Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
THADDEUS
As soon as Ryder and Tap disappeared around the corner of the garage, I closed the front door and leaned against it.
For seven days, I’d been determined to tell Ryder about my company, the Elosand software contract, and how very fucked up I felt about both since I’d met him.
And seven days in a row, I’d chickened out.
I’d stopped working on the contract proposal the day after our swim.
I couldn’t face Ryder on the sofa each night, knowing that every keystroke I made was contributing to another nail in the coffin of the cottage and his life.
I was in way too deep, and I couldn’t pretend it didn’t matter anymore, that he didn’t matter anymore, or that this, whatever we were doing, was only a temporary blip on my radar.
That ship had sailed a week back, and now it seemed nothing more than mercenary, ignorant, and hurtful.
I felt like two different men. The man I was before Ryder and the man I was becoming after.
I couldn’t believe I’d bought my own lies.
No matter what pain I’d been going through, or whatever shallow excuses I’d tried to give myself, I felt truly ashamed for maybe the first time in my life.
I headed back to the kitchen, pulled a face at the sheeting rain, and began to tidy up.
As I worked, I mulled over my time at the cottage.
I was fucking things up because I was terrified I’d lose any chance I had with Ryder when he knew the truth.
I also knew that with every passing day, the likelihood of that happening had been growing exponentially until I’d reached the point where I felt paralysed to do anything at all.
I needed to get back to Wellington, but I couldn’t leave without Ryder knowing the truth.
It had to change, and it had to change today.
Somehow, in a little under three weeks, fresh out of a break-up, I’d fallen for a guy I had no business wanting.
Not just fallen for but falling in love with.
But a relationship with Ryder had very real consequences that I couldn’t ignore.
If I did, it would put the two of us at odds and we wouldn’t survive.
It was as simple as that. If I continued with the Elosand contract, I’d be saying goodbye to Ryder, no question about it.
It would be like cutting out his heart. A betrayal of what he held dear.
Ryder would never forgive me, and rightly so. If for no other reason than I’d be doing it not for any strongly held belief, but because I wanted to fuck over my best friend and save a company I wasn’t even sure I really wanted anymore.
I’d spent seven days chewing my nails and sleeping with Ryder, trying to decide if what was happening between us was enough to force a total rethink of what the fuck I was doing with my life.
Then it had struck me in the shower that morning as I was rinsing the soap from Ryder’s beautiful body, that all those questions were just another way of lying to myself . . . again.
I’d been blaming Ryder for the need to make a decision. Blaming how I felt about him and how I didn’t want to hurt him. As if, without Ryder in my life, there’d be no need for any decision at all and I could simply continue on my merry way.
There was, of course, Ryder to consider.
But the truth was much more complicated.
Before I’d decided to submit a bid, I’d thoroughly researched Elosand as a company, or at least the software development side.
But over the last few days, I’d expanded that research into data storage centres as a whole, their ethos and footprint, and it didn’t read well.
Using the Bellbird River as a water source for cooling would have a dramatic effect on its flow.
I wasn’t sure if even Ryder understood exactly how much.
Coolant water couldn’t be released back into the environment without significant and costly treatment, and nothing in the public information I’d read addressed that issue.
The software I’d been working on was targeted at the most efficient and cost-effective use of that coolant water, not its recycling or lack thereof.
And so I’d been ploughing ahead, ignorant of anything but my own tiny piece of the puzzle, excited by the challenge, the complexity, and the hefty financial reward, but ignorant of the rest.
I had no excuse. Not anymore. Over the last week, I’d sat by that river every day that the weather allowed. Sometimes at the pump site and sometimes by our swimming hole. Our swimming hole? Oh boy. I’d even glimpsed Boris gliding in the depths.
It was a peace I’d never encountered before.
Until the cottage, I’d rarely been alone with my thoughts.
I tended to fill quiet times with gaming or work or Judd.
My world consisted of computers, software, and my company.
Judd was the man who filled any time spent away from a screen.
Hardly romantic when I thought about it.
Even less, the basis for long-term happiness, and the realisation didn’t sit comfortably.
Had I used Judd to avoid facing my own loneliness? Even with Judd around, I’d still felt alone. That wasn’t love, I didn’t think. And it definitely wasn’t fair to him.
Emotionally unavailable, he’d called me, and I almost laughed, because shit, maybe I had been.
I’d been emotionally unavailable to myself, after all.
I’d been unwilling to admit a lot of shit in case I had to do something about it.
It didn’t excuse what Judd had done, but it revealed some uncomfortable truths. Truths I needed to address.
In three weeks, I’d come to love the cottage and the land it was built on.
To love the way Ryder’s eyes lit up when he walked in his garden.
To love the ruru, that damn ghost dog, the blackbirds, the chickens, and even fucking Boris—as long as he kept his distance.
I loved all of it. I hadn’t been lonely or empty.
I’d felt alive in ways I hadn’t ever felt.
And I felt truly responsible for my life for maybe the first time.
So, no. The decision I faced hadn’t been about Ryder for a long time. It was about me. It had only ever been about me. And I’d been running away from it . . . again.
I threw the tea towels in the laundry hamper and stared at the calendar fixed to Ryder’s fridge.
He’d circled in red the date the stones needed to be moved; the date of the open council meeting in three weeks, when public submissions would be heard regarding the data storage development; and the January date when a hearing would decide the fate of Ryder’s lease.
I stared at that last one for a long, long time.
The thought of Ryder losing Heligan Cottage was almost too painful to consider.
I took a deep breath, fetched my laptop from the chair in our—Ryder’s bedroom, and opened the bifold doors so I could hear the rain hammering on the iron roof over the deck. Then I sat sideways on the sofa with the laptop open on my stomach, and Ziggy curled at my feet.
It was time to put up or shut up. And with that in mind, the first thing I did was ignore the urge to call my mother, or anyone for that matter. This had to be my decision.
The second thing I did was call my lawyer.
I instructed him to send Phillip a contract by the end of the day with the amount required to buy me out of the company.
At that, the phone went silent. Eventually, Hank’s strangled voice asked me to please explain, which I did, trying not to sound like I’d had some hippie-like epiphany, even if my reasoning still sounded weak and a little nuts.
Understandably, Hank wasn’t impressed. He gave the kind of frustrated sigh that he saved for his most vexing clients and said, “Am I to understand that you’re giving Phillip the opportunity to buy you out of the company you started from nothing, and of which you’ve been extremely proud, at a price well below its worth?
The same extraordinarily successful company that’s been earning you a substantial amount of money.
And you want me to offer this plum opportunity to the man with whom your boyfriend cheated on you? Is that the gist of it?”
I smiled, thankful that Hank couldn’t see me and that I couldn’t see how close he was to losing his shit. “Since you put it that way, the answer is yes.”
The long silence that followed almost made me reconsider if I was doing the right thing.
Almost. But I wasn’t the same man who’d gone to sleep in a chicken shed almost three weeks before.
I’d faced down a bulldozer, fronted up to a truck driver itching for a fight, and fallen for an extraordinary man whose opinion of me truly mattered.
I no longer cared what Phillip thought or did.
And even less about Judd. As long as they were out of my life, I didn’t give a flying fuck.
“Look, Hank.” I tried to put him out of his misery. “I know you think this is crazy, but I’ve done a lot of thinking these past weeks, and I came to the conclusion that I don’t want the company to keep moving in the same direction. I want to do something different, radically different—”
“You mean risky, slightly woo-hoo, eco-sustainable, carbon-neutral renewable shit, right? Those are the buzz words of the moment, after all.”
My head fell back and I counted to ten. “You make it sound like a bad thing.”
“Not bad,” he said more softly. “Just not . . . economically reliable.”
Nothing like having your own fears and concerns thrown right back at you.
“I do know that,” I tried to reassure both of us.
“And I don’t know exactly what my next move will be, but yes, maybe something to do with alternative fuel or food security or crop management .
. . I don’t know . . . just so long as it doesn’t fuck the world up more than I found it. ”