Chapter 21 Ryker
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Ryker
Chase’s voice echoes through the old community hall as I lean over the blueprint sprawled across the folding table.
The place is a mess of stripped paneling, exposed insulation, and a scattering of tools that look like they’ve been tossed around by a storm.
Sawdust clings to the air. A couple of volunteers swing sledgehammers against the far wall, each hit landing with a sharp thud that shakes the floorboards.
Chase keeps talking about load-bearing beams and county permits, and I nod along even though my shoulders feel tight and my mind is somewhere else.
Last night. Norah’s face white with nausea, her voice trembling, the way she whispered my name like she wasn’t sure if she wanted comfort or space.
The way she pressed her forehead to my chest for one long moment, trusting me. The way I wanted her more than I wanted air and still didn’t touch her.
I rub the back of my neck. Chase doesn’t notice. He’s got a laser focus on demolition plans.
Then a small voice pipes up from the doorway.
“Ryker!”
I lift my head.
Maisie stands there holding a wild bundle of flowers twice the size of her torso. Her frames tilt a little on her nose, and her smile looks like pure triumph.
“Hey, kiddo,” I say.
She barrels toward me and skids to a halt right at my boots, thrusting the flowers up proudly. “Look at what Uncle Jude got me! And look at my glasses! Dr. Austin said I can read the teeny-tiny letters now.”
I crouch so we’re eye level. The glasses really do suit her. She looks bright, curious, alive. The kind of kid who absorbs sunlight and gives it back twice as warm.
“They look fantastic,” I tell her. “But this place isn’t safe without a hat.”
I take mine off—battered gray, sweat-stained from years of work—and settle it on her head. It sinks low enough to bump her ears.
She beams.
Behind her, Jude steps in. He looks worn out in a way I haven’t seen in a long time. His jaw is tight. His shoulders are tense.
And when his eyes flick to me, something sharp passes through them.
“Can we talk?” he says quietly.
I know that tone. The kind that means something’s been gnawing at him for hours.
I rise. “Sure.” I glance down at Maisie. “Go help Chase. Tell him to show you where the volunteers keep the good stuff.”
She lights up. “Chase! Uncle Ry said you have good stuff!”
Chase shouts across the room, “Everyone, halt demolition. We have a kid around.”
Maisie pumps a fist. “Cool!”
She bolts toward the cluster of workers, shouting instructions she absolutely made up, and half of them follow her like she’s their foreman.
I turn to Jude. He pulls off his glasses, pinches the bridge of his nose, and lets out a long breath.
“Did you fuck her?” he asks.
I blink. “Fuck who?”
He shoots me a look that could peel paint off a wall. “Don’t play dumb. Norah.”
I exhale, sharp. “I didn’t fuck Norah.”
He waits.
I run a hand along my jaw. “She was drunk. She suggested it. I didn’t touch her. Not like that.”
His expression twitches—relief? irritation? both?—but he doesn’t settle.
“And you didn’t tell me? We tell each other everything.”
I jerk my chin toward the corner where Maisie stands, wearing my hat, shouting advice about how to hold a sledgehammer. “Didn’t feel like breakfast conversation.”
Jude’s mouth presses flat. I can tell he wants to argue more, but he can’t with her standing right there. He scrubs a hand through his hair instead, eyes darting around, and murmurs, “I don’t even know why I’m acting like this.”
I study him.
“Maybe you’re finally ready to admit you like her.”
His head snaps toward me. “I can’t. It’s too complicated after everything we went through. You know that.”
“This isn’t about Claire,” I say. “Or about me. It’s about you.”
His throat works. His eyes drift past me, landing on nothing, seeing something I can feel but can’t name. “Can you tell me what exactly happened last night?”
I look around to make sure Maisie is still too far away to hear.
He waits for me to explain everything to him, then finally says. “She’s into Dorian.”
I nod. “Yeah.”
“What do you mean, yeah?”
I rub the edge of my thumb against my palm. “There’s something I haven’t told you yet.”
“Ryker!” He growls. “Just tell me, for fuck’s sake.”
I swallow the lump in my throat, my cock thickening at the reminder of the very lewd comments she was making last night. “Well, she talked about you. And him. And me. Together. In detail, Jude.”
His brows draw together.
“I’m not even sure if it’s just fantasy, but at least there’s proof that she’s at least thought of it, of us like that,” I add. “She didn’t hold back.”
He stares at the half-torn wall behind me, not seeing it. “Fuck.”
“Yeah.”
He drags a hand down his face. “This is so complicated.”
“It is.”
“I can’t believe we have to see her tonight after you told me that.”
That makes me pause. “Why are we seeing her tonight?”
“’Cause Maisie roped her into watching Harry Potter tonight. She’s excited. You know how she gets when it’s someone she likes. Maisie really likes her. I can’t do anything to jeopardize that when Maisie has only been close to one other person in this entire town.”
“So what I’m hearing,” I say, “are excuses.”
He lifts his chin at that. “Excuses?”
“Norah might actually like you. You like her. Fuck! This is the first time you’ve admitted to liking someone in a really long time, and you won’t tell her because…”
His jaw flexes hard enough that I hear a faint click.
“Jude,” I say more gently, “Claire’s gone. But you’re still here. I’m still here. And Norah… she’s not some random woman. She got Maisie to laugh and smile and be herself again. Do you know how impossible that is? If you want her, do something about it. I know that when I get a chance, I will.”
He drops his gaze to the floor for a few seconds, the fight draining out of him. Then he mutters, “Where’s Dorian?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “Figured he’d stop by later.”
He nods in a slow, thoughtful way. Something is shifting in him; I can feel it. A door cracked open. A truth he can’t shove down anymore.
We stand there for a moment, the noise of demolition filling the space between us—metal clattering, wood breaking, Maisie’s delighted squeals as one of Chase’s guys shows her how to properly swing a hammer into drywall.
A volunteer walks by carrying a bundle of old wiring and gives us a wide berth, probably sensing the tension radiating off Jude.
He finally says, “We both like her.”
“Yeah.”
“So now what?”
I let out a breath. “I guess we figure out how she really feels.”
He nods again, this time slower. More grounded. More accepting of the thing neither of us planned for. The thing none of us asked for.
He tucks his glasses into his shirt pocket and shifts his stance, bracing himself for the inevitable. “We should talk about the hall.”
“Yeah.”
We move toward the blueprint table. The shift feels strange—like walking after being underwater too long—but necessary. Jude leans over the plans, tapping the section where Chase wants to widen the doorway.
“We need support beams here,” he says.
“Chase thinks we can move them.”
“He’s wrong.”
“He usually is.”
One corner of Jude’s mouth lifts.
I point to the structural diagram. “If we add a steel post in the middle, it’ll hold.”
“Metal is expensive.”
“Dorian offered to help with materials. Apparently, he knows a cheaper supplier that he got in contact with when he was working on the project in Astoria.”
Jude glances up. “Of course he did.”
His tone carries something I recognize—jealousy. Possessive tension he doesn’t know where to put. The tiniest sting of resentment that someone else might catch Norah’s eye at the wrong moment.
I tap the blueprint again. “Look. Her and Dorian have some kind of issue going on. And I don’t know how exactly that works out for us, but I think it would be dumb to throw the whole thing away without even giving it a try.”
He gives a low, frustrated sound.
“You like her,” I say. “And I do too. But you knew that.”
He blows out a breath and straightens, hands on his hips. “I’m not used to this.”
“Liking someone again?”
He doesn’t look at me, but he doesn’t try to deny it.
I continue. “Dorian’s in it, too. Whatever’s happening between them, he’s part of this. But that doesn’t mean you bow out.”
He rubs the back of his neck. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
“Then don’t.”
“It’s not that simple.”
I shrug. “Nothing ever is.”
We stand there again, shoulders angled toward each other, both of us working to accept the thing we’ve said out loud. The thing we can’t undo.
We like the same woman.
And she might like both of us. Or someone else. Or all three in ways she hasn’t figured out yet.
The thought should tear something in me. Instead, it feels like a knot loosening. At least we’re not pretending anymore.
Jude shifts his gaze toward the far end of the hall, where Maisie has convinced two grown men to build a tower out of broken drywall pieces.
“She really likes Norah,” he murmurs.
“Yeah,” I say. “She does.”
“She hasn’t liked anyone like that since…”
I nudge him lightly. “You don’t need to finish that.”
He nods. We both know how much his niece adored our mate.
We both look over the hall together. Volunteers moving. Hammers swinging. Sawdust rising. Maisie shouting at a pile of wood.
Jude says, “We need to reinforce that far wall, and the sink needs replacing.”
“We can do that.”
“And the floor’s uneven.”
“We’ll fix it.”
“And I need to talk to Norah.”
I nod. “Good.”
“You gonna tell her how you feel, too?”
“Eventually.”
He turns toward me. “You’re not backing down.”
“No.”
He dips his chin. “Okay.”
That’s it. The shift. The acceptance. The unspoken agreement that liking the same woman doesn’t make us enemies.
That we can walk this without tearing each other apart. That there’s room for more than one truth in the same messy story.
Jude rubs his thumb across his palm, thinking hard. “She’s going to complicate everything.”
“Yeah,” I say. “But she already did.”