fog, one old truck parked by the pumps, the windows of the small store clouded.
Ryder slows, turning in beneath the overhang. The rain on the roof finally silences.
“Stay in the truck,” he says.
“No way,” I reply, unbuckling my seat belt.
His mouth twitches with the ghost of a smile, and he kills the engine, climbs out, and pulls his hood up.
I follow, the damp cold breezing through my sweatshirt.
Within seconds, the mist is clinging to my eyelashes.
Ryder hoists the gas cans from the bed and I hold one steady for him as he fills it up, then we repeat four more times—him unscrewing the caps, me bracing the cans as he fills them.
When the last can is full, he twists the lid tight and sets it in the truck bed. “You coming in?”
I nod eagerly.
Inside, the air is warm and smells like old coffee.
A small TV murmurs behind the counter. The clerk barely looks up as we come in.
Ryder heads straight for the register, wallet already out, but I trail behind, scanning the narrow aisles—soda, chips, shelves of rainbow-colored candy.
One thing about these men is that they do not know the fine art of self-indulgence.
Every grocery run is like prep work for a military excursion: canned goods, dried food, nutrient-dense stuff with no taste that can be packed or carried.
I grab a handful of chocolate bars, two bags of licorice, and a bag of sour gummies. When I drop them on the counter beside him, Ryder raises an eyebrow.
“Emergency rations,” I say.
The corner of his mouth lifts. “So this was the real reason you wanted to come along.”
I grin and bat my eyelashes and he shakes his head, still smiling faintly, and pays for everything with cash. The clerk slides the bag across the counter. I grab it, still grinning a little, and we step back out under the overhang.
In the truck, Ryder cranks the heat and soon it’s steamy and warm in the cabin. He has to crack the window to let air in as we pull back out onto the highway.
I pull one of the chocolate bars from the bag and pass it to him. He gives me a crooked grin and tears open the wrapper. The tension that’s been coiled between us loosens as we snack. I reach out and try the radio, but all the stations are static.
“This was a solid call,” he says when he’s done his chocolate bar, crinkling up the wrapper. “Haven’t had one of those in years.”
“What?” I ask in disbelief. “A chocolate bar?”
He shrugs. “Not a candy guy. Typically.”
“That’s depressing.” I lean back against the seat. “You ever do anything that isn’t efficient or tactical?”
He chuckles. “That how you see me?”
“Kind of,” I admit. “You’re always up, doing something, needing to be productive, to get things done.”
“So I can’t relax?”
“I think maybe you don’t let yourself relax.”
“Sure I do.”
“Name one relaxing thing you do.”
“I drink wine.” His mouth curves faintly. “And…” He pauses, just long enough to make me look over. “…I exercise.”
The way he says exercise leaves no doubt what he means. Heat curls low in my belly. I roll my eyes, smiling anyway.
“Well, I’ve seen you ‘exercise,’” I say, making air quotes with my fingers, “and it looks too vigorous to be relaxing.”
He laughs, the sound of it filling the cab with warmth, and finally the world feels lighter again.
Just then, a crack of lightning rips across the sky, followed by a rumble of thunder so loud it seems to shake the earth, and water crashes against the windshield in a sheet.
Ryder flicks the wipers higher, but within seconds the storm is a wall.
The wipers thrash uselessly. It’s like driving inside a waterfall, and the sound is deafening.
“Shit,” Ryder mutters, leaning forward, eyes narrowing against the downpour. “Can’t see a damn thing.”
He flicks on the hazard lights and eases the truck to the shoulder, tires hissing through the waterlogged gravel.
“We’ll have to wait it out. Not worth sliding off the road.”
He turns off the ignition and sits back.
We just sit there, listening to the drumming on the roof, and the flash-boom of thunder. The storm beats against the truck like it’s trying to get in.
“Feels like the whole sky’s coming down,” Ryder mutters.
I pull my knees up on the seat, turning slightly toward him. “Guess we’re not going anywhere.”
“Not any time soon.”
Lightning flashes, bleaching everything white for a split second.
“I think this is the first time we’ve actually been alone,” I venture.
He turns his head my way, eyes flashing. “Well, we were alone on the beach the other morning.”
“Yeah,” I say, cheeks warming. “Not so much the other night on the pull-out couch, though.”
He smiles wryly and shakes his head. “Jesus. Fucking embarrassing. I thought we got away with it, too.”
I grin back. “Guess not.”
And for a moment neither of us says anything.
“It was hot, though,” I try. “Quiet, needy…furtive…”
He makes a low sound in his throat and his eyes slip half shut. When he opens them again he holds my gaze for a moment before speaking.
“You’re dangerous,” he says quietly.
I huff a laugh. “I’m not trying to be.”
“Can’t help it, I guess.”
A pulse of lightning spills across the cab again, and for a second he looks unreal, sculpted in silver light, all planes and shadow. My pulse is everywhere—my throat, my wrists, the space behind my knees.
Impulsively, I unbuckle my seatbelt and lean over the console. His hand comes up, brushes a strand of hair from my cheek.
“Max,” he says quietly. “You’re gonna wreck me.”
My lips find his before he can say another word. Slow at first, then he pulls me closer, one hand sliding up my back, and it deepens. I tuck my feet under my hips and lift myself up onto my knees to get closer, and he reaches for my waist and pulls me over the console onto his lap.
I sink against him, tasting him, and suck in a breath when I feel the hard bulge in his pants brush my inner thigh.
His mouth moves over my jaw, hands circling my waist. I tilt my head to the ceiling as he kisses down my neck.
Blindly, I reach for the button of his pants—khakis that Damian picked up at Walmart.
The soft fabric leaves little to the imagination.
I have the zipper halfway down when he sucks in a breath and then exhales, hands gripping my shoulders and holding me still.
“Fuck,” he hisses. It’s not the kind of sound that leads anywhere good.
“What?” I ask.
He leans his head against the headrest, looking stricken. “I can’t.”
I blink and pull back. “What? Why? We’re alone.”
He shakes his head, pressing his lips together. “I…I just can’t. Not right now, Max.”
“Is this because of Wyatt?” I snap, sharper than I mean to.
He takes a deep breath. Sighs. “Yes, partially. It’s just not knowing where we stand right now and, listen…
” He leans forward, eyes catching mine. “I don’t want to hurt you.
I don’t want to move too fast when maybe we should have moved slower after everything you’ve been through.
I just think we need to take a step back, okay? ”
“No, Ryder.” The words are hot and stupid and panicked. “Please.”
A flicker of regret crosses his face. “I’m sorry.” He sighs again, and then reaches up and tucks a lock of hair behind my ear. “You mean everything to me, Max.”
“You too,” I plead, nearly whimpering. “Ryder, I need you.”
The smile is apologetic, but final. I take a deep breath, drop my head and avert my eyes, and sidle back over the console to my side of the seat.
Outside, the rain has slowed. It hits the windshield in heavy drops, but the road ahead is visible again.
“Good timing, I guess,” says Ryder, a touch of sadness in his voice, and reaches for the ignition.
I say nothing. The truck rumbles back to life, the wipers jumping too fast across the glass, and Ryder pulls back out onto the road.