17. Ryder
17
Ryder
“ H ello, Everly. We’re here to help.”
I can see the confusion on her face, so I step to the side and nod my head at three of the guys from the team. I’ve brought Daryl, Johnson, and Bills with me, and they’re standing in the drive near the moving truck. All three give a wave and greeting, but Everly turns back to me and shakes her head.
“Look, you don’t owe me anything, okay? Aunt Sharon and I have this well under control, and we’re fine.” I stare grimly at her and then nod my head.
“Yes, yes, you’re fine. I know that… but Rachel’s in town and will be here in fifteen minutes with Starbucks orders, and I told her we’d be ready to help.” Everly is staring at me, nonplussed.
“So, you’re here for Starbucks?” she asks. I hold in a stupid grin. Obviously, I could have gotten drinks much closer to home.
“What about practice today?” she asks. It’s broad daylight and as professional athletes our schedules are always packed, but I’ve got it covered and I answer casually.
“Well, about that. I thought, and Coach agreed, that a non-traditional team building activity would be fitting. We’re all cleared on a certain understanding that we’ll use our time off and that he doesn’t want to know anything about it. So, yeah, we’d really appreciate it if you’d let us do some moving here…for the sake of the team. What do you think? Wanna help out the Mavs today?”
“Oh my God.” She rolls her eyes at me and doesn’t even dignify my request with an answer. Turning back into the house, she calls out, “Aunt Sharon! Ryder’s here with a few teammates. He says they want to help us move.”
We hear an answering call from the back and footsteps as Aunt Sharon makes her way to the front of the house. Everly turns back to me, sceptical green eyes gleaming and her arms crossed over her magnificent bosom.
“Why do I get the feeling there’s no getting away from you?” And I can’t help the grin that spreads across my face at that. Oh, she’s about to find out.
When Rachel arrives and delivers the drinks, she and Everly head inside and we spend most of the next two hours letting Aunt Sharon direct us as we fill the rental truck with furniture. It’s like working a life size 3-D Candy Crush, and by the time we’re done, there are only a few inches of space at the very top, while the vehicle is packed full from front to back.
Everly and Rachel have been herding items from inside to the porch, and when I head back in the house for a last look around, I find them in the kitchen scrubbing down backsplash and mopping out the corners. Everly pulls off her cleaning gloves when she spots me.
“Is the truck ready? I’ll just grab the keys.”
“No worries,” I hold a hand up. “Bills offered to drive it over, and the boys are going to help with the unloading. Aunt Sharon just left to get the new place unlocked, and I’m staying here to lend a hand.”
Everly doesn’t respond immediately. She’s kept clear of me today and is understandably reticent. It’s not like we’ve been on the best of terms lately, but Rachel in true sister form doesn’t hesitate. She hands me the mop.
“It’s all yours, buddy! Let’s put those long arms to use!” Normally I’d resist, because kid sisters, blech . But Everly’s got my head all turned around, and I let Rachel off the hook with, “Wouldn’t want you to chip a nail, Purple Diamonds.”
“Oh, my God!”
“Not this again!”
Both girls protest and I can’t resist teasing. “Hey, there’s nothing wrong with strippers! They provide a needed service, and a beautiful, successful girl like you should be proud of what you do.”
Rachel shoves a bucket of soapy water my way with her foot, but she does it a little too hard and dirty water splashes out as it slides to a halt. Luckily, I have quick reflexes and manage to sidestep the splash, keeping my Air Jordans clean and dry while giving her my smuggest grin.
“For the last time, Ryder, I am NOT a stripper!” Rachel gives me a dirty look, and I notice Everly hunches her shoulders and turns away, but not before I catch a tiny smirk on her lips. I take a few steps away from Rachel before I begin mopping a dry corner of the room, but she’s not done with her rant. “If I was a stripper, I would be proud of it, but I’m not . I’m one of LA’s top-paid models, thank you very much, and I swear if one more of your friends comes up to me offering to pay for a lap dance, I’ll kick him in the nards!”
“That might work,” I respond thoughtfully and move closer to the door where I surreptitiously catch a peek at Everly’s profile. “The men’s choir at church has been looking for one more falsetto.”
Everly slams down her cleaning rag and hurries past me through the doorway, calling out, “I’m just going to do a last check upstairs to be sure we got everything.” I watch her hustle away, but it’s clear her shoulders are shaking with suppressed laughter, and I grin down at the soapy floor with satisfaction. She’s having a rough day, and I want to make it better even if it’s just a little laugh.
Behind me, I hear a muttered, “Idiot.” I turn to face my kid sister who’s taken up washing a window with a vengeance. She’s all grown up and fashionable. It’s hard to recognize the annoying brat that followed in my footsteps when we were young, but I don’t let that stop years of habit when I answer.
“Hey, now. Have a little faith. All things work together for good, and we’re going to get that falsetto one way or another.”
Thirty minutes later we all step out onto the porch. I load the cleaning supplies in the trunk of Everly’s car and turn back to the girls. I rode over here with the guys, and the only two cars left are Everly’s and Rachel’s.
“Everly, mind if I catch a ride with you to the new place? I just have a couple questions about the documentary if you don’t mind.” I lean casually against her vehicle with my arms crossed hoping she won’t call my bluff. I’m seventy-five percent confident she won’t have said anything about our little tryst to Rachel. Everly’s green eyes glare at me for a split second before turning an overly bright smile at Rachel.
“Do you have the address?”
“Yeah, all set. I’ll see you two over there in a few minutes.” Rachel struts to her vehicle, curves flowing and hair swinging from a high ponytail. The same genes that gave me height and speed have served her well in forming a lithe, flexible frame. The two women are built completely differently, but somehow, both she and Everly make mussed up cleaning clothes look good.
When Everly heads toward me, I step back and hold the door open for her, then make my way around the front of the car and move the passenger chair back as far as it will go. Not many vehicles comfortably fit a man my size, but I’m used to it.
Once we’re on our way, I take a moment to gauge the atmosphere. She’s tense, her knuckles white on the steering wheel, but she doesn’t look peaked and exhausted like she did that night I carried her home – the last time I saw her in person.
“Look Everly, I meant everything I said to you at the Marie Gabrielle restaurant.”
“Oh, Ryder, really, we don’t need to get into that again.” Everly shakes her head and holds a hand up, but I take it in mine gently as I continue.
“Just hear me out,” I say gently. “I meant everything. I wanted you, still want you, and I haven’t had one single thought in my head about another woman from the moment you barged into my changing room three months ago.” Everly stares at me like I’ve lost my mind, and I see a rush of emotions charging over her features before she turns her eyes back to the road. The ride is short though, her new place just a few neighbourhoods away, so I know I have to just seize the moment.
“Coach told me you would lose your job if I didn’t drop you.” I stare sadly at her with my truth revealed. We’re at a red light so she stares back at me, brows furrowed when she answers.
“You knew I could get fired?”
“I found out. After the restaurant. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye, and I didn’t want to lose you when I’d just got you back, so I didn’t say anything. I thought if we could just get through the documentary, then you’d move on to the next job and we could see each other after that without any risk.” She frowns at the road in front of us and stays silent for a few minutes as the light turns green and we pull forward.
“I don’t understand why you didn’t just tell me.” But I dip my head and give her a look when I answer her almost cajolingly.
“Come on, Curves. You know I’d barely won you over. You weren’t even sure if you wanted to give me a chance after I took off in Phoenix.” I look her in the eye, willing her to understand.
“If I’d told you then, you would have played it safe and left me hanging.” She frowns at the road again, but a second later she gives a shrug.
“Yeah, that’s probably true…but still...Not telling me to my face was a dick move.”
“Well, I tried after they let you go, but…I guess I got a taste of my own medicine. You weren’t returning my calls.” She pulls into the drive where my boys are already unloading the moving truck in front of a quaint-looking mobile home. The house is painted blue with white trim and a flashing around the bottom of the building like a skirt. Flowers and small bushes dot the grass under the windows, and I smile. This may be a step down from a brick-and-mortar home, but it’s pretty, and it suits Everly and Aunt Sharon.
I step out of the car and head to the driver’s side to open the door, but Everly is already out when I get there. Her attention is clearly on the activity in the yard, so I sidestep in front of her and place my left hand on the hood to block her.
“Everly.” She stops, surprised, and cranes her neck up at me as I try to find a way to express everything I feel. “I want a second chance.” She snorts and drops her gaze to the ground shaking her head. “I know, I know, I already had a second chance. I want a second, second chance.“ I glance behind me, and everyone is busy either in the truck or in the ‘new’ home, so I continue on.
“We hooked up and it was fantastic. Then I blew it. I freaked, and we both paid for my mistake. Then, just when we were going to try for something real, actually start something that was bigger than a one-night stand, we got hit with the risk to your job, and despite the fact that I honestly thought I could protect you from that, I ended up hurting you again. Then those fuckers decided to carry out the letter of the law and everything I was trying to avoid happened.
“But that doesn’t change the fact that we’ve known each other most of our lives. We have a connection that was dormant for so many years, but today it’s undeniable. I think that we could have something great together, Everly. I think about you day and night, and I want to spend the rest of my life making sure you never pay for my mistakes or letter-of-the-law fuckers’ opinions ever again.”
Everly raises wide eyes to me, and I wait on bated breath, silently begging her to meet me in the middle here, to give me one more shot. I study her, and there’s a quiver in her lip when she answers softly.
“Ryder, I’m really glad you told me this. It was really confusing when you turned my lunch proposal down, and I honestly lost faith in you a little bit. So, this helps.” She nods her head as she speaks. “But I think that right now Aunt Sharon and I have a lot going on, and that it would be best for us to just be friends.”
I purse my lips and do my best to keep a stoic face. There’s no hiding the fact that her words are a disappointment to me. She looks me in the eye, and I see that soft quiver in her lip as she takes in a breath to steel herself and then slowly turns to walk away. I twist around, watching her go, but something inside isn’t done here yet. It’s goodbye, but it’s not over, and I know because of that little lip quiver.
I can’t count the number of times I’ve been down thirty points or more in a game and we’ve made a comeback. So, I give myself a good shake and then stride after her. If friends is what she wants right now then friends it is, but I’m going to make sure that someday she wants more.