Chapter 45 Ryker
RYKER
“Dude, what the fuck was that?”
Axel’s question hung in the air as he slouched on the couch, a glass of scotch dangling from one hand while Rainbow—Faith’s rescued disaster of a dog—determinedly climbed into his lap.
The mutt looked like someone had assembled it from spare parts: one ear up, one ear down, patches of wiry fur that stuck out at impossible angles, and a severe underbite that gave her a permanently confused expression.
“Get off me, you genetic mistake.” Axel tried nudging the dog away, but Rainbow just wagged harder, leaving a trail of drool on his jeans. “Why does this thing hate me so much?”
“Pretty sure that’s love actually.” Love. Right. Like I knew anything about that after what just happened.
I shoved both hands through my hair.
Axel stopped fighting with Rainbow long enough to really look at me. His usual smart-ass expression shifted to something I rarely saw on his face—genuine concern. “That looked like some kind of psychotic breakdown or something.”
I leveled him with a glare.
“Hey.” He raised his hands in surrender, drink sloshing dangerously.
Rainbow took the opportunity to fully claim his lap.
The dog turned in three circles before settling with a contented grunt.
“I’m not saying it to be mean. I’m worried, dude.
That shit was …” He shook his head, searching for words. “Fucked up.”
The leather couch creaked as I dropped onto it. The weight of my mistake crushed my chest. “I should’ve known better than to bring her here. What the hell was I thinking?”
“She can’t go back to her place.” Axel absently scratched behind Rainbow’s crooked ear, apparently having surrendered to his fate as the dog’s chosen throne.
“She’ll stay with me.”
Axel’s eyebrows shot toward his hairline so fast, I thought they might achieve liftoff. “Are you sure Blake would be okay with that?”
“I’m not making her stay someplace unsafe. Physically or emotionally. If Blake has a problem with it, he can—”
“If I have a problem with what?” Blake’s voice cut through the room like a scalpel. He stood in the doorway, the light behind him casting shadows that made him look like death warmed over.
“Is she okay?” I pushed to my feet.
“Physically.” Blake’s jaw tightened on the word. His fingers drummed against his thigh. Never a good sign with him. “Now, if I have a problem with what exactly?”
“And emotionally?” I pressed, ignoring his question. “Should we bring her to a hospital? Get her a therapist or—”
“I gave her a sedative.” He stepped fully into the room. “Now answer my question. If I have a problem with what?”
I took a breath, tasting the tension in the air like copper pennies. “I don’t think she’s safe at her house.”
“Agreed.”
“But bringing her here was a mistake. The last time she was here was the night of the attack.”
“Fuck.” Blake pinched the bridge of his nose, a gesture so familiar that I could’ve predicted it. “She can stay with me.”
“Hold up.” Axel’s drink froze halfway to his mouth, his trademark smirk coming back now that we all knew Faith was okay.
“Aren’t you and Tessa currently competing for the world record in enthusiastic marital relations?
Because nothing says healing environment like your sister hearing you two reenact porn scenes through paper-thin walls. ”
Blake’s eye twitched. “We have a guest room.”
“On the same floor as your bedroom,” Axel pointed out, clearly enjoying himself now.
“With that squeaky bed of yours that sounds like a haunted carnival ride? Yeah, that’ll really help with the PTSD.
Don’t worry about your trauma, Faith; just focus on counting how many times the headboard hits the wall. ”
“We’re not that loud,” Blake protested.
Axel barked out a laugh. “Dude, last time Dakota crashed at your place, she heard Tessa speaking in tongues.”
“The priority right now is her safety.” Blake’s voice cracked like a whip. “Not your commentary on my sex life.”
“I do not want to hear this,” I warned.
“I’m just saying,” Axel continued, undeterred, “there’s safe, and then there’s scarred for life. You really want your sister’s recovery soundtrack to be, Oh God, Blake, right there, don’t stop?”
Blake’s face went through several shades of red. “My walls are not paper thin. And we can be quiet.”
“Sure you can.” Axel took a long pull of his scotch. “Just like Rainbow here can win Best in Show at Westminster.”
The dog chose that moment to sneeze directly into Axel’s face.
“Jesus!” Axel sputtered, wiping his face with his sleeve. “This thing is literally defective. It’s like someone’s science experiment gone wrong.”
“Focus,” I snapped, though watching Axel get sneezed on by a dog that looked like it had been assembled by a committee was almost worth the price of admission.
Axel’s smirk turned downright wicked. “Oh, I am focused. Focused on the fact that you haven’t mentioned YOUR brilliant plan yet, Ryker. Go on. Tell Blake where you think his baby sister should stay.”
I straightened my spine, meeting Blake’s glare head-on. The words came out steady. Certain. “She’s staying with me.”
The room went still for exactly one heartbeat.
Then Blake moved.
As expected, his forearm slammed against my throat as my back hit the wall hard enough to rattle the framed photos. Rainbow started barking, a high-pitched sound that could’ve shattered glass.
This is seriously getting old.
“Boys!”
Faith’s voice drifted from the hallway.
Blake released me instantly, both of us turning toward the sound. Rainbow immediately abandoned Axel’s lap, nails clicking against the hardwood as the dog raced to Faith’s feet, tail wagging so hard that its entire back end swayed.
She bent to scoop up Rainbow, burying her face in the dog’s ridiculous fur.
Blake moved first, crossing to Faith. “You should be resting.”
“I’m staying with Ryker.” Her words dropped into the room like a lit match into gasoline.
Blake’s entire body went rigid. “Faith.”
“It’s not up for discussion.” She lifted her chin, and for a second, I saw the fighter she’d been before all this. The woman who’d survived hell and was still standing. “I need to be somewhere that doesn’t feel like I’m drowning, and I’m not staying with newlyweds.”
Blake hesitated for a moment. Then his glower toward me softened into … what was that exactly? Appreciation? Surely, I was diagnosing that wrong.
“Now, I’d like to grab some more things from my place,” Faith said, still clutching Rainbow like a lifeline.
“I just gave you a sedative,” Blake said.
“Well, what can I say? Apparently, your sedatives are defective.” She scratched Rainbow’s lopsided ear. “I’d like to go back to my house now to grab the rest of my things.”
“I’ll go with you,” Blake and I said in unison.
Axel snorted from the couch. “Wow, synchronized protective instincts. You two should take that show on the road.” He stood, stretching until his back popped.
Faith set the dog down, and it immediately ran back to Axel, pawing at his leg.
“Oh, come on!” Axel groaned. “I literally just escaped you.”
“He likes you,” Faith said, and the tiny smile that ghosted across her lips was worth whatever furniture Rainbow would inevitably destroy at my place.
“Great. I’m beloved by genetic disasters. This is what my life has become.” But Axel let the dog crawl onto his lap, grimacing when Rainbow immediately licked his face. “Your breath smells like something died. Then came back to life. Then died again.”
“Fine,” Blake said, pulling out his keys with the resignation of a man accepting his fate. “We can all go. I’ll go start the car.”
“I’ll put my shoes back on.” Faith headed down the hall, leaving me alone with Axel and his new canine barnacle.
I could tell Axel was gearing up for something, but I had no idea the emotionally stunted guy was capable of a such a deep observation.
“You’re in love with her,” he accused.
“Shut up.”
“You’re so in love with her, it’s actually painful to watch.”
“I said shut up.”
He gave me that shit-eating grin that made me want to punch him and buy him a beer in equal measure. “This is going to be a disaster.”
“Probably.”
“Blake’s going to murder you.”
“Probably.”
“Faith’s going to realize you have the emotional range of a teaspoon.”
“Prob—wait, what?”
“You once told a woman you cared about her by fixing her car and then disappeared for three weeks.”
“That was different.”
“You signed her birthday card Regards.”
“Okay, that one might have been—”
“Regards, Ryker. To someone you were sleeping with.”
Rainbow chose that moment to belch in Axel’s face, a sound that belonged in a horror movie.
“Even this abomination has more game than you.” Axel pet Rainbow again. “At least she’s direct about her feelings. Drool means love. Simple. You? You’ll probably try to show Faith you care by color-coding her bookshelf or some shit.”
“I would never touch her books,” I said, offended.
“See? That right there. That’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever said, and you don’t even realize it.”
Before I could respond, Rainbow started making a sound like a broken garbage disposal.
“Oh, no.” Axel’s eyes went wide. “Oh, no, no, no. Don’t you dare—”
Rainbow hiccuped, then deposited something unspeakable on Axel’s shirt.
“MOTHERFUCKER!”
I tried not to laugh. “Guess that’s karma.”
“Karma for what?” Axel demanded, holding the dog away from his body like a ticking bomb.
“Everything. Just … everything.”
He held up his drink. “To disasters.”
“To keeping her safe,” I corrected.
“Same thing, buddy.” He looked down at his shirt with disgust. “Especially if this demon dog is part of the package.”
“You’re being dramatic.”
“It just produced a substance that shouldn’t exist in nature. I’m being exactly the right amount of dramatic.”