Ryan Hunter (19 page)

“What the fucking hell—
Take your bloody hands off her!”

I was hurled around, and a hard punch to my face broke the skin on my lip.

“No! Tony!” I heard Liza’s strangled shriek as I staggered back. But I caught myself quickly and stopped her with a scowl from rushing to my aid. Sliding my tongue over my bottom lip, I tasted blood. Fucking brilliant. I was going to kill Mitchell for that.

In an instant, I had him trapped between me and the wall, pressing my forearm against his throat. There was a lot of hatred in his eyes right now, covered by a layer of hurt. Damn, I knew why he’d come.

Reconsidering my killer instinct, I eased the pressure on his throat but didn’t take my arm away. “I’ll let you get off with this because you’re my
friend
, Mitchell,” I growled. “But do this again and you won’t live through the night.”

“You don’t scare me, Hun
ter,” he snarled back, and the next thing I knew was that my nose was broken. He must have head-butted me.

That was the end of my patience. Mitchell was dog food. With murder on my mind, I started toward him, but Liza was suddenly there, squeezed in between us, and her trembling hand pushed against my chest.

“No,” she told me, then she turned to Tony and said more fiercely, “
No
! You’re not going to do this. Not in my room. And not over me.”

There was enough hatred in the room to wipe out Grover Beach, but clearly none of us wanted to hurt Liza. She sent me pleading glare, probably expecting me to be the smarter one and end this. I didn’t know how. With her standing between us, we let a minute pass, both bristling with anger. But when she didn’t get out of the way, we finally toned it down a notch.

The frightened look in her eyes ceased. Now frustration seemed to take over, and she turned away from me, facing Tony. “Why did you come here?”

“I had to make sure this asshole keeps his hands off your body.”

He fucked up everything from the start and called me asshole? “You’ve chosen one helluva moment to show up,” I growled cynically over Liza’s shoulder.

“Seems like I’m just in time.
You’re not going to touch her again.”

“I’m sure Liza can speak for herself and doesn’t need
you
to babysit her.” Anyway, it was time to get this over with. I wasn’t going to hang out here with Mitchell and discuss the matter over Liza’s head. Placing my hands on her hips, I moved her gently to my side. I’d never hurt this girl, but in the condition Tony was in, I couldn’t judge his next move, and I just wanted her out of the way. Fixing him with a death glare, I added, “This is none of your business.”

“She’s my friend and sure as hell
is
my business,” Tony spat.

“What’s your problem, man?”

“You are. This shit ends now. I didn’t ask you to go that far with her.”

The hair at the back of my neck lifted and I froze. “Shut.
The hell. Up, Mitchell.”

But the bastard pointed a finger at me and kept sputtering.
“I didn’t mean for you to screw her when I asked you to distract her.”

Shit.

I clenched my jaw, waiting for Liza to take up on that. And she sure as hell did. Slowly tilting her head to me, her brows furrowed to a line. “Distract?”

What could I say to make her understand that?
“It’s not like that—”

“No?”
Her voice was a far cry from stable, and tears sprang to hear eyes.

I wanted to take her face between my hands, make her look into my eyes and see the truth in there.
That for me, it had always been her.

“Bullshit, of course it’s like that,” Tony
snapped before I could even lift my hands to her face. “He called me this afternoon, wanting to know why you’d quit training all of a sudden. I asked him to get your mind off—” He broke off then continued with less wrath in his voice, “Off
us
. I knew you didn’t want to see me, but I couldn’t stand the thought of you being in your room all alone, crying.” He moved a killer scowl at me. “But now that I think of it, it was a crap idea from the beginning. You deserve better than him. All he wants is to get you in the sack. Don’t you, Hunter?”

“You don’t know anything, you fool!” Did he even know me one bit after all the year we’d been friends?

But at the same time I growled at Mitchell, Liza asked him, “I deserve better?” She angled her head. “Then who, Tony?
You
?” Everyone caught her cynicism.

Tony came toward her and replied, “
I was good enough for you for the past ten years.” He was clearly hurting at her words.

But I didn’t care. If anything, it madder than ever. With a hard shove against his chest, I sent him back against the wall
. “
Now
you start to fight for her? You goddamned idiot!”

“I don’t have to fight for her. Not with you. She never wanted you.”

“She might, now. And that scares the shit out of you, doesn’t it?” I knew it was what had sent him back to her room tonight. “Giving her up, but not wanting her to be with someone else. You’re pathetic.”

Liza walked up beside me and gazed for a long moment at Tony’s face.
“What’s going on? You told me you’re dating Cloey. So why are you in my room in the middle of the night?”

Tony didn’t answer her, and suddenly everything made sense.
“Not hard to guess,” I said with a dry, painful laugh. “You slept with Cloey. And she dumped you like I told you she would, didn’t she?”

The truth shone in his glistening eyes—visible even for Liza this time. She backed away, dropping on her bed. Tony went after her, knocking hard against my shoulder, but when he reached for her, she crawled away from him and hissed,
“Don’t you dare touch me!”

Tony
planted one knee on the mattress. “Please, Liz—”

“No!” She slapped him hard in the face.
“Just go!” And when he didn’t move, she added with a voice gone toxic, “
Now
!”

It would have been enough to make me back away. And Tony did, too. His face scrunched with lines of aching, he pushed past me and climbed out the window.

I waited until he disappeared in the dark garden. Then I slowly turned around to Liza. A stream of blood ran from my nose down to my lips. Wiping it away with the back of my hand, I told her, “I really didn’t—”

“Stop it!
” Liza raised both her palms rendering me silent. “I don’t know who of you two disgusts me more tonight. Leave me alone. I’m done with you.”

She couldn’t mean it. All the crap that Tony had told her tonight—she must realize that it was nothing but a goddamned lie.
“I didn’t come because Mitchell asked me to. I came because
I
wanted to see you again.”

“Yeah, right.
As if I would believe that. Distraction, huh? Tell me, did I look so miserable that you thought I depended on your mercy?” There was a tiny tear glistening on her cheek as it fell down. “Or did you really just want to get me into bed?”

Coping with her accusations was one thing I could deal with. But seeing her cry was something entirely different. It was too much, and I didn’t know how to handle it. Not when I was the one who made cry. I pinched the spot between my eyes.
“Cut the crap, Liza. You know that’s not true.”

“Leave.” She wiped the single tear away, and when she spoke next, her voice was steady. And stone cold.
“I don’t ever want to see you again.”

No.
Please, no
! I couldn’t leave her now. There must be a way to get things straight between us again—to convince her that I never intended to only play with her. But that my heart was in that game from the very first moment.

Her gaze only hardened, making sure there was no chance for us. Not anymore.

My heart ached, and so did the rest of my body when I walked toward her. Leaning down to brace myself on the bed on either side of her, I searched her face one last time for a flicker of hope. There was none.

All right.
I had lost what I never really had. And that little bit of hope she’d awoken in me those past few days made the pain unbearable. “For a minute there, I thought I stood a chance. But I guess in the end, Mitchell will still be the lucky one.”

Closing that last inch of distance between our faces, I inhaled her pure, beautiful scent one last time. She didn’t back away from me, but her eyes said she wouldn’t tolerate the tiniest touch right now.

I grabbed my cap from behind her and straightened, pulling the brim deep down my face. “See you around, Matthews.”

Pivoting, I strode toward the open window, climbed out, and jumped from the shed. There was no one holding me back.
No one telling me to come again tomorrow, so we could talk. No one to say goodnight. There was only a hurting girl who closed the window after me.

Chapter 12

I HAD NO idea where I was going, but I knew going home wasn’t an option for me right now. Racing the car along the highway, I tried to blast my mind free with the music turned up to a deafening level. I was out of town before I knew it, heading south.

No one I knew lived in that area, so at some point I just skittered the car to a halt on an empty parking lot and climbed out. The headlights sliced through the pitch-black night, falling on calm waves rolling to the shore. Sand gnashed underneath my shoes as I walked down the stone steps and crossed the beach toward the sea. Shortly before the sand got wet, I sat down, hugged my legs to my chest, and rested my chin on my knees. I stared out at the ocean, trying to make sense of something I couldn’t understand.

Why was it always the things you wanted most that you couldn’t have?

No one was there to give me an answer.

After some minutes, the Audi’s control system cut the lights and left me brooding in the dark. I didn’t move…for hours. Until the sun crept up behind me and slowly warmed my cold and stiff body. My phone went off in my pocket. I had this hurtful hope that Liza wanted to talk to me. But it wasn’t her. The display flashed
Mom.
She had probably realized that my car wasn’t around the house and got worried. I didn’t answer the call, but I got to my feet and dragged my hurting self to my car. Half falling asleep, I drove home.

Before getting out of my car, I cleaned my face from all the blood, because I didn’t want to scare anyone. But the split lip and swollen nose would give me away, no matter what. As I slipped in through the front door, the big grandfather clock in the living room chimed nine o’clock. I was careful not to make a sound when I shut the door, but my mom certainly had heard my
car
coming home. There was no escaping her worried inquisition.

“Ryan, darling, where have you been?”

I knew it was bad when she called me darling. It always indicated she’d been worried sick about me. She cupped my cheeks and made me look down at her face. “Good gracious! What happened? Did you have an accident?” Then she sucked in a sharp breath. “Or did you get in a fight?”

Taking her hands in mine, I pulled them gently away from my face. “Nothing happened, Mom. I’m all right.” As all right as one could be with his heart ripped from his chest and trampled on. “No car crash, no fight.” Not a real one anyway. “I’m not hurt, just tired.”

“But something must have—”

“Please, Mom. I don’t want to talk right now.” I must have sounded whiny and aching.
Pathetic.

For a stunned mother-son moment, she gazed at my pleading, misty eyes, and it seemed to be enough for her to understand.
Everything. “All right, darling. You go up and get into bed. I’ll bring you a cup of hot chocolate.”

I drank coffee in the morning, and she knew it. But I wouldn’t be surprised if there was going to be a marshmallow in the hot chocolate, too. Dragging
myself up the stairs was more exhausting than driving the eighty miles home with only one eye open. I kicked my shoes into the corner and stripped down to my boxers on the way into the bathroom. In front of the shower, that last bit dropped too, and I stepped into the cubicle with a hot spray of water raining down on me. Bracing my palms on the tiled wall, I hung my head, breathing hard into the gush of water. This was the only time that I’d ever let go of the tears that had choked me the whole night, because the evidence of them would be washed away in the shower.

Half an hour passed, and the rain never stopped. I didn’t want to get out of the shower. I’d stay here for as long as my heart was aching like it was clamped in a bear trap. My hands fisted against the tiles, and I pressed my forehead on them. How could my life ever be normal again?

By the time I finally turned off the water, I feared I’d fall asleep standing up. Feebly, I toweled myself dry then wrapped that towel around my hips and shuffled back to my room where I pulled on shorts and a tee. On my nightstand, I found the promised cup of hot chocolate, which had turned cold by now. I didn’t care, because I had no intention of drinking it anyway.

Hot chocolate might help if you were sick or sad because your favorite hamster died. But I didn’t see what it could do to mend a broken heart. Dumping headfirst into my pillow, I left the rest of the world behind me and hoped to just drift off to oblivious dre
ams.