21. Alex
ALEX
I trip over my own leggings two minutes and twenty seconds before my entire family invades Ryder’s house with breakfast and judgment.
Yes, I know I’m overreacting and exaggerating but all I want to do is run away.
One second, I’m standing beside Ryder’s bed with one leg shoved through soft black fabric, half-listening to him explain that Josh texted after I fell asleep.
The next, my foot catches in the wrong opening, my balance goes sideways, and I hit the carpet on my hip with a sound that is not graceful, feminine, or emotionally prepared for company.
“Motherfucker.”
Ryder looks like my pain is amusing to him.
He’s already dressed in jeans and a dark shirt, his hair still damp from the shower, his phone in one hand and guilt all over his face.
I glare up at him from the floor with one leg trapped, my borrowed shirt twisted around my waist, and enough panic rushing through me to power a small city.
“You should have woken me up.”
“I tried.” He shrugs slightly.
“You touched my shoulder.” I yank at the leggings, only managing to tighten the fabric around my ankle. “That is not waking me up. That is politely introducing the concept of consciousness to a woman who needs coffee and space before putting up with society.”
A car door shuts outside.
My soul tries to leave my body through my kneecaps.
Ryder looks toward the stairs, then back at me, and I see the moment he decides not to offer help unless I ask. Good. Great. Growth is beautiful and inconvenient when I’m on the floor fighting pants.
“How long ago did Josh say he was coming?” I demand.
Ryder bends, picks up my sweatshirt from the chair, and sets it on the end of the bed where I can reach it. “Last night.”
I stop moving. “Last night.”
“You were asleep.”
“That’s not a defense.” I finally rip my foot free, shove it into the correct side, and scramble upright with all the dignity of a raccoon caught in a trash can. “That’s a confession.”
Downstairs, the front door opens.
Not knocks. Opens.
My head snaps toward Ryder. “Why are they in your house?”
His eyes close for half a second. “Josh has my emergency key.”
“Why?”
“He used to water my fern when I was on forty-eight-hour shifts.”
“You don’t have a fern, Ryder.”
He doesn’t answer, because another voice carries up from the foyer, bright and female and absolutely not related to me by blood.
“Shoes off, Joshua. We are not tracking wet leaves through the house of the man you plan to interrogate and possibly try to murder before pancakes.”
Nia.
I love her. I really do. I would love her more if she had chosen to be sassy somewhere other than the base of Ryder’s stairs while I’m bare-legged and sex-haired in the bedroom of my brother’s best friend.
Ryder reaches for the door. I grab the back of his shirt before he can leave, and he stops immediately. Not because I could hold him there if he chose to move, but because I touched him and he always listens with his whole body when I do.
“You are not going down there first.”
He turns enough to look at me. “Alex—”
“No.” I shove both arms through my sweatshirt, which is actually his, and drag it over my head, wincing when the fabric catches one of the bruises near my upper arm.
Ryder’s gaze drops to the movement, then lifts before he can stare too long.
“You don’t get to stand between me and my family to try and protect me.
They will devour your bones for breakfast and eat your soul for dinner, and you damn well know it. ”
His mouth tightens, but he nods.
Downstairs, paper bags crinkle. Cabinets open. My mother’s voice floats up the stairs, strained and determined. “Does Ryder own plates, or does he eat directly off the counter like a raccoon?”
Dad murmurs something I can’t make out.
Nia answers before Ryder can even twitch. “I found plates. They’re plain, but we’ll forgive him. He’s handsome and traumatized and currently saving you all from Alex and her weird nesting habits on furniture.”
Josh says her name with warning in it, but it’s weak. Nia has never once respected a warning in her life, especially not from the man she loves enough to bully in public.
I jam my feet into Ryder’s socks because mine are missing, then look down at myself. Leggings. Oversized sweatshirt. Hair that says I survived sex, sleep, and attempted kidnapping in the same twenty-four-hour period. My face feels hot before anyone even sees me.
Ryder picks up my phone from the nightstand and hands it over without crowding me. His thumb brushes mine by accident, and the touch pulls my attention from downstairs for one dangerous second.
“You okay?” he asks quietly.
“No.” I take the phone and shove it into the sweatshirt pocket. “But I’m wearing pants, so civilization can continue, and you can march me to my doom now.”
His eyes soften.
I hate that it helps.
We walk downstairs together, not touching but close enough that my body knows exactly where he is.
Halfway down, I see the kitchen first. My kitchen now, some traitorous part of me thinks, because Ryder’s house has started rearranging itself around my things.
My laptop bag is on the chair. My mug is near the sink.
My book is laying facedown on the side table.
In such a short amount of time, this feels more like home than my apartment ever did.
Then I see my family.
Mom has already claimed Ryder’s kitchen like she paid the mortgage.
She’s unpacking containers from a canvas tote, her lips pressed tight while she arranges muffins on a plate Ryder definitely didn’t own yesterday.
Dad stands near the island holding two coffee trays, looking lost in the way men look when they want to fix a problem and all they brought was breakfast. Josh is by the back door, shoulders squared, eyes bloodshot, one hand planted on his hip.
Nia stands beside him with one hand wrapped around his wrist, not restraining him exactly.
Everyone looks up at once.
I make it down two more steps before Mom’s face breaks. Not all the way. My mother is too stubborn for that. But the second she makes eye contact, the plate in her hand drops toward the counter with a sharp clack.
I should have told them about the abuse. They never should have heard about it through the grapevine.
“Baby.”
The word hits me worse than any question could have. I grip the railing with one hand and force myself to keep walking. If I stop on the stairs, one of them will come get me, and I can’t be carried into this conversation.
“I’m fine,” I say, then wince because every person in the room reacts exactly how I deserve. “Fine is a placeholder. I’m alive, and we can start there.”
Dad sets the coffee trays down carefully, one at a time, like sudden movements might make me disappear. “We brought food.”
“I see that.”
Josh interrupts with a grunt. “You probably haven’t eaten.”
I glance toward Ryder without meaning to. His face gives away nothing, but Nia catches the look and immediately turns to Josh.
“She’s being fed. You can unclench your jaw.”
Josh doesn’t move. “Not now.”
“Especially now.” Nia pulls a coffee from the tray and presses it into his hand. He takes it automatically, still glaring at Ryder, and she pats his chest once like he’s a very large, emotionally unstable dog. “Use your mouth for caffeine before you use it for felonies.”
Mom starts opening drawers with brisk, shaking hands. “Sit down, Alex.”
I don’t listen to her, and I don’t move from Ryder’s side. “Mom.”
“Just for a minute.”
“I’ve been sitting. Lying down. Being checked over. Answering questions. Crying on floors. Barely holding it together. I’m done being arranged for a while.”
That stops everyone. Mom’s hand pauses on the silverware drawer. Dad looks at me from across the island, and the pain in his face is so raw I have to look at the toaster instead.
Josh sets his untouched coffee on the counter hard enough that liquid sloshes through the lid. “Then stand there and tell me what the hell is going on.”
Nia’s fingers close around his wrist again. “Lower.”
His jaw works. “Because I’m sick and tired of hearing from everyone else and only getting bits and pieces of the story when my sister is in fucking danger.”
Nia doesn’t blink, and I can see she’s starting to get frustrated with him too. “Volume, Joshua. Lower it.”
He drags in a breath and looks away from me, toward the back window and the tarp-covered fence you can barely make out from the kitchen.
For the first time, I realize what this room must look like to him.
Ryder’s security feeds glowing beside the couch.
Temporary floodlights outside. Me in Ryder’s clothes.
Bruises on my arms. Ryder standing near the stairs, silent and watchful, like he’s letting me have the room but ready to tear through it if anyone touches me wrong.
Josh looks back at me. His voice is lower when he speaks again, but not calmer. “Mrs. Vance called Mom last night right before she went to bed.”
I close my eyes. “She threatened that.”
“She said a man in a ski mask tried to drag you into your apartment.”
Mom’s breath catches. She turns to the stove and starts peeling foil off a pan with too much focus.
“She also said Ryder was on the phone when it happened,” Josh adds, and there it is. Not just fear. Betrayal. “She said he got there right after Remy.”
Ryder shifts at the edge of my vision but doesn’t speak.
I look at my brother. “He was on the phone because I called him before I got out of the car.”
Josh’s stare cuts to Ryder. “Because he told you to.”
“Because I told him that I’d call him when I got to my apartment.
” I walk the rest of the way into the kitchen and take the coffee Dad silently slides across the island.
My hands shake around the cup, so I set it down before everyone can start watching that too. “Those are two very different things.”
Josh ignores me. “How long?” The question is aimed at Ryder, even if it’s my family doing the asking.
I step into its path. “How long what?”