2. Ryder
RYDER
Charlotte Hayes.
I've got a stack of two by fours balanced on my shoulder and my brain has decided this is the moment to short-circuit over a girl I haven't seen since I was sixteen.
Brown hair. Brown eyes. Freckles she used to hate and I used to think were the best thing about her face.
She wore her hair down back then, and now it's pulled back in some kind of clip that's already coming loose, pieces falling around her jaw.
Same glasses, more or less. She used to smell like fresh cut roses, and I have no business remembering that after all these years, but here I am, remembering it.
She was never going to look twice at a guy like me back then. I was the kid who got hauled into the principal’s office more than I sat through class. Charlotte had perfect grades and a future everyone knew was going somewhere.
I had a probation officer.
Doesn't stop the part of my brain that's already decided finding out why she's back in Forge Creek is my new full-time job.
“Kane.”
Coach Reyes says my name the way he's said it since I was a student here, like it's a threat he's still deciding whether to follow through on.
“Yeah.”
“I said watch where you're setting that pile.”
There’s no real issue here, but I move the lumber anyway, because arguing with Reyes has never once worked in my favor.
“Heard about that thing last year,” he says. “Some equipment going missing off a job site.”
“That got sorted.”
“Did it?”
“Yeah, Coach. It did.” I keep my voice level, because I know exactly what he's doing and I refuse to give him the satisfaction. “You want to check with my boss? He'll tell you the same thing.”
“I might. You know I can't have you wandering this school unsupervised. Not with your history.”
“I'm not wandering. I'm working.”
“Dave's the only reason you're on this job at all. You remember that. I told the district I'd sign off because Dave Samuels vouched for you personally. That's it. That's the whole reason. Not because I think you've turned over a new leaf.”
I don't say anything, because there's nothing to say that won't make this worse.
I stopped expecting people to trust me a long time ago.
Dave took a shot on me anyway. Hired me on as a laborer when nobody else would return my calls, worked me half to death for two years, and made me foreman the second I proved I could handle it.
I owe him everything, and Coach Reyes throwing that debt back in my face doesn't sit right with me.
“We done here?” I ask.
“For now.”
He walks off toward the gym, whistle bouncing against his chest, and I stand there working my jaw until it stops aching.
I think about Charlotte again, wondering if she remembers me at all.
Then I go back to work because that's the only thing that's ever actually helped, framing out the new equipment shed behind the gym.
It's good work. Honest work. The kind of work that doesn't care what you did as a stupid teenager.
I finish up at the school and head over to Whitfield & Sons Hardware for some supplies. Doris Whitfield is behind the counter, her expression permanently unconvinced by whatever you're telling her.
“Well look who it is,” she says, not looking up from the register tape she's fixing. “The prodigal foreman. You look like somebody ran over your dog.”
“Don't have a dog.”
“Then somebody ran over something.” She finally glances at me, sharp as ever, and I know I'm not getting out of here without an interrogation. “Spit it out, Kane.”
“It's nothing.”
“Uh huh.”
She studies me over the top of her glasses as I toss a few things on the counter.
“Who is she?”
“What? Nobody.”
Her eyebrows lift. Fuck. One look at Charlotte and apparently I’ve lost whatever ability I had to play it cool.
“Reyes give you trouble again?”
I nod, more than happy to let her change the subject.
“Don't listen to that man. He's been an ass since before you were born, and he'll be an ass as long as he lives.” She hands me my bag and leans on the counter.
“You've done good work for Dave. Everybody in this town who matters knows it.
The ones who don't know it aren't worth the energy you're spending on them.”
She waves a hand toward the door like she's shooing off a fly. “Now get out of my store before you start making me feel all sappy. I've got a delivery to unpack.”
I laugh and head out.
I think about Charlotte the whole damn drive. Windows down. Radio up. Doesn’t help. One look at her has me wound tighter than I’ve been in a long time.
I tell myself it’s because I haven’t seen her since high school. Because she showed up out of nowhere looking even better than I remembered, and I wasn’t ready for it.
Bullshit. I remember Charlotte just fine.
I remember watching her walk down those halls. The way she’d catch me looking and pretend she hadn’t. The little smile she’d fight.
I remember wanting her when I had no business wanting anything that good. And apparently all these years haven't done a damn thing to change that.
I don't drink, haven't in three years, but The Foundry is still the closest thing I've got to a living room that isn't actually my apartment. I like the noise and watching a game at the bar with people around me.
Kayla's behind the bar when I walk in.
“Coke, no ice,” she says before I've even sat down, sliding it across the bar.
“You're too good at this job.”
“You're not that complicated,” she teases, studying my face. “You look like hell.”
“Nice to see you too, Kayla.”
“I mean emotionally. Physically, annoyingly, you’re fine.”
“Doris was giving me shit about the same thing earlier.”
“Maybe she’s onto something.” She waits, and when I don't fill the silence, she shrugs. “Fine. Keep your secrets. Holler if you want a refill.”
She moves down the bar to a guy I don't recognize, which around here usually means tourist. Some influencer posted a few months back about a day trip through Forge Creek, and we've been getting a slow trickle of strangers ever since, mostly harmless.
This one's not harmless. I catch it in the way he talks to Kayla, leaning into her space when she clearly wants her space back.
“He bothering you?” I ask when she comes back my way.
“He's fine. Nothing I haven't dealt with before.”
I turn back to the TV and try to focus on the game. Then the door swings open, and every other thought in my head goes quiet.
Charlotte.
The second her eyes land on me she does a smooth pivot toward a table at the far end of the room. She sits in the heavy wood chair with her back half to the bar and picks up a menu, covering her face.
I turn back to the game and tell myself to leave it alone, but I watch her in the mirror behind the bar. Kayla catches me doing it and raises an eyebrow.
Unfortunately, I'm not the only one watching Charlotte. The asshole at the end of the bar has his eyes on her too.
My jaw locks. Charlotte isn’t mine. I know that.
Doesn’t stop every fucked-up, possessive part of me from wanting to walk over there and make damn sure he knows she’s off-limits.
He slides off his stool and starts toward her table. My grip tightens around my glass hard enough that I’m surprised it doesn’t crack.
It’s not long before I’m on my feet too, heading for the hallway by the restrooms. Close enough to hear what he says, far enough away that I can pretend I’m not hovering.
I’m absolutely fucking hovering.
“Mind if I join you?” His voice carries. Corey, apparently, based on the intro he gives.
“I'd prefer to be alone,” Charlotte says.
“Come on. I came a long way to this town. Could use a friendly face.”
“No, thank you.”
He plants a hand on her table and settles in like she never answered him at all. I feel my temper spike as I watch him lean closer, apparently deciding her rejection was just the beginning of a negotiation.
I know I should stay out of it, but the anger is already climbing.
I remember this feeling. I spent half my teenage years letting it make decisions for me.
One second I’d be pissed off, the next I’d be throwing a punch, and somewhere in between I’d lose any ability to give a shit about what happened afterward.
I’m not that kid anymore. I haven’t been for a long time. But watching this asshole crowd Charlotte after she already told him no brings him back faster than I’d like to admit.
I take one breath, unclench my fists, and move around the corner.
“She said she wants to be alone.”
He turns, sizing me up in the half second it takes him to decide I'm not worth backing down for.
“Who are you?”
“I'm the man who's about to put your head through this table if you don't get out of here.”
“Ryder.”
Kayla's voice is sharp behind me, and I don't need to look at her to know she's shaking her head. She's right to. This is exactly the kind of moment that used to end badly for me, but the old heat climbs up my spine anyway, daring me to let it.
“No harassing customers,” Kayla says to the guy. “Time to go, or we call the cops.”
He mutters something about small town losers under his breath, but he goes, shoving through the door hard enough to rattle the frame on his way out.
Kayla gives me an exasperated look before she walks back toward the bar and leaves me standing there with my pulse hammering.
I turn, and Charlotte is looking right at me.
“Uh. Thanks for that.” Her voice comes out unsteady, like she's still catching up to what just happened.
“Anytime.”
I let myself look at her properly now that she’s this close.
She’s wearing a loose sweater with jeans, nothing that should be doing a damn thing to me, except it is.
Up close, her face is even more beautiful than I remember.
She pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose, and fuck me, even that’s pretty.
Her eyes stay on mine, then drop to my mouth before flicking back up so fast I almost convince myself I imagined it. But then her fingers curl together in front of her, twisting around each other in that nervous little habit I remember from high school.
She used to do the same thing when I got too close to her locker.
Fuck. I can’t believe I remember that.
Then she seems to catch herself and stands abruptly. “You know what, I should really go.”
I reach out and catch her hand before I can think better of it. She stills. Her breath catches in the sudden quiet between us, and when my fingers settle around her wrist, I feel her pulse jump beneath them.
Her eyes lift to mine. Neither of us moves.
Her lips part.
Fuck.
“Ryder...”
The way she says my name goes straight to my cock.
Then something changes in her expression. She pulls her hand free.
“I… I should go. I have… papers to grade.” She grabs her bag off the table so fast she nearly knocks over her glass.
It's a shitty excuse and we both know it. She won't quite look at me as she slips past, but her cheeks are flushed and those fingers are curling together again.
Then she's gone.
I stand there staring at the empty doorway, my hand still warm from where I touched her.