Chapter 26 - Ryker
TWENTY-SIX
RYKER
I’d planned on driving right past Peytonsville, but I’ve gotten five different calls from my family, and my phone keeps ringing nonstop. I curse as I get near the exit and take the off-ramp.
It’s another half hour before I’m pulling up to my parents’ home.
There are a lot of cars parked on their lawn.
I clutch the steering wheel of my new, used sedan tightly and park a bit farther away so nobody can see it.
My phone says that my mother tried to call seven times, and my father twice. My oldest niece even tried calling.
I sigh, grab my wallet and phone, and make my way to the house.
Maybe Madison finally got that divorce she wanted, and my mother is treating it as the end of the world. That would be just like her. I wouldn’t even blame Madison for keeping the kids away from my brother—or my mother.
My brother didn’t bother to call me, but then, I can’t remember the last time he did. Maybe Christmas two years ago, when he needed money to buy some presents.
I knock on the front door.
An older woman opens it, and at first, I don’t recognize her.
“Ryker?” she asks, her eyes widening. “It’s so good you came!”
Oh. She was my high school math teacher.
“Hi, Mrs. Liefeld. What are you doing here?” I ask as I follow her inside.
I’m surprised to see my aunt Dolly sitting on the couch next to my mother. I haven’t seen her in a few years, despite the fact she lives only an hour away. But she’s hugging my mother now, and my mother is in tears.
“What happened?” I ask, casting my gaze around the room. A lot of the town’s women are gathered here. My father is sitting at the kitchen table, sipping on a beer and smoking a cigarette.
Dolly looks up at me, her own eyes shimmering with tears. “You didn’t listen to the messages? Oh god, it’s horrible. Your brother… your brother…”
I tilt my head, and even though I can see the threads connecting, I ask anyway, “What about my brother?”
My mother bursts into louder sobbing.
Mrs. Liefeld rubs my back. “He’s dead, Ryker. Phil got into a hunting accident.”
A hunting accident.
I stare at everyone, then I can’t help it.
I burst out laughing.
My mother recoils. “Ryker! It’s not funny! It’s… it’s not! Your brother is dead!”
I shake my head. “It’s not funny, Ma. It’s fucking stupid. What fucking business did he have going hunting?”
“One of his work friends invited him,” Ma says through her tears. “I don’t have the slightest clue why he thought it was a good idea.”
I look around, realizing Madison and her kids aren’t there.
A work friend? Did Phil even have friends?
My father suddenly slams his beer onto the table. “A man’s got the right to hunt! Phil wasn’t doing anything wrong.”
“That right got him killed!” my mother shouts back.
Christ.
I shake my head and mentally try to place it. The calls had started happening earlier today, so Phil can’t have been dead long.
“When was this?” I ask, interrupting my parents’ argument.
“Yesterday afternoon,” Dolly says. “That’s when they went hunting, I mean. The accident happened this morning. It was an overnight thing. Camping.”
Fucking camping. I’d laugh again, except I’m already on everyone’s shit list.
I guess if I wanted to murder Phil and make it look like an accident, I’d pick hunting, too.
“Where’s his body now?” I ask. “Did you have to identify him?”
My mother shakes her head. “No. Madison did. She and the kids are devastated. I should… I should go to her.”
Dolly wraps her arms around my mother again. “No. I spoke to her. She wants to be alone right now. We’ll take a casserole over to her later, all right?”
Mrs. Liefeld nods. “I’ll help with that. Really, Sharon, you need to take time for yourself right now too.”
I don’t want to be here for this. I don’t want to pretend to grieve my brother, when the only thing I feel right now is indifference.
I don’t want to watch my mother break down into sobs, or my father pretend he isn’t sad.
They’re both going to be insufferable.
I’m a fucking monster, that I don’t care about any of this.
“I’ll go,” I say. “I’ll check on Madison.”
My mother gives me a grateful look. “Please. Let me know how the kids are doing. They must be devastated.”
Or relieved, depending. I don’t think Phil was the best father, but what do I know? I’m not around to judge his parenting skills.
I head back out and get into my car. I stare at the console for a few seconds, debating simply driving out of town entirely.
I pick up my phone and check my voice messages instead.
Please call me back, my mother’s voice says in between sobs.
It’s important. Please, the next one says.
So many from my mother. One from my father, urging me to call Ma.
And one from Madison.
I’m so sorry, she says through her sobs. He’s gone, Ryker. Taken from us.
Really? Taken from her? She didn’t give a shit about Phil. She’s the one who disliked him the most.
I go through my phone contacts and call Liam.
He picks up almost immediately.
“Hi,” he says breathlessly.
“Hi,” I answer, and I’m surprised at how angry I sound with just that one syllable.
There’s a brief pause. “Is something wrong?” he asks.
I take a breath and let out a soft chuckle. “Not really. My brother was in a hunting accident.”
Why the fuck am I telling him this? It’s none of his business.
“Is he dead?” Liam asks bluntly.
“Yep.” I tilt my seat so I can lie back. “My brother always talked big about hunting, but it’s not like he or my dad knew how to do it. Rah, rah, Second Amendment rights, but god forbid they pay the money to get a license and learn how to shoot.”
“I’m… sorry?” he tries. “Were you close or anything?” There’s so much curiosity brimming in his voice, but I can tell he’s trying to hold it back.
“Nope.” I sigh again. “Everybody’s crying. What the fuck am I supposed to do? I can’t cry.”
“Do they expect you to cry?” Liam asks. “You could always rub a few onions in your eyes. Then you’ll shed a single, manly tear.”
I laugh at that, and I guess I do know why I called Liam. He’s not going to care that I’m completely indifferent to my own brother’s death.
“That’s true. Men don’t cry, or whatever that stereotype is.” I stare up at the inside roof of my sedan, and I wish I still had the SUV. “Would you cry if I died?”
Liam lets out a surprised laugh. “I’d be very sad, but since real men don’t cry, I guess I wouldn’t need to.”
“My father wants to cry,” I say. “He’s drinking and smoking and staring off into nothing. If half the town’s women weren’t gathered here to comfort my mother…”
Funny that they’re here, though, and not with Madison, the actual widow.
“I don’t think my parents would cry if I died,” Liam says thoughtfully. “Unless they had onions up their sleeve, too. But someone might smell it and see through the farce, so they’d probably just ‘be strong’ and power through it.”
“I’d cry if you died,” I say on a whim. Liam inhales sharply, and I can feel that hope lingering in the pause. “Not really. But I think you’d be the closest I’d come to crying.”
“Aww, I knew you cared,” he replies. “When are you coming back? I miss you.”
“Tomor—” I curse. “Fuck. No, I have to stick around for a funeral or whatever. Shit. Now I need to rearrange all of my work, too. Fucking Phil.”
“Fucking Phil,” he echoes. “Try not to be too long. I think my balls will turn permanently blue if I have to keep waiting. Don’t suppose I can rub one out just once?”
I imagine Liam in bed, naked, his cuts still bleeding lightly.
“Tell you what,” I say, settling in better. “I’ll let you fuck yourself with a dildo.” I glance at my watch. “For the next ten minutes.”
“Ooh,” he says, and I hear the change in the quality of the call as he puts me on speaker. “One second! I have the perfect thing. It’s not as nice as your cock, of course, but it’ll do.”
I grin at the flattery. “Of course not. A piece of silicone could never compare.” I hear a drawer opening, then some rustling.
Finally, Liam says, “I’m ready!”
I can’t believe I’m about to have phone sex in my car while the rest of my family is mourning my dead brother.
“You probably need to loosen yourself up first. If the dildo is even half as impressive as me,” I say with amusement.
He whines. “But that’s going to take time, and you wouldn’t loosen me up. How am I supposed to pretend it’s you if I go all slow and gentle?”
“Because I’m telling you to do it, you brat,” I tell him, reaching down to undo my belt. “So loosen yourself up. I don’t want you bleeding because of me.”
Liam lets out a soft chuckle. “Never,” he agrees. I hear the cap of a bottle being opened, and I imagine him squirting lube all over his fingers as he gets into position to fuck himself on his fingers. “Okay,” he says breathlessly. “I have… mm, one finger. It’s practically nothing, though.”
“One finger isn’t going to loosen you up,” I say. “You really need way more than one finger. Two. Three. Maybe an entire hand.”
I groan, imagining my entire hand inside Liam.
Shit, I’ve never done that with anyone at all. I don’t hook up with enough men to find somebody who’s into it, and I’m certainly not going to fist a soon-to-be corpse.
“If you want me to take a whole hand, you’ll have to be the one to do it to me,” Liam replies. “Second finger… in.” He hums, and I can imagine the look of pleasure on his face as he takes it.
“I’ll do it,” I say. “I’ll reach inside you, so far in that I’ll be able to touch your heart.” I laugh at the ridiculous imagery, but I can’t deny that I want to have his heartbeat in my hands.
I unzip my fly and take my cock out to stroke myself, fully aware that anybody could walk out of the house and look for me. They won’t know it’s my car, not until they get close, and then they’ll see me masturbating.
What a scandal.
That would take their mind off of Phil, in any case.
Liam groans. “Have you ever held someone’s heart in your hands?” he asks.