Epilogue
Ryder
Two Months Later
T he first month in this place was always the hardest. I thought for sure by the second week that Tempest was going to break out of here.
It had been difficult to watch, but she’d done it.
She’d managed to push through and was turning into a whole different person.
Her eyes were brighter, and her face was a little rounder, her acrylic nails were gone, and her hair needed bleaching again, but she was fucking perfect.
Mason had started visiting from the second we were allowed to have visitors, and I was grateful that he seemed to be working towards forgiving her too.
Watching her find herself again was beautiful in a way that I couldn’t describe properly.
Tempest rediscovered her favorite things from when she was younger, like snacks and TV shows. She’d spent hours binging Netflix in our downtime, obviously dragging me to the couch with her, and it was nice to just curl up together and relax.
The first month had been an issue for Onlyfans, but now that we were allowed our phones back, we had the cameras rolling again.
Well, the quality wasn’t as good because it was just on the phone camera and we couldn’t edit it properly without the laptop, but we kept pushing content and growing our following.
We were doing pretty well if you asked me.
I smiled, eyeing Tempest from across the yard as she sat at a table under a tree with her family. She was still struggling to trust them, but their visits were positive, which was all that mattered.
She was even being nice to Luna.
“Ry?” I glanced across the table I was sitting at, meeting Mom’s eyes. “I asked if you know when you’ll be coming home.”
“Yeah, in two months. I was just going to do the sixty day program, but I’ve had a few hard days. I think taking the extra time here is smart. Temp should probably do six months, but she’s been really good with therapy lately. I think she’ll get out in April too,” I replied, a soft smile taking over Mom’s face.
“I’m glad both of you are doing well. Stay as long as you need, okay? If either of you need a little longer, just let me know. Beckett said it went well last week when she visited with Riley. I won’t lie, I was a little worried about it.”
“We’ll get through it, we always do,” I shrugged. “We’re both still mad at each other, but we didn’t fight, which was a good start.”
Riley was the one person holding a grudge. She didn’t believe for a second that Tempest would stay clean, and she didn’t want to see me get dragged down again.
It was a work in progress, but our visit hadn’t been unpleasant, just a little awkward.
I’d had a few therapy sessions where Mom or one of my dads had been present, giving us the opportunity to discuss our feelings in a neutral environment. Skeeter and Caden had both had some frustration to let out about my fight with Mom, and I was kind of glad they could get it out in here before I got home.
Mom, as always, kept reminding me that she’d always forgive me, and that almost made me feel worse. She didn’t deserve to be spoken to like shit, let alone assaulted.
I never wanted to get to that point again, which was what drove me to do better this time.
If either Tempest or I struggled, we were coming straight back here. No exceptions.
I wasn’t risking another relapse.
I did a double take as the patio door opened and Marla walked out, Mom chuckling. “Someone surprised us with a visit. She wanted to come and make sure you were okay.”
I hadn’t seen my baby sister since March last year, and she looked so much older as she walked towards us.
I’d never even gotten to say goodbye when she’d left in June for college since I’d been in here back then too.
“Hey, Ry,” she smiled, and I stood to wrap her in a hug. She made a sound of protest, but I didn’t care.
“How’s Harvard? Did you make a bunch of friends? Do you?—”
Laughter left her as she stepped back, giving me an amused look. “School’s been really good, and yes, I have some friends. I’m sorry I didn’t say goodbye, it was selfish.”
She sat beside Mom and filled me in on her classes and housemates, and I loved how excited she was. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen her like this about anything. She’d always been meant for more than what Ashburn Valley could give her.
She’d probably run for president one day, and I wouldn’t be surprised.
Arms draped over my shoulders, and I tilted my head so Tempest could drop a kiss on my neck. She was insanely affectionate, and I was all for it. It wasn’t like before when she was desperate for attention, she just loved touching me.
I couldn’t lie, I really liked it.
“Hey,” she murmured to me, lifting her eyes to Marla. “Marla? Where have you been?”
It was obvious no one had told Marla about my relationship because her eyes slid to mine in question.
I laughed, tugging Tempest onto my lap, ignoring the annoyed growl from Archer close by.
“Baby, Marla went to Harvard. Marla, Tempest is my girlfriend.”
“That sounds like a catastrophe,” Marla said with a wince, making me grimace.
“It was. We’re doing better now though. How long are you here for?”
“Only a few days, I have to get back to classes.”
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
“Ugh, no. I don’t have time for that,” she scoffed. “I have time for you though, if you ever need to call me. I know I’m not Beckett, but I’m here if you need to vent. I’m sorry I haven’t made the effort before. I was just suffocating at home, and I was a bit of a bitch.”
“I don’t want you to be Beckett, I like you for you,” I promised. “Have you seen her? She visits me pretty regularly. I see her sometimes twice a week.”
It had been nice to reconnect with my twin. We’d both taken such separate paths in life, and things had been weird between us since she’d gone to prison when we were twenty. By the time she’d gotten out last January, I’d made friends with the guys in Blackwater and was doing my own thing, and she was used to dealing with things alone.
And she was obviously busy fucking my best friend and our brother, but whatever.
I was still a little bitter about it, but I was working on it.
“We need to leave, but we’ll see you next week,” Archer said as he leaned down to kiss Tempest’s head, patting me on the shoulder. “Look after my girl.”
“Always,” I smiled, not minding when Lexi hugged both of us tightly. They’d spent a lot of time here over the past month, and we’d all had a lot of conversations.
Tempest stood from my lap to walk them out to the main door, and I watched her go.
She was still skinny, but she’d put a couple of pounds on. I was a little obsessed with it, to be honest.
Her tits and ass were bigger, but I loved the extra weight on her thighs. I didn’t feel like I was going to break her now, her ribs not as exposed anymore either. Her face was rounder too, and her skin was slowly getting a glow to it again.
I hadn’t noticed how unhealthy she’d looked the past few years until she’d started healing here.
“How’s she doing?” Mom asked quietly once Tempest was gone, and I sighed.
“Self-esteem is through the floor without the fake confidence from drugs and alcohol, and she’s quiet when she’s not having one of her psychotic episodes. Takes a lot to pull her out of her shell, to be honest.”
Her episodes hit at any time, and we still weren't sure if she had some kind of undiagnosed mental health condition or if it was the long lasting effects of substance abuse. It was something her doctor was working on with her though, so hopefully we’d find out soon.
“Is the porn career a bad idea then?” she asked dryly, and Marla almost snapped her neck looking at her. “Oh, sorry. Forgot to tell you. Your brother’s a porn star now,” Mom added.
I rolled my eyes, crossing my arms. “I can make her feel like the hottest woman in the world. She loves the job, I just don’t let her run the social media aspects so she doesn’t see the nasty comments.”
“Ry has a job?” Marla sputtered. “It’s a miracle.”
Mom laughed, but I flipped them both off. “Fuck both of you.”
“I’m just happy you’re doing something, trust me,” Mom smirked, patting my arm. “I need to go too, but do you need anything?”
“No, I’m good. Channing dropped me off a bunch of snacks last week, and the staff here are very accommodating.”
“They’d want to be for what I pay them,” she grumbled, getting to her feet. “I’ll see you next week with Luke and Jense. Marco and Skeet will be here on Friday to check in. Angel said she’d come with Mikey and Poppy if you’re up for it.”
There had been a time when I’d spent most of my days drinking with Angel. When had I even seen her last? Or Mikey?
“I’d like to see her,” I replied, frowning. “Maybe you could bring Noah? I owe him an apology too.”
Mom cringed, not seeming convinced. “I’ll think about it. I don’t like the idea of him being in places like this.”
I couldn’t blame her for that.
“Okay, I can always talk to him when I get out, I guess. I love you.”
She smiled, dropping a kiss on top of my head. “I love you too. We’re really proud of you. Keep working hard and come home to us, okay?”
“I will.”
Marla stayed for a while longer after Mom had gone, Tempest joining us. Tempest was quiet, listening to us talk, and she kept toying with her hands. She always got twitchy when her parents left, and it didn’t help that her caffeine wasn’t allowed in here.
Her lack of coffee was almost worse than watching her come off the drugs and alcohol.
I slid a hand onto her thigh under the table, feeling her relax.
Small steps.
Loving someone like Tempest came with its challenges, but it just made me want to fight harder. Having her on this journey with me was the best motivation because I wanted to see her thrive too.
If I couldn’t fight for myself, I’d fight for her, which kept us both on the right path.
The rest of the day passed in a blur, Marla promising to call more as she left, and then Tempest and I spent hours curled up on the couch with Netflix on.
This was better than any drug, I just had to keep reminding myself of that.
Fifty-two days to go, and then I was out of here.
Hopefully, only fifty-six days to go until my girl joined me too.
Tempest
I wasn’t going to last. Two months without it was slowly killing me.
I’d managed to sneak a little in when no one was looking, but it was hard with so many eyes on me.
Resorting to begging was pitiful, but since when did I give a shit about that?
Ryder had decided to work out a little in the afternoon once visitors had all left, getting bored with our Netflix session after a few hours, so I snuck into the kitchen, finding Cathy.
She was the chef, so she could get goods in easily with deliveries.
“Cathy—”
“You’re going to get me fired,” she grumbled, knowing exactly why I was here. “You had some last week, I told you this wasn’t going to be a regular thing.”
“Please?” I begged, shutting the door to give us privacy. “I’m going to die.”
A scoff left her, and amusement filled her eyes as she started walking towards the other side of the kitchen. “Last one for the month, okay?”
I nodded, knowing I could twist her arm again next week anyway, and my mouth watered as I waited. Hopefully, our conversation was drowned out by all the fans in here. She was cooking a lot of soup, which also got me excited.
I was obsessed with her minestrone.
Cathy returned with the goods, offering it to me with a huff. “I mean it, Hendricks. I can’t keep doing this.”
I wrapped my hands around the steaming hot mug of coffee, inhaling the scent with a groan. It wasn’t the best coffee, but I wasn’t going to be fussy. All they had was fucking decaf garbage in the communal room.
It was like dirt that didn’t wake you up, it was useless.
“I think I love you,” I said between sips, trying not to chug it down too quickly, wanting to savor it.
“That’s the coffee talking,” she deadpanned, her eyes going wide a second later before she spun around to look busy.
Arms slid around my waist, Ryder’s voice in my ear. “Busted.”
I turned, giving him a guilty look. “Baby, it’s not what you think?—”
“If you can give up meth, you can give up caffeine.”
“Absolutely fucking not,” I scoffed, amusement filling his eyes.
“I can’t believe you’ve been sneaking around behind my back like this.”
“The only other crutch you’ve had in your life is exercise. You have the gym here, I have coffee.” He eyeballed me, making me groan. “I’m sorry! I’m weak!”
“You’re not. You just need to go to the gym more and enjoy the endorphins,” he smirked, thankfully letting me finish my coffee before taking my hand. “C’mon, gym. Cathy? No more coffee, or I’m telling Mom.”
“Of course,” Cathy rambled, knowing she’d get fired if that happened, and my last lifeline was taken away from me just like that.
“I don’t want to work out. I’ll get all gross and sweaty,” I grumbled as he dragged me down the hallway, making him snort.
“Sweat is an ick for you now?”
“Well, no, but I’ll get tired!”
“Good, you need sleep and to make your brain tired to stop you from overthinking. Didn’t your therapist recommend some physical activity for that reason?”
“Yeah, but I was hoping fucking you would count as exercise,” I huffed.
Ryder was a tyrant in the gym. I’d gone a few times and thought he was going to kill me with all the running he made me do. I only humored him because now that I was eating three meals a day, I was getting chunky.
I was being dramatic, I hadn’t put that much weight on, but part of me was terrified of gaining more.
What if Ryder left me? He always said he didn’t have a type as long as it had a pussy, but I’d never seen him with chunky girls. He was totally going to leave me.
Could I get away with skipping lunches?
A hand cracked against my ass, pulling me from my thoughts.
“Whatever you’re thinking about, don’t. You’re dissociating,” he warned, knowing when I did that it was because I’d gotten inside my own head again. “Talk it through, don’t keep it to yourself.”
He was like a fucking rehab guru sometimes, and it got annoying, but I also loved him for it.
I blew out a breath, knowing he was good at erasing the doubt. “Working out would keep me smaller so you won’t leave me. You don’t like fat girls.”
Embarrassment washed through me, which was a side effect of being sober, so was shame.
I hadn’t missed this shit.
He took my shoulders, holding my gaze. “Who said I like a particular body type? You could be the size of a house, and I’d still love you. It’s what’s on the inside that counts.”
“My heart?”
“Your pussy,” he corrected, laughing as I swatted at him. “I’m kidding! I love you for you, okay? The only type I have is you. If they’re not you, I don’t want it.”
“But I’m not me anymore.”
“Wrong, you’re being yourself for the first time in years,” he said seriously, cupping my chin. “But you’re also still that girl who sat in my car talking in the middle of the night when we just wanted company, and the girl who’s bedroom window I’d sneak through just to sleep sometimes so we could be lonely together. We get each other, remember? You forget that we didn’t meet in high school after you’d gone off the rails, we grew up together watching cartoons and playing with your dolls. I think the way neither of us connect sex and love is a good thing because it means we look for love in other things. All girls have a pussy, but they don’t have your laugh, voice, or quirks. Sex isn’t love, the connection is. What I feel for you, I’ve never felt for anyone else.”
My eyes burned with tears, the negative thoughts washing away like they always did when he reassured me. “You’re kind of perfect, you know that?”
“I know,” he joked, dropping a kiss to my lips.
“I should’ve known. The Prince of Ashburn Valley’s always been a cocky asshole,” I sighed, squealing as he tossed me over his shoulder. “Ry!”
“Hush. You’re not getting out of exercise. You need to work off that caffeine, or you’ll be awake half the night,” he scolded, making me grin as I smacked his butt as I hung upside down. It was a nice view.
“If I’m not tired, you can wear me out in bed.”
“Trust me, you were going to be bouncing on my cock after dinner anyway. Gym, shower, dinner, fucking. In that order.”
“Yes, sir,” I deadpanned, laughing as he spanked me again.
The good news was that I was still into most things in the bedroom, but I was pretty sure it was because I trusted him.
We’d done a lot of couples therapy sessions together since getting here, which had helped a lot. The first few were hard because we were both so damn damaged when we arrived, and the withdrawals had meant couples appointments had to be paused after one or two because we were both too tense, but we’d started them up again now as a way to help us focus on our recovery.
He’d been really hurt by me drugging his drink, and we were still working through it. I got to speak freely about my thought process behind it, and the longer I stayed sober, the more my remorse grew.
I was pretty sure he realized how serious I was since he was still by my side. He could’ve left, walked away from me and made life so much easier for himself, but he didn’t.
He stuck by me when I was having a meltdown, or called him nasty names. Then he held me while I cried as the guilt hit me when I’d calmed down.
My emotional whiplash was still a problem, but I was working on it.
As usual, he killed me in the gym. Then we got to fuck in the shower once we were done before heading to the communal kitchen, where everyone ate. It kind of felt like high school all over again.
The thought made me feel sick, and I knew for a fact that college wasn’t in my future no matter how much I turned my life around.
I’d hated school back then, so I knew I’d still hate it now.
Ryder had decided he wanted to finish college despite us continuing to make porn. He’d dropped out last year with only a few months to go, thanks to his last rehab trip, so Rory had organized for him to finish what he’d started, getting his work sent here as of this month.
Everyone was worried it would stress him out too much, but he needed his brain to be occupied, so I thought it was a great idea.
He worked on it when I had my solo therapy sessions, spending his time alone in the small library room.
I hated being away from him, but my therapist was helping me through that too. I’d had a bad case of co-dependency when I’d arrived, but like everything else, it was a work in progress.
Ryder had to learn to stop saving me, and I had to learn to stop relying on him. I didn’t even know that was a toxic thing, but it was.
I didn’t hate being alone now if it was for short periods of time, which was a good feeling.
We ate and mingled with all the other patients, then we made some quick videos for our subscribers of us going down on each other before putting the phone camera away.
One boundary we’d set was that not everything needed to be recorded, some of it was just for us.
By the time we were both ready to curl up in bed, my brain was exhausted, my pussy hurt, and my head was clear.
Of course the rich prick had managed to get us a shared room after the first month via his scary mom privileges. I had no idea how, and I hadn’t asked.
The voices were few and far between, but night time was the worst when it was so quiet.
They didn’t seem to bother me when Ryder was beside me though.
Ryder’s arm was firmly wrapped around me from behind, and he kissed my neck. “You’re the big spoon tomorrow.”
“Only if you make me come with your mouth first.”
“Deal. I love you.”
“I love you too.”
Relationships were all about meeting in the middle.
I glanced at the clock on the bedside table, smiling slightly as I realized it was after midnight.
Sixty-five days down, fifty-five more to go.
I could totally do this.
The End.