15. Ryder #2
I stand in the entry for a second longer than I should, letting the sight of her pull my heart rate down back to a normal range,
Then I see the words on her laptop screen as I take a step closer.
Electrical fires in older apartment buildings.
Signs of accelerant use.
How arson investigators determine point of origin.
My hand tightens around my keys.
Alex stirs before I move again. Her eyes open slowly, unfocused at first, then sharper when she sees me standing there in uniform with half the rain from the parking lot still on my shoulders.
“You’re home,” she says, voice rough from sleep.
“Yeah.”
She pushes upright and follows my gaze to the laptop. “I was researching.”
“I see that. I wasn’t trying to snoop, for the record.” I wouldn’t believe me, but I hope she knows I’m telling the truth.
“Don’t say it like you’re about to confiscate my internet.” She stretches out and grabs the blanket, pulling it around her while she makes no attempt to close the laptop. “I have work to do still, even through the crazy.
“I’m not.” I don’t tell her that I’d never do that. She’ll learn in time.
“You look like you’re in a confiscatory mood.”
The corner of my mouth tries to move and fails. I set my keys on the table, then take the laptop and put it on the coffee table instead of closing it. She watches the choice. Good. She should.
“Remy called,” I say.
Her sleepiness vanishes in an instant, replaced with the alert reporter that doesn’t let go of a hook. “What did he find?”
I want to soften it. The instinct is right there, familiar and useless, trying to put my body between her and the worst words of everything I have to share.
I step into the kitchen instead and brace both hands on the counter because if I’m going to tell her the truth, I need something solid under my palms.
Alex follows me, blanket abandoned on the couch. “Ryder.”
“He found some non-answers, and some shitty things. Preston doesn’t have a stable address. He’s been using burners to communicate. Possible purchases tied to him that were suspicious to Remy.” I look at her across the island. “Wire cutters, electrical tools, work gloves, gas cans.”
Her face pales, but she doesn’t look away or flinch from the truth. “So I was right.”
“That isn’t what I wanted you to take from that.”
“I know, but I’m taking it anyway because being right is all I’ve got at the moment.
” She presses one hand to the edge of the counter, mirroring me without meaning to.
“My article research made sense in a twisted way, Ryder. Mason Ridge, the faulty detectors, the old wiring, the breaker at my place. He’s using things that already look unsafe and are happening around town so that he can get to me without anyone knowing it’s not related to my story. ”
The fact that she gets to that conclusion so fast should make me proud. It does, somewhere beneath the fear. Mostly it makes me want to lock every door in this house and keep her behind them where I know she’ll be safe until Remy finds Preston in whatever hole he’s hiding in.
Alex sees that too.
“Don’t,” she says.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to. Your face started building an impenetrable tower.”
“A tower?”
“For me. To be locked in.” She taps one finger against the counter, not hard, just enough to keep herself steady.
“I’m not saying I’m not scared. I am. But I’m also in your kitchen with the alarm on, and I filed the report, and Remy has actual pieces to work with now.
You’re looking at me like none of that matters. ”
“It matters.”
“Then let it matter and just be here. With me.”
I drag one hand over my jaw and turn toward the sink because the window above it has gone dark in the fading evening light.
Nothing but my reflection, Alex behind me, and the shape of the kitchen lights.
“I spent the whole day checking my phone. Every call. Every gap between your texts. I was cutting a man out of a truck and counting minutes because you hadn’t answered me. ”
Her reflection softens a little, but her voice stays firm. “That sounds awful.”
“It was.”
“I’m sorry.”
I turn back immediately. “Don’t apologize for filing a police report and doing what needed to be done. My emotional chaos isn’t something for you to carry.”
“I’m not. I’m sorry you were scared.” She exhales and looks down at her hand on the counter. “But I’m not sorry I didn’t feel the same urgency every second. That’s what worries me. You’re still in emergency mode, and I’m trying to have one minute where my life is not actively on fire.”
The words hit because they’re fair. Worse, they sound like something I should have understood without making her explain it.
I come around the island slowly. She doesn’t move back, but her fingers curl against the counter. I stop close enough to touch her and leave the last inch alone.
“I don’t know how to relax when it comes to you,” I admit.
“I know.”
“That’s not an excuse.”
“No,” she says, looking up at me. “It’s not. It’s an explanation that I can wrap my mind and feelings around. It’s the truth. And that’s something I’m not used to.”
The quiet after that feels different from the other silences between us. Less fragile. More honest. Her gaze drops to my mouth, then lifts again, and the fear in my chest tangles with heat so fast I nearly reach for the counter again.
Alex notices. “You’re doing that thing where you decide wanting me is part of the crisis.”
My pulse kicks. “Isn’t it?”
“No.” She steps into the inch I left between us. “Not for me.”
I lift my hand to her face, giving her plenty of time to stop me. She doesn’t. Her cheek is warm against my palm, and her eyes close for one short breath before she opens them again and looks straight at me.
I kiss her because she’s asking me to without saying the words, and because I’m not strong enough to keep pretending I don’t understand.
She comes up on her toes, one hand fisting in the front of my shirt.
The kiss starts hard and turns harder when she makes a sound against my mouth that goes straight through my body.
I back her into the counter and catch myself before my weight pins her there, but Alex pulls me closer like the space offends her.
“Ryder,” she says against my mouth, frustrated and breathless.