5. Alex #2
Then he told me not to embarrass him and that he was already going to make me pay as soon as we got home.
Then someone pointed a camera at us.
And I smiled like the good little woman he demanded I be.
I kept that goddamn smile on my face for hours. Until we were home and he took a belt to my skin like I deserved his anger and the pain.
The memory hits with enough force that the parking lot blurs.
I turn the picture over.
You looked happier with me.
The handwriting is neat and too familiar to dismiss everything else as coincidence.
My lungs stop doing their job properly.
“No,” I whisper and let the word disappear into the rain, useless and small.
That denial is all I can manage through the rising panic.
I tore this picture up. I remember the sound of it after I shattered the frame that been holding it in the living room. I remember shoving the pieces under coffee grounds in the trash because even then, some part of me was afraid he might find a way to put me back together wrong.
The photo smells like cigarette smoke and his overly expensive cologne.
Maybe that’s impossible.
Maybe my brain is filling in the horror of my memories for free.
Headlights sweep into the lot.
I jerk back and hit my shoulder against the open car door.
For one terrible second, I see nothing but the glare of the lights. My hand crushes the photograph, and every parked car around me becomes a place someone could hide. My pulse jumps so hard it hurts behind my eyes.
Then the truck turns and I see the driver.
Ryder.
Relief hits before I can stop it, warm and humiliating and so strong my knees almost forget to hold me on my feet.
He parks crookedly two spaces away and gets out before the engine fully settles. Rain darkens his shirt in seconds. He moves toward me fast, then slows, like he remembers halfway across the lot that charging at a panicked woman might not improve the situation.
“Alex.”
I try to answer him. Try to give him anything other than the extreme fear coursing through my veins.
Nothing happens.
His gaze moves over me, the open car door, the photograph clutched in my hand. When he reaches me, he doesn’t touch me, though his hand flexes like he wants to.
“What happened?”
I hold out the photo with trembling fingers.
Ryder takes it carefully.
The change in him is silent. His jaw tightens, and the warmth leaves his face so completely I feel the absence of it. He looks at the picture, then past me to the building, the stairwells, the shadowed gaps between cars.
I’ve seen Ryder worried, and irritated, and even scared once when we were kids and their family cat took off down the road in a rainstorm.
This is none of those things.
This is Ryder looking for somewhere to put the violence in him. The violence everyone in his life has pretended never existed.
But I’ve seen it.
A smart part of me knows I should be alarmed by that. Unfortunately, the terrified part is too busy feeling safer because he has shifted in front of me, blocking the open lot with his body like he can make himself into a wall that nothing and no one can get through.
“Did you touch anything besides the door and the photo?”
I look at my car like it might answer for me. “No. I don’t think so.”
Ryder nods once, then crouches beside the driver’s side.
He checks under the car first, which makes my stomach twist because that had not occurred to me, and now it will be something I check every day for the rest of my life.
He looks inside without moving anything, studies the floorboard, the console, the back seat, then stands with rain sliding from the brim of his cap.
“Has he ever shown up at places you didn’t tell him you’d be?”
I fold my arms, tucking my shaking hands beneath my sleeves. “Yes.” I don’t want to tell him the rest. I don’t want to give those shattered pieces of my soul to him, but I can feel the shift.
Ryder’s attention sharpens, but he doesn’t interrupt.
That somehow makes talking easier and worse at the same time.
“He used to, at least. After fights. He’d show up at the grocery store, outside work, once at the library when I told him I needed space to finish an article.
” My voice sounds steadier than I feel, which is nice.
Fraudulent, but nice. “He always had a reason. He was in the area. He wanted to surprise me. He thought we should talk before things got worse.”
Ryder looks toward the road, and I see the muscle in his jaw move.
“He made me feel like I was crazy, like everything was a coincidence and I was making a huge problem out of nothing,” The confession slips out before I can make it smaller.
His eyes come back to mine.
I swallow hard. “He always knew things I never told him.”
Rain falls between us. The parking lot smells like wet pavement and old leaves, and somewhere behind Ryder, a stairwell light flickers hard enough to make the shadows jump.
Something passes across his face too quickly for me to understand.
Recognition, maybe.
Guilt.
That one makes less sense, but it’s the word that sticks.
“How did you know where I was?” I ask.
Ryder glances down at the photograph in his hand. “You mentioned the assignment.”
“I mentioned a redevelopment piece. Not Mason Ridge.”
He is quiet for half a beat too long.
“Small town,” he says with an almost dismissive shrug.
I almost laugh, but there is no humor in it because we’re still standing in the rain. “That answer gets worse every time you use it.”
“I know.”
The honesty is more unsettling than the lie I can see written all over his face.
Ryder opens my car door wider and checks the back seat one more time before stepping aside. “Let me follow you home.” He hands me the photo and nods toward the road.
I want to argue. The shape of the words are already there, familiar and sharp on my tongue, because I do not like being told what to do by men who look like they could carry me out of a burning building or ruin my life with one concerned stare.
But I’m tired of fighting against the feelings I have for him. At least right now.
Seeing Ryder’s headlights in my mirror sounds better than driving home alone while pretending I’m not afraid.
“Fine,” I say.
His mouth softens just enough to let me know he hears everything I’m trying to hide under that word.
I climb into the car before he can say anything and shut the door against the drizzle.
The drive back to my apartment is quiet and strangely intimate for two people in separate vehicles.
Ryder stays behind me the whole way, close enough that I know where he is without feeling crowded.
When another car turns in behind us, his truck shifts slightly, taking up a position that makes my throat tighten for reasons I refuse to examine while operating a motor vehicle.
Every time I check the mirror, he is there.
The steadiness of it does something to my breathing.
By the time we reach my building, the rain has turned heavier, smearing the streetlights into gold across the pavement. I park in my usual spot and sit with both hands on the wheel. My car is off. My seat belt is unbuckled but I still don’t move.
Ryder opens my door and my frigid heart thaws for him even more at the kind gesture.
He stands there in the rain, shirt damp, hat low, expression carefully blank except for his eyes. His eyes are filled with a dozen different emotions and I don’t know how to handle any of them.
“Thank you.” It sounds inadequate, when it means everything to me.
He looks at my hands.
I’m shaking again.
I curl my fingers into my sleeves trying to soothe myself, but I can feel the anxiety and fear growing by the second. I’m not even trying to fool myself or the man who has made the idea of noticing me his entire personality this week.
Ryder reaches in slowly.
I have time to stop him or tell him no, or even to shake my head or take a step back.
I don’t do any of that.
His hand settles at the back of my neck while he hugs me, warm and steady against my damp skin.
My whole body quiets so fast it scares me more than the photograph.
The pressure in my chest loosens. My breathing evens out.
Some panicked part of me recognizes his touch as safe before my brain can decide whether that is smart.
The contact is too intimate. Too natural. Too easy.
Ryder knows.
I can see that he knows because his eyes darken, and his hand stills like he’s fighting himself as hard as I am.
Then he lets go.
The cold comes back immediately.
“You call me if anything else happens,” he says.
This time, there is no pretending it’s a casual offer.
I nod because my voice is gone and I’m not about to croak out anything. Or worse, invite him inside to hold me.
He walks me to my door and I feel him there with every step, his attention never wavering.
“Good night, Allycat.” He leans forward and brushes a wet strand of hair behind my ear.
With a nod, I shut the door and lean against it before moving into the kitchen so I can stare at Ryder’s truck in the parking lot.
It’s not until I see him leave that I strip and change into dry pajamas.
And for the first time since finally leaving Preston, I want more. More than a silent apartment, or the ability to starfish in the middle of my bed.
I want Ryder.
I sleep with my phone in my hand because some terrified, traitorous part of me believes Ryder will come if I call.