13. Alex
ALEX
I read the same paragraph four times before admitting I have no idea what’s happening in the book I’m holding.
There’s a woman in it. Possibly a murder.
Maybe a bayou because they’re in New Orleans or somewhere with swamps.
I’m almost positive someone named Reva is either having an affair or hiding a body, but since my eyes keep sliding over the top of the page toward the security monitors glowing across Ryder’s living room, Reva and her questionable life choices are going to have to manage without me.
The monitors sit on the far end of the coffee table, angled away like Ryder thought that made them less obvious.
It does not, and it also makes me want to giggle at his thought process.
Front porch. Driveway. Garage. Back door. Side yard.
After three days staying with Ryder and hiding from the world, I’m starting to obsess over watching those cameras. But it’s time to start living.
No inside cameras, because Ryder told me that twice last night and once this morning before he went for a run, like repeating it would make the whole thing less intense. It didn’t, but I appreciated the effort. Sort of. In the same way that I appreciate the gray running shorts that he took off in.
I take another sip of coffee from the mug he handed me before he left. Black ceramic. Too big for my hand. Filled exactly how I like it because Ryder’s obsession comes with beverage service.
The side-yard feed flickers as wind shoves wet branches across the lens.
My stomach tightens before I can talk it out of reacting.
“Absolutely not,” I mutter to my nervous system, lowering the book into my lap. “We are not being bullied by shrubbery before eight in the morning.”
The house stays silent around me.
The obvious thought presses in, so I refuse to give in to any sort of panic.
Instead, I look at the front porch feed again and check the time on my phone to distract me because I’m clearly not going to finish this chapter of Reva’s story.
Ryder’s been gone twenty-three minutes. He said he’d be back in thirty.
He also said I could call if I needed anything, which is a reckless offer to make to a woman currently losing a staring contest with five camera angles and a fictional Reva who may or may not be a murderer. Or sleeping with a group of men.
I don’t call or text him because I am a strong and independent woman who just so happens to be panicking at not having him around now that I’m used to him.
I drink more coffee.
I pretend I’m not listening for any sign that he’s back.
The front porch camera catches him first.
Ryder comes up the steps in a dark hoodie and running shorts, sweat darkening his collar despite the cold. His hair is damp, his chest rising harder than usual, and he pauses at the door long enough to look over his shoulder toward the driveway.
I watch him do it on the monitor instead of through the window like a normal person.
The lock turns a second later.
“Don’t be weird,” I whisper to myself, then immediately sit straighter and lift the book like I’ve been fascinated by Reva and her murder menagerie this entire time.
Ryder steps inside, bringing cold air and the clean, sharp smell of rain with him. His eyes find me first, then the monitors, then the book in my hand.
“You okay?” he asks, closing the door behind him.
“I’m worried Reva may be making poor romantic choices.”
His mouth curves as he locks the door. “Reva?”
“Book woman.” I lift the paperback slightly. “She has suspicious taste in men and possibly access to a shovel and enough water to get rid of bodies effectively.”
“Sounds serious.”
“It is. I may have to intervene, or start the series all over again because it’s that good.”
Ryder toes off his running shoes by the mat, then grabs the towel he left over the banister before he went outside. He drags it over the back of his neck while walking toward the monitors, and I see him stop himself from leaning too close to check them.
What he’s actually doing is keeping himself from leaning too close to me.
I hate that I notice the correction.
I hate more that I want to praise him for it like he’s a golden retriever who didn’t eat drywall or pieces of the couch.
“You can check them,” I say, because apparently my mouth has chosen maturity against my will.
His gaze shifts to mine. “I got a glance.”
“Not the same thing.”
“No.” He rubs the towel over his hair, then tosses it onto the arm of the couch instead of crowding me on it. “But I’m trying to make it close.”
My fingers tighten around the book. “That’s annoying.”
“Me trying?”
“You being honest about trying. It makes it harder to complain or pick a fight over nothing.”
He laughs and then shifts closer slightly, just because he can see I’m waiting for a response. “I wouldn’t want to take that from you.”
I look at him over the top of the paperback. “Smart.”
His smile flashes quick and tired, then fades when his phone buzzes from the kitchen island where he left it charging. The sound pulls both our eyes.
My body notices every vibration now like a dog that learned to fear its owner.
Ryder crosses to the kitchen, keeping his movements easy. He checks the screen, reads the message, and sets the phone facedown again.
“Remy?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
I close the book around my finger to hold the page. “About Preston?”
“About the statement.” He opens the refrigerator and takes out a bottle of water, but he doesn’t drink right away. He holds it in one hand, cap already loosened, while his eyes come back to me. “He wants you to come in today if you can. It’s been a few days and he’s getting impatient.”
My stomach dips.
Reva and her murder garden immediately become less important.
“Today,” I repeat.
“If you can,” Ryder says.
“If you were anyone else, I’d think that you’re trying to get me to do what you want by being nice and amenable. But I know that you’re letting me do this on my time, at my pace. So…I appreciate you.”
He comes back into the living room but stops on the other side of the coffee table. The monitors glow between us, five little windows of all the reasons I’m not at my own apartment with my own coffee and my own sad, lumpy couch.
“He means today would help,” Ryder says. “He also means you get to decide how and when you talk about what happened to you.”
I look down at the book in my lap, at my thumb denting the cover near Reva’s name. “You practice that speech before your run?”
“No.”
“Liar.”
“Maybe in the shower before bed last night but not this morning before the run.”
“That’s better. Hydrated emotional growth.”
His breath leaves in a quiet laugh, but he watches me too carefully after it. “I can go with you.”
I don’t want to tell him I’m afraid, so I lie. “I have work.”
“I know.” Damn him for caring.
“And you have to go to the fire department for your shift.”
“I know that too.”
God he is so infuriatingly there when I need him.
I set the book on the couch beside me and stand before the conversation can get heavier. My coffee mug gets picked back up because it gives me something to do that doesn’t involve touching Ryder.
Why did I tell him that I needed space? Oh yeah, I’m a triggered hot mess who doesn’t know how to want him while recovering from abuse.
“I’m going to work,” I tell him. “Then I’ll think about the report this afternoon when I get some shit done.”
Ryder’s jaw shifts, but he nods. “Okay.”
“That was too easy.” I freeze, waiting for more. For the other shoe to drop.
“It wasn’t easy.” He rolls his eyes like we’re back in school. “You make my life extremely difficult, you know this.”
“No.”
“No.” He takes a drink of water, throat working as he swallows. “You really don’t. I’m just not turning it into a fight when we both know you need to get the report filed, so you have an official trail of the shit that Preston is pulling against you.”
I stare at him for a second because that is unfairly attractive and also inconvenient to my emotional stability.
“Please stop improving while I’m mad at you,” I say, walking past him toward the kitchen. “It ruins the mood.”
He follows at a slower pace. “You’re not even actually mad at me, Allycat. You’re frustrated that you have to do something and let people in, and I’m the one you can take it out on. So tell me, what mood am I ruining?”
“The one where I’m right and you’re overbearing.”
“I can still be overbearing when you’re right. It happens all the time.”
“Thank God. I was worried we were losing your core values.”
He packs a muffin in a brown paper bag while I rinse my mug and pretend not to watch his hands. He adds a granola bar, then a banana, then pauses with his fingers on a second bar.
I lift one eyebrow. “Do I look like I’m preparing for winter?”
“You forget to eat when you’re upset, or working, or get distracted.”
“Ryder.”
He drops the second granola bar into the bag. “I care about your eating habits, Alex. Sue me.”
“I might. I work at a newspaper. I know people who use semicolons aggressively. My best friend is one of them”
“Terrifying.” He mock-shudders.
“Exactly.” I want to point a finger at him, but hold myself back. Barely. “You should be terrified.”
By the time he showers and changes into his department uniform, I have my laptop bag on one shoulder, my purse on the other, and the paper bag tucked beneath my arm. Ryder takes the laptop bag without asking, catches my look, and hands it back immediately.
“Sorry,” he says.
I blink.
He stands in the entry with his hand still half-extended, damp hair combed back, black department shirt stretched across his chest, and the kind of expression that says he’s braced for me to flinch away from him.
My irritation drains faster than I want it to.
“You can carry it,” I say, handing the bag over.
His fingers close around the strap. “You sure?”
“No, but I’m choosing to be generous before nine in the morning when I haven’t had enough caffeine to function. Don’t make it weird.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“You absolutely would. You probably even dream weird.”
He opens the door and checks the porch with one quick glance before stepping aside for me. “You have no idea.”
I walk past him into the cold. “That sounded ominous.”
“It was supposed to.”
The drive into town is mostly quiet. Ryder keeps the radio low, one hand on the wheel, his other resting near the gearshift.
Not touching me. Close enough that I keep noticing the space between his hand and my knee.
All I want is for him to touch me, but leave me alone with my thoughts at the same time. Is that so difficult?
When the building that houses the newspaper comes into view, my stomach tightens again.
Ryder parks across the street, engine running. “Text me if you need anything.”
I reach for my bag, and this time he lets me take it from the back seat myself. The restraint is small enough that another person might miss it.
I don’t.
Before I open the door, I look over at him. “Are you going to sit here and watch me go in?”
“Yes.”
“Subtle, Ryder. Real freaking subtle."
“I wasn’t aiming for subtle. I’m embracing the obsession now that you’re aware of it. And, I want to keep you safe, so let me.”
That should annoy me.
It does.
It also makes it easier to get out of the truck.
I cross the street with my coffee, muffin bag, and laptop, then refuse to look back until I reach the office door.
When I finally glance over my shoulder, Ryder is still there with one hand braced on the wheel, watching me with an expression so fierce I’m sure the space between us is about to combust.
I lift the paper bag and wave him away.
He points at it like an order then goes even further by mouthing eat at me like I don’t get the meaning.
I roll my eyes and go inside before he can read my emotions too clearly.
Against every single screaming reaction I have to men in general, Ryder isn’t them.
Ryder isn’t Preston.
And my body and brain are in complete agreement…it’s just my trauma that’s holding me back.