9. Alex #2
“I figured you’d ask.” He takes one step closer, then stops when my fingers tighten around the bag. Rain darkens his hair and runs along the collar of his shirt. “I can show you the feeds, and I can turn them off while you’re here if that helps.”
I look from him to the camera under the porch.
Preston used knowledge like a hand around my throat.
Passwords, receipts, location, photos, every little piece of proof that I was not allowed to exist unobserved.
Ryder stands in front of me with the same kind of knowledge at his fingertips and offers to give it up if I ask.
Even if we both know it would make things more dangerous and difficult.
And he’s offering to do that…just because I’m asking.
My stomach twists because the answer should be simple, but nothing about Ryder has felt simple since the night he wiped ash from my cheek and looked at me like he’d been waiting years to touch me. And I’m sitting here wanting more from him.
“Leave them on,” I say.
He nods once. “Okay.”
My throat burns because I know I need to tell him everything. “I don’t like that I want them on.”
“I know,” he says quietly.
“You’re not supposed to agree with me that fast.”
Ryder adjusts the strap of my work bag on his shoulder. “I’m not agreeing. I’m listening.”
I hate how effective that is at stopping me from wanting to argue just for the sake of arguing.
Inside, he disarms the alarm, then steps aside so I can see the keypad. The correction is small, fast, and obviously deliberate. He gives me the code without turning it into a speech, waits while I repeat it back, then sets my duffel near the hall instead of carrying it away from me.
“If you want to leave, that code gets you out,” he says, hanging his keys on a hook by the door. “You don’t have to wake me up or ask.”
The words hit hard enough that I look down at the McDonald’s bag to avoid his face. “That’s very trusting of you. I could rob you blind.”
“You’d steal the good snacks first.”
My head lifts.
His expression tells me he regrets the sentence before I say a word.
“The good snacks?” I repeat.
Ryder sighs, taking the food from my hand and setting it on the kitchen island. “I bought groceries yesterday.”
“For yourself?”
“For the house,” he says, then gives up on that answer when I only stare at him.
I open the refrigerator before either of us can pretend I won’t. The light spills over water bottles, eggs, leftovers in glass containers, oat milk, and the vanilla creamer I buy when I’m pretending my checking account isn’t screaming at me to be more frugal.
My fingers tighten on the door handle.
Ryder stands near the island, folding the top of the McDonald’s bag again with slow, careful hands. He doesn’t rush to explain. He lets me look, and somehow that makes it worse and better at the same time.
“You have my creamer,” I say.
“Yes.”
“And oat milk.”
“You drink it even if I think it’s disgusting,” he replies, glancing at me and then back at the bag in his hands. “At coffee shops. At Josh’s when his woman buys it by mistake. You act like it’s no big deal, then finish the carton before anyone else decides whether they like it.”
“That is a lot of attention paid to milk.”
“It’s not the milk I’m paying attention to.”
I shut the refrigerator. The answer is too plain for me to push against, so I move to the pantry because apparently tonight I’m determined to find every emotional landmine in Ryder’s kitchen.
Sea salt kettle chips. Cinnamon cereal. Granola bars I only buy on sale. Sour gummy worms near the front, bright and obnoxious.
I lift the bag. “You hate candy.”
Ryder finally looks at me for more than a second. “You eat them when you’re on deadline.”
“I complain the whole time.”
“You still finish the bag.”
My laugh comes out thin, but it’s real. I put the candy back and close the pantry door with my palm, staying turned away for a moment while my pulse taps hard in my throat. “Preston remembered things too.”
The McDonald’s bag crinkles behind me where Ryder’s hand tightens around the folded paper.
“He remembered my coffee, my favorite restaurants, the earrings I wore on our third date,” I say, keeping my eyes on the pantry door because his face might make me stop.
“It felt romantic until it didn’t. Then all those details turned into proof.
Proof I changed. Proof I lied. Proof I owed him for caring enough to notice. ”
Ryder’s boots shift against the kitchen floor, one step closer before he stops himself. “I’m not him.”
“I know that.” I turn around, forcing myself to meet his eyes. “I do know that, Ryder. But my body is not having a great night with the finer details. I want it, but I’m so fucking scared that it’s the same, deep down.”
His gaze lowers to my wrist, then comes back to my face. “I can take you somewhere else. Somewhere that won’t trigger you.”
The offer is perfect and immediate and he didn’t even have to think about it before he makes it. He doesn’t look wounded or angry. He looks ready to grab the keys and drive me wherever I decide to go, even if the decision hurts him.
That steadies me more than a defense of his actions would have.
“I don’t want to leave,” I tell him, gripping the end of my sleeve. “I just need you to understand why this scares me. Why you scare me.”