Surrendering to Us (20 page)

“Hello, Ryder.”

“Rory. Nice to see you again.” The last time I’d seen him, he’d been helping me move, and I hadn’t seen him since. I used to wonder if I’d ever bump into him around Boston, but it was a big city and it hadn’t happened. Until now.

His shirt was thin and ripped, and didn’t leave much to the imagination. His bold, black tattoos slashed across the bulging muscles of his arms, and he’d cut his hair shorter, so it was spiked in the front. And since you’re never complete without a smile, he had one of those too. Cocky. It reminded me of when I first met Lucah, but it also had a twist of something darker in it. That darker part scared me. That was the part I didn’t want around my best friend.

Said best friend was trying to put down her burger and wipe her mouth at the same time, and was failing at it. I was going to hear about this later, that was for sure.

“Hello, Ryder. How have you been?” I called on the spirit of my mother and all she had taught me, and all of those times I’d had to smile and make small talk with people I didn’t particularly like. Not that I didn’t like Ryder. I just didn’t like some of the things he did. And I didn’t like that darkness.

“Wouldn’t you like to know? If I told you, you’d just carry it back to my big brother and I’d rather leave him in suspense.” Upon closer inspection, his eyes were a little glassy. He was definitely on something. I just didn’t know what. I kicked Sloane under the table, but she seemed mesmerized by Ryder. That was probably the look I had on my face when I saw Lucah standing in front of me the first time. She kicked me back under the table. Hard.

“Well, I can see you ladies are busy, so I’m going to . . . go.” It seemed to take him a lot of time to find the last word. “Bye, Rory. Hello, Sloane.” He made eye contact with her and then he strolled out of the restaurant.

Sloane let out a huge breath of air that she had probably been holding the entire time he was there.

“Oh, God. I think I just came.” Was she fucking serious? “What? He lights my fire. Blows my skirt up. Pushes my buttons. However you want to say it. That boy makes me fucking hot.” She fanned herself and stared out the front of the restaurant, looking for him.

“Why did he say hello when he was leaving?” That caused her to giggle in a way she only giggled when she REALLY liked a boy. Crap. I’d known she was attracted to him, but I thought it was just sexual. But the giggle meant something else entirely.

“Because he said he hates goodbyes. So he never says them.” He’d said bye to me, but not to her. Jesus Christ. She gazed wistfully after Ryder as if he had ridden off on a white horse.

“I don’t want to kill your buzz, but did you not notice that he was clearly on something?” I wanted to wave my hand in front of her face.

“I’m not fucking blind, Rory. Stop being so self-righteous,” she snapped, the dreamy look on her face gone.

“I’m not trying to be self-righteous. Jesus. Calm down.”

“I’m sorry, I’m just sick of you telling me what to do, but doing whatever the hell you want.” What? We’d gone from eating burgers one minute to fighting the next, and all because of a stupid boy and his stupid tattoos and his stupid arms. Yes, it was juvenile to think of him that way, but I couldn’t think maturely about a guy who had waltzed into my life and caused a rift with Sloane and then bailed.

“I don’t want to fight. Please can we not fight?” She looked down at her burger.

“Okay. But I want you to admit that you do act self-righteous sometimes.”

I nodded. “I can do that. I act self-righteous sometimes. And I’ll try to stop and do better.” She looked up at me and I waited.

“Okay then,” she said and picked up her burger as if nothing had happened.

We didn’t talk about Ryder for the rest of the meal, or while we shared a piece of raspberry swirl cheesecake, or as we window shopped and Sloane convinced me (it didn’t take very much) to buy a new pair of heels that looked like black and white wingtips. Our unspoken agreement put Ryder on the “do not discuss” shelf, and there he would stay until we could agree on him, which I didn’t hold out much hope for unless he got himself clean and together.

The rest of our afternoon was Ryderless, but he still left an impression that I couldn’t get rid of. Sloane hugged me and went to her apartment and I crossed the short distance to mine.

“How was it? I see you couldn’t resist more shoes,” Lucah said with a smile as I walked in the door.

“You know I can’t resist shoes.” I’d debated with myself about whether or not to tell him about Ryder, but my mouth made the decision for me when it blurted out that I’d seen and talked to him.

“You saw him? How did he look? He hasn’t returned any of my calls this week.” I set my bags down and we both sat on the couch.

“He looked bad, Lucah. He was definitely on something. Sloane and I had a bit of a fight about it. She’s not going to stay away from him for much longer. And she also called me out for being self-righteous, which was true, but I was only doing it because I care about her.” Lucah made a sound of frustration and dragged his hands through his hair.

“This is a fucking disaster. I wish he’d never come here.” But he shook his head. “No, no. That was a terrible thing to say. I guess I just wish that I knew what to do to help him. What would work.”

He’d gone through everything. Offering to pay for rehab, getting him a job, leaving pamphlets on Narcotics Anonymous wherever Ryder was staying, yelling, cajoling, begging. Nothing worked.

“He’s got to
want
to change, and until then, he’s going to keep wanting to be destructive.” What Ryder didn’t seem to grasp was that he wasn’t just destroying his life, he was hurting Lucah and Tate as well. And when he hurt Lucah, he hurt me. The ripples of his behavior hit more people than he could understand. Just like those people who stole the money from Clarke Enterprises.

I leaned on Lucah and he put his arms around me.

“Let me know if there’s anything I can do.” I wished I could do something. Being helpless had to be the worst feeling in the universe.

“I will.” He held me for a while and we just sat in silence. I glanced down at the clock on the entertainment center. Shit.

“We’re going to be late for my parents’,” I said, but didn’t move. Lucah did, patting my knee to spur me into action.

“We can’t be late, Rory.” He made me get up while he rushed to get dressed in one of his suits since he’d just been wearing a tank and jeans. I slowly went to join him in the frenzy to get ready. My hair was all messed up from the massage, but I didn’t really care. I just pulled it back in a bun and called it good.

I also decided to wear my new shoes, and matched the rest of my outfit with them, going with a black dress and some pearls. Mom loved pearls, because they were so classic. They always made me think of her, and Audrey Hepburn. Lucah was frantic, trying to get his tie done.

“Why didn’t I realize how late it was?” I motioned for him to stop moving so my steadier hands could fix his tie as he zipped his fly, and I tried fixing his hair.

“What did you do all day?” The apartment was definitely cleaner when I’d come back.

“Cleaned, laundry, changed the sheets, dishes, uh, I went out and got some groceries and I went for a run.” He made me feel completely inadequate, and lucky to have him in my life. If he was trying to make up for something, or butter me up before telling me he did something stupid, that was definitely the way to do it right.

“What did you do? Because obviously if you did all those things, it means you screwed up and are trying to soften the blow,” I said as I straightened his tie and made sure everything else was in place.

I looked up at him and waited.

“We don’t have time for this.”

“Then tell me what it is.” I crossed my arms and tapped my foot.

He shook his head, because he knew there was no way I was going to let it go.

“I may or may not have been cleaning and trying to get your shoes in order and I may have dropped one and then tripped on it, and broke the heel off.” He winced as if he was waiting for me to smack him.

“Where is it?” Looking like a dog that had peed on the carpet, he went and got the shoe and brought it to me. Honestly, I’d done much worse damage after a night of drunken dancing at the bar. All it would take was a little glue.

“You know I can glue this back on, right?”

“Wait, you can? I didn’t know you could do that.” He took the shoe from me and examined it. “Will it stay? What if you’re walking and it gives out? You could break your ankle.” His concern was both adorable, and making us late, so I hurried us out of the door and into a cab to take us to the garage to get his car (which was barely a ten minute walk), explaining that I had broken more than one heel in my time and that I’d never had a repaired one give out on me yet.

He started going on about seeing a cobbler and I asked him if those still existed and he said he’d seen one somewhere in Boston and then we got talking about all the things that had gone out of style. Like video stores and boom boxes.

We did end up being late, but it didn’t really matter. It was just family dinner. Lucah was still stressing out about impressing my parents. I just smoothed his hair and told him to relax, but it didn’t do much good until the door opened and he morphed into his charming self, like Clark Kent into Superman. No phone booth required.

“We thought you’d gotten lost,” Mom joked as she took Lucah’s coat. He whispered something I couldn’t hear and she laughed again as we walked into the dining room. I’d have to ask him about that later.

“So, Rory, how is work?” Mom always asked me that, even though she probably heard enough about Clarke Enterprises from Dad.

“It’s going well. Lilia is working out.” I knew what she was going to bring up.

“Walter said they hired a new girl about your age. So you’re not alone anymore. That must be nice.” I didn’t point out that Violet and I were both women, because she was my mother and I would always be her little girl. I glanced at Lucah, but his charm suit was still in place and wasn’t budging.

“Yeah, it is nice. We had lunch together the other day and I really think we have a lot in common.” With that comment, Lucah choked on a piece of scalloped potato and I banged him on the back as he gulped down some water.

“My goodness, are you all right?” Mom said. He held his hand up and gasped, trying to get his breath back. I knew exactly why he’d choked. I didn’t mean it to come out that way, but it was kind of funny. In a twisted sort of way.

“Fine, Mrs. Clarke. I’m fine.” He squeezed my hand under the table and I wasn’t sure what that was about. Lucah’s choking fit did accomplish one thing, and changed the subject. Dad had been silent about Violet, which I found odd, until I realized that Mrs. Andrews must have told him something. Great. I officially had no secrets.

We finished dinner and had dessert and coffee and then Dad asked Lucah if he could show him something in the study. Mom nabbed my arm and said she needed my opinion on drapes, or some such bullshit. Smooth. Very smooth, parents. But I went along with it. Lucah would tell me about it later, of course.

Mom showed me the drapes and then got down to business.

“So, you and Lucah seem like you’re really moving forward.” Jesus, I knew just where this was going. God, I hoped Dad wasn’t doing the same thing to Lucah. I wished I could send him a text to make sure, but Mom would know something was up.

“Yeah, Mom, we are. Seeing as how we live together and have done so for a little while.” She gave me a look.

“Watch your tone, Rory.” My parents never seemed to appreciate my sarcasm in times like this. “I am simply pointing out that you have been living together and that usually precedes marriage and babies and so forth. I’m just wondering if you had any news on that. At all?” It was like she’d overheard our conversation yesterday. Did she and Dad bug my apartment? I almost wouldn’t put it past them.

“No, Mom. I don’t have any news for you on that front.” I held up my left hand and wiggled my ring-free fingers. “We’ve been together less than six months. It’s still too soon, don’t you think?” She fiddled with the drapes.

“Well, you moved in together so soon that I thought maybe the rest of your relationship would move that fast.” She turned around and gave me a smile, but it wasn’t a happy one. She was fishing, and poorly disguising it.

“No, Mom. I just don’t think that we should rush it. Because we’re still young and figuring things out.”

“That’s probably wise,” she said, nodding. It did bother me a tiny bit that she was all sweetness and light in front of Lucah, but then she didn’t seem to approve of our relationship when he wasn’t around. “My parents told me that I rushed into things with your father, but of course I was young and in love and I didn’t listen. But those were different times and I was much more foolish than you are.” She patted my arm and went back to talking about drapes and sconces and curtain rods.