Chapter Three #2
“You’re not a dick, Ally. You’ve found yourselves in a tough situation. Your feelings are valid, and so are Ryder’s. Neither of you asked for this job situation, but you’re here. Life has a way of throwing some enormous obstacles in our way.”
His somber expression told me he was intimately acquainted with life’s challenging side.
I didn’t know much about Trevor’s past. It was his story to share when he felt ready, but the little he’d confided in me, I wouldn’t wish on anyone.
His parents had died when he was five, landing him in a foster care situation from hell.
“The question now is what are you doing to do about it?”
I blinked. “What do you mean?”
“Well, the way I see it, you have two choices,” he said, holding out his palms, which were flipped up. He raised one. “You can continue as you are, watching your man struggle and your relationship swirl down the drain—”
“Thanks.” I flipped him off for good measure. So much for support and wisdom.
Trevor shook his head at me like I was a disobedient child.
“Or…” he said, lifting the other palm, “… you can march your sexy ass to wherever he is right now, fuck his brains out, and refuse to leave until you come up with a plan to make both of you happy. You want the same thing, Alex, but neither of you knows how to get there right now. Maybe if you put your heads together instead of leaning into your misery, you can find a solution.”
I bit the inside of my cheek, staring at my best friend as something deep inside wanted to run away and punch something. Without realizing it, Trevor struck directly at the heart of the problem.
“What?” he asked after a solid thirty seconds of silence.
“What if we don’t want the same thing?” Putting the question into the universe made me want to puke.
His forehead wrinkled. “I don’t understand what you mean?”
Of course, he was going to make me spell out every humiliating word. I scowled, then said, “What if he doesn’t want me anymore, and he’s avoiding me? I’m not an easy person to be in a relationship with. My mom requires a lot of time and attention, my brother is toxic as fuck, and I’m…”
“Lovably grumpy?”
I grunted. “Yeah, something like that.” More like a grouchy asshole, but his term softened the impact.
I should have seen the slap coming, but I had my head too far up my ass. Trevor smacked the back of my head with surprising strength. “Ow, what the fuck was that for?” I rubbed the spot where he’d made contact.
“It’s for being an idiot. That man is obsessed with you. You should see the way he used to stare at you while you were working. The man is a total heart-eye emoji. It’s both adorable and disgusting. If I didn’t love you two so much, I’d hate you.”
I shoveled a forkful of pasta into my mouth, thinking as I chewed.
“And since when are you the type to avoid hard shit?”
Never. I’d never shied away from what I wanted. But then I’d never been this terrified of losing something.
Someone.
Fuck, what was I doing? I wanted Ryder. I had Ryder. Was I going to sit on my ass wallowing while the universe tore us apart? Was I going to let his family’s wishes, ones he disagreed with, destroy what we’d built these past months?
Hell no.
My heart raced as hope bubbled in my veins. I had several tutoring sessions this afternoon and evening, something I’d picked up for some extra cash during my three-week break between course sessions. The second I finished, I’d get my ass over to his office so we could end this nonsense.
I looked at Trevor, who watched me with a beaming grin. “I see the lightbulb has finally switched on.”
“Yeah.” My throat thickened. “Thanks, Trev. I needed this kick in the ass to stop me from floundering.”
He shrugged, then got a faraway look in his eyes. “It’s always easier to see a way out when you’re not the one in the thick of it.”
“Trev…” It was my turn to grab his hands. “I know you aren’t big on diving into your stuff, but I hope you know I’m here if you ever need an ear. I don’t judge, and I wouldn’t betray your confidence, even to Ryder. You can trust me.”
He grinned and shimmied as though shaking off his funk. “I do know, Ally. And I trust you completely. I promise it has nothing to do with you, I’m just not ready to talk about my shit. But I know who to go to when I am ready. Okay?”
I nodded. “Okay. I want you to be happy, Trev. That’s all.
” Sometimes I wondered if he’d spend the rest of his life pining for a man he would never have.
Trevor was head over heels in love with our older, sophisticated, and filthy-rich boss.
Parker owned Top Shelf nightclub as well as other lucrative businesses in Boston and moved in a crowd of extravagant movers and shakers I’d never mesh with, but people my boyfriend could mix and mingle around without batting an eye.
Parker had to be aware of Trevor’s infatuation.
We joked it was the worst-kept secret at Top Shelf, but he’d never acted on it.
Never so much as glanced in Trevor’s direction with anything less than professional interest as far as I knew.
The saddest part was the revolving door of cute, tight-bodied twinks Parker paraded in and out of his office.
Men who couldn’t hold a candle to Trevor let us all know that Trevor was indeed our boss’s type.
Parker had a strict code he followed, which included never hooking up with employees, but his disinterest in Trevor had to be more complicated than that, or my friend would have quit on his first night.
“I know you do, Ally, and that’s why I love you.” He grabbed for a small, fancy-looking sandwich. “Now, enough heavy shit. Let’s eat so you can get to your tutoring sessions, then get to your man.”
I grinned and stuffed another bite of pasta salad in my mouth.
For the first time in weeks, I felt an excited anticipation for what was to come.
Even last night, with the promise of a celebration, I’d had the invisible weight of helplessness pressing down on my shoulders.
But I was the opposite of helpless. Screw Ryder’s family and their demands.
It was time we grabbed our lives and our relationship by the horns and rode off into the sunset together.
The mood lightened considerably after Trevor knocked some sense into me. We chatted about safer topics while we polished off the delicious meal. He was a font of Top Shelf gossip, filling me in on the drama that always seemed to go over my head while I was working.
By the time I left, I was full of food and anticipation.
My tutoring sessions dragged on as life always did when you had somewhere you’d rather be.
Four sessions with some breaks in between took me well into the evening and past dinnertime, but I wasn’t hungry, at least not for food.
I only craved one thing, and it had two legs, gorgeous blond hair, a big heart, and one hell of an addictive cock.
I parked my old junker in the executive parking lot among the BMWs, Teslas, and Mercedes preferred by the company's high-ranking administrators.
His father’s company. Thinking of it as Ryder’s was a slippery slope of doom.
Unsurprisingly, given the time, the parking lot was empty except for Ryder’s and my vehicles.
His was a year-old electric Range Rover that cost more than my education.
Despite my protests, he’d given me access to the executive parking lot that required a security code to enter.
I’d never told him, but the few times I’d met him here for lunch, I’d parked in the standard visitor lot, like any other nonemployee who came to the building.
Tonight, though, I cut every corner in my quest to reach Ryder as fast as possible, and this parking lot had a direct elevator to the executive’s floor about five steps from any of the parking spots.
Rich people sure loved convenience.
My skin itched as though hundreds of ants crawled across the surface, making me want to crawl out of my skin.
I’d been through some shit in my life and had learned to keep an even keel in most situations.
My coping strategies also made me a grumpy, unapproachable bastard most of the time, but I tended not to freak out or let anxiety rule my life.
Not tonight, though. From the second I’d decided to confront Ryder at work, I’d been fighting an internal beast who wanted to bulldoze every obstacle in my path and get to my man as soon as possible.
The thirty-second elevator ride took three hours, and the hallway leading to Ryder’s executive suite turned into a five-mile trek.
I walked as fast as I could, yet my heart still raced too fast for the number of steps I took, and the trip went on for an eternity.
As I’d expected, dark hallways and a quiet floor greeted me.
Calloway Enterprise’s staff went home hours ago, including Ryder’s assistant.
Her desk sat empty and so organized that it could have been a staged showroom model.
My heart leaped into my throat as I reached Ryder’s—his father’s—office. I needed to keep its true owner in the forefront of my mind to remind myself that this was a temporary situation.
It had to be temporary because I wanted Ryder in my life permanently. If he continued to run this company, I feared I wouldn’t get my wish.
I knocked lightly so as not to startle him.
Seconds ticked by without a response. I frowned.
“Ryder?” I called as I knocked again. Light glowed beneath the door, indicating he hadn’t gone home, plus his car still sat in the parking lot.
Maybe he’d run down the block to grab some dinner from the Mediterranean restaurant he loved.
“Ryder?” I called again. This time, I tried the door, which wasn’t locked, and it opened for me.
“Ryder, it’s me. You here?” I stuck my head in the door, making a quick scan of the office and its wall of windows, which he boasted was one of the best views in the city.
I stepped in and looked left, only to lose my breath.
“Ryder?” I gasped as I rushed across the room.
Down on the carpet, slumped against a window, sat my boyfriend.
The dark smudges beneath his eyes and the pallor to his usually tanned skin told me all I needed to know about his self-care.
A close scan of his face had me realizing he’d lost weight as well.
How had I not noticed? Was my head so far up my ass that I missed all the signs of someone I loved in crisis?
The first word that came to mind was defeat. Ryder appeared so defeated, as though the universe had beaten him down so severely, he had no strength to get back up.
I dropped to my knees beside him. “Baby, are you okay?” Neither of us was big on pet names, but the term slipped out as an easy way to remind him I cared.
So damn much.
Slowly, he turned his head until our gazes met. The abject despair in his eyes had my heart fracturing. He swallowed once, then whispered, “I’m sorry, Alex,” and my heart split in half.
“No, baby,” I whispered back. “I don’t need that.”
“Come here.” I scooted back against the window, then urged him up and over my lap. His movements were sluggish, so I mostly muscled him until he straddled me. Once we were chest to chest, I wrapped my arms tightly around him, and he melted into me as though holding himself up had become too much.
“I’ve got you,” I said, still whispering, though not a soul remained in the building. “I’ve got you, Ryder.”
He clutched me like a lifeline, burying his face in my neck as we held each other. God, as heartbreaking as this moment was, it felt so damn good to have him in my arms.
The pain bled from him, into me, until I experienced it along with him. An unbearable ache so deep invaded every cell in my body. How long had he been living with this anguish? And how much longer could he bear it?
I’d hold him like this all night if he needed it, there on the floor of his office as my ass went numb, but after a few moments, wetness hit my neck, and I couldn’t keep quiet.
“What can I do? What do you need from me, Ryder?” No ask was too big. I’d open my veins for him if he needed it to feel better.