“What happens when the reality exceeds the fantasy?” he asked.
I thought he was going to kiss me again, but he took a step backwards. I didn’t reply to his question because I didn’t have an answer.
“I should go,” he said, and I could feel him withdrawing again from me. That was fine. Probably good, seeing as how he was going to be gone soon.
“Until tomorrow,” he said.
“Until tomorrow,” I echoed.
The next few days were a blur. Things started moving fast on the plans for the fashion show. I got through the dreaded model casting without even yelling at anyone, which was a record for me. Inari brought me a cake as a reward from one of the only bakeries that could make one better than I did.
“I don’t know how you can eat all those sweets and stay so thin,” she said as I devoured my second slice.
“Me neither. God blessed me with a fast metabolism, but then gave me a shitty family to even things out.” I wasn’t sure if I would have rather had it the other way around.
She just shook her head at me.
Work was great, but when I got home, all I could think about was Ryder and how little time we had left before he headed off to the mountains. He came over and hung out with me after dinner and we went to lunch a few times as well.
He didn’t kiss me again, and I tried not to be disappointed. Of course, I thought about kissing him, but then I pussied out, every time. I didn’t want to make things weird for him.
The prospect of getting letters from him made the fact that he was going to be gone for a month suck a lot less. Plus, it was only a month—I could get through a month without him. And then he’d come back and things would be better, and then maybe . . . maybe.
“To Ryder’s last night in civilization,” I said, raising my glass. We’d decided to go out for Ryder’s “last meal.” Lucah was totally on board with him going since he’d showed such initiative and desire to do this.
“Hear, hear!” we all said, toasting to his good health and not getting frostbite.
“So, what are you going to miss the most?” Rory asked.
“Indoor plumbing,” he said immediately. That made us all laugh.
“I have to say, I’m really proud of you, Ryder,” Lucah said.
“Thanks, brother. I hope that pride will continue. I think it will this time,” he said. I had a few tears in my eyes as Lucah patted him on the shoulder. I loved when they were like this.
“I think so, too,” Lucah said.
“How’s April?” I asked. Lucah laughed.
“She’s not liking bed rest too much. Tate has threatened to handcuff her, but not in a sexy way,” he said.
“Yeah, I'm guessing sex is not on the agenda when you’re on bed rest,” I said.
“I think I’d probably go crazy,” Rory said. I bet she would. Without the ability to pace around when she was stressed, she might go nuts.
“Oh, I think I could find other ways to amuse you,” Lucah said, wiggling his eyebrows. Ryder made a disgusted sound and Lucah pretend-punched him in the shoulder.
“Oh, by the way, I talked to Gil the other day,” Ryder said to me.
“Oh yeah? How’s the art business? Has he done any Dumpster diving lately?”
“Yup. He’s now working on a project with old light bulbs. He explained it, but he was all artsy and existential. I pretended I was getting it, but I definitely didn’t.” Yeah, I wouldn’t get it either.
“Sounds about right,” I said. I hoped that Ryder would hang out with Gil more often. He seemed to be a good sort of guy.
“He also said that if I wanted, he’d hire me on as a part-time assistant. I’d basically be standing next to him in the dumpster, holding the bag, or getting him chai lattes, but it would still be a job. And who knows? Maybe I could be an artist?”
Now there was an idea. I knew Ryder had an amazing brain and tons of imagination. He just needed an outlet for it.
“We do need an artist in this family,” Lucah said. Both he and Tate were more bookish than artsy.
“I’d rather do that than be the family fuck-up,” Ryder said.
“Hey, we’ve all been the fuck-up. Tate and I are well overdue for our turns,” Lucah said.
“Good. I’m happy to pass the baton,” Ryder said.
“What if you’re an only child? Does that mean you don’t get to be a fuck-up?” Rory asked.
“It means that no matter what, you’re never the fuck-up,” Lucah said, kissing her cheek.
She grinned at him. “Good answer.”
“Well, I’d have to fail pretty epically to be the fuck-up in my family. Like, it would require a lot of effort to be worse than my siblings,” I said.
“Truth,” Rory said. She’d met all my siblings at one time or another. “No offense, but your family is kind of the worst.”
“Hey, the only thing I share with those people is a last name and some DNA. And really, I don’t even know if my father is really my father.” I don’t look much like my siblings, and I knew my mother had cheated. They both had. The only reason I’d never bothered to look for him was because I figured any man who had slept with my mother was a loser, so I’d just be trading one for another.
“Really?” Ryder said. He was always trying to get me to talk about my family, and I never wanted to. But I’d had a few glasses of wine and I wasn’t going to get to talk to him in a while. Unless it was an emergency, we weren’t allowed to contact Ryder. He could send letters out, but we couldn’t respond.
“I got you a present,” I said, pulling the small gift out of my bag. I’d wanted to give it to him when we were alone, but I couldn’t wait any longer.
“A present? Hand it over,” he said, reaching for it.
“It’s nothing exciting,” I said, suddenly feeling self-conscious. Ryder ripped into the paper and found a stationery set, a box of pens, and a box of pencils.
“I wasn’t sure what you’d want to write with,” I said. “So I got you both.” It wasn’t easy to find a somewhat masculine set of stationery, let me tell you. But I found a set that had simple ivory paper with a black border. Ryder stared down at it and smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling a little. He rarely smiled exactly like that.
“Thank you so much. I completely forgot to buy paper. I was just going to use shitty notebook paper. This is so much better, Sloane.” It would be crazy to record his voice saying my name, right?
“You’re welcome,” I said as Lucah and Rory stared at me.
“I got you something too, but you’ll get it later,” Ryder said, leaning across the table and whispering. Wait, what?
He saw the look on my face and chuckled.
“It’s not what you’re thinking. You have such a dirty mind, S. Harris.”
I kicked him under the table.
“Only when I’m around you. You’re corrupt and it rubs off on me.”
“I’d like to rub off on you,” he said with a wink. I waited for Lucah to tell him that we were in public and he should tone it down, but he didn’t.
“Go on, get it out of your system. You’re going to have no one to talk to but the trees soon,” Lucah said, almost looking a little smug.
“Go ahead, get that out of your system,” Ryder countered. “I’m not going to be around for you to blame shit on and pretend to be all superior to. Whatever will you do with your time?” He meant it as a joke, but there was an edge of truth to it that cut just a little too deep. We were all silent.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to go dark on you. Forget what I said.”
Lucah was quiet for a minute and then he smiled.
“Forgotten,” he said.
They went back to ribbing each other as brothers are wont to do. I wished that I could have seen them with Tate and have the whole Blythe trifecta together, but April was still sick. She was doing better, but Tate needed to be home to give her a break from the girls.
“You know, when you finish, we should have a party,” Rory said.
r /> “Yeah?” Ryder said. “You’d do that?”
“Sure, of course,” she said. “We need to celebrate this!” Rory was very fond of parties. So was I.
“This is totally happening,” I chimed in.
“Okay, sounds good. But no candles or formal shit,” he said.
“Got that? No candles or formal shit,” I said to Rory.
“Message received. I think we can come up with something casual and fun. Maybe you’d want to invite your friend Gil?” she said.
“You could have it at the gallery,” I suggested. That would be a super cool place to have a party. I didn’t know Gil, but I bet he’d be up to letting us use it for a few hours.
“I don’t know,” Ryder said. “Maybe. We’ll see.” He didn’t seem to want to talk about it. Perhaps because he was doubting that he’d make it through the program. He would. I knew he would this time. If he didn’t, he was going to lose everything. Ryder was stubborn. He wouldn’t let his inner demons take us away from him.
Ryder called me that night a few minutes after I got home.
“Hey,” I said, wondering why he was calling me since we’d just spent several hours together.
“Hang up and don’t answer when I call back. Let it go to voicemail. And don’t you dare listen to it until tomorrow,” he said.
“Okayyyy,” I said, wondering what he was up to. I was definitely going to listen to the message as soon as I could. I’d lie. He wouldn’t know. He was leaving.
He hung up on me then called back a moment later. I didn’t answer it per his request. A few minutes later my phone let me know I had a new voicemail. It was followed by a text message.
You’d better not listen to it. I’ll know if you do before I go. Don’t do it.
I laughed. Okay, fine. I could wait a few hours. I’d burn with curiosity, but I’d wait.
Lucah was taking the day off work to drive Ryder to the airport. I hadn’t asked if I could go and they hadn’t offered to let me. It would probably be a disaster anyway. I didn’t want to give him any temptation to change his mind. Besides, I thought about that night when we’d kissed as our farewell. Not goodbye. Just a farewell for now.
In one month he’d be back. My fashion show would be over, and I’d be on to pitching my lingerie line to stores and hoping to outsource all my production to manufacturers. I’d sort of hoped he could come to the show and see everything, but it would be on video and he could watch it when he got back. This treatment was so much more important for him.
The morning of Ryder’s departure, I walked halfway down the hall toward Rory and Lucah’s place before spinning right around and going back to my place. I hadn’t listened to the message, but I’d spent all night pretty much staring at my phone, fighting the urge. But I’d held out and I only had a few more hours.
I got ready for work as usual and took the T like I always did. My phone felt like it was burning a hole in my purse.
Inari gave me a sympathetic look when she came into my office.
“He’s not dying, Inari. He’s going to treatment for a month. He’ll be back and he’ll be sober and have his shit together. Or at least he’ll have started to get his shit together.” I didn’t think the thirty days were going to completely change years of destructive behavior. It was going to take time and work, but at least he was on the right path.
“I know, but he is going to be gone for a while,” I said. I wasn’t going to tell her that I had his exact hour of arrival in my phone and an alarm that was going to go off. And I probably wouldn’t need the alarm.
“Still, it’s a long time. A lot can happen in a month,” she said.
“A lot can happen in just a moment,” I said.
She smiled.
“Yes, you’re right.”
My eyeballs were glued to the clock the whole morning, and I barely got any work done because I was always watching to see when it would be noon. I hoped his plane didn’t get delayed. But maybe his just leaving the house counted as “leaving.” We hadn’t specified, but I was going with noon. I didn’t want to wait any longer.
I had my phone out at 11:56. I couldn’t explain why I was so beyond excited for this message, but I was—like a kid on Christmas morning who knows they’re getting a pony.
Finally, the clock ticked over to twelve, and I played the message.
“Hey, Sloane. I know how you love it when I say your name. So I’ll leave you with this. Sloane, Sloane, Sloane, Sloane, Sloane . . .” He kept saying it, but with a different tone and emphasis each time.
“There. I said it thirty times. One for each day. Oh, and I love you. This might be the worst possible timing for me to tell you that, but I can’t hold it in any longer. I also know I might be totally fucking things up again by saying that. I’m going to miss you, but I want to do this for you, and I want to do this for me. I want to try to be the kind of man you deserve, even if you don’t want me back.” His voice cracked a little and I wiped away a few tears. I was holding the phone so tight it was hurting my hand.
“Anyway,” he said, clearing his throat, “that’s what I wanted to say. Your name and that I love you, and I’ll come back a better man. Promise. Farewell, Sloane.”
The message clicked off and my phone asked me if I wanted to delete it.
“Hell no!” I yelled, and saved the message.
Then I listened to it four more times.
Rory texted me around one that Ryder was on the plane and taking off. Inari had taken me out to lunch, and we were taking our sweet time. I was much too distracted to work today.
“I can’t believe he told you he loved you,” she said.
“I know. And he didn’t give me a chance to say it back, the bastard.”
“Why don’t you write to him? You can do that, right?”
I shook my head and sipped my sangria. I felt like celebrating today.
“No. He’s allowed to send stuff out, but we can’t send him things. I mean, it makes sense, but it totally sucks for me.”
I poked at my salad then pushed it aside.
“So you love him back?”
I smiled. “Yeah, I do. In spite of everything. He’s put me through hell, that one, and honestly, I hate him a little bit for it. Love is funny that way.”
Inari finished her sandwich and sat back in her chair.
“I told Hawk I loved him after our first fight. Actually, it was during our first fight. I was so mad at him, and I’d never experienced that kind of pure anger before. That was when I knew I loved him.”
I didn’t get it.
“You told your husband you loved him when you were pissed at him?”
“Yup. My feeling is that if someone can affect you like that, it means you care about them that much. I wouldn’t love him so intensely if he couldn’t make me that angry.” It didn’t make much sense to me, but I’d go with it.
“Sure,” I said, finishing my drink. Inari just gave me one of her knowing, worldly looks.
“I hate it when you do that. I know I’m older than you, but I hate when you get that superior look on your face.”
She tossed her dreadlocks over her shoulder and shrugged.
“You’ll learn.”
I was in such a good mood, my staff and interns were even more terrified of me than usual. I even caught a few of them whispering about me being possessed. Hilarious. I wasn’t even mad, so I let them go early without even yelling. I also promised to bring in donuts the next day.
Funny, I thought I’d be all depressed and melancholy when Ryder left, but I felt as light as a balloon, like I was going to float away at any moment.
I listened to the message a few more times on my way home and headed to Rory’s apartment without even stopping at my own. I knocked on the door, hoping she’d be there.
She opened it with a grin. “Well?” She must know or else she wouldn’t be smiling like that.
“He said he loved me. And then he said my name thirty times.” She looked a little confused about the
name part.
“It’s a thing. Anyway, he said he loved me,” I said. The more I said it, the happier I felt. Could one die from happiness? I hoped not.
“That’s amazing. I’m so happy for you,” she said, giving me a hug.
“Wow, okay. You were so down on me and Ryder being together. What’s with the change?”
She put her arm around me, and we sat on the couch together.
“I’m not sure,” she said. Lucah didn’t seem to be home and I wondered where he was. “Lucah’s at Tate’s. He’ll be back for dinner.”
“Oh.”
“Anyway, I don’t know. I guess I just stopped fighting it. When you and Ryder met, the two of you seemed so . . .”
“Inevitable,” I supplied. That was exactly the right word. Ryder and I were inevitable.
“Yes. But he was so messed up at the time, and you’re my best friend, and I didn’t want anything to happen to you. I didn’t know what he was involved in, but Lucah told me some stories, and that was more than enough for me to want you to steer clear of him. He was a mess, and I didn’t want him screwing up your life.” I couldn’t argue with her. It was all true. I’d known he was potentially bad news from the very start. Didn’t stop me from wanting him though.
“And then he did mess things up, but I could still see that connection. I knew it wasn’t just about sex, but I still didn’t want you with him.”
“And now?” I asked.
She let out a breath and smiled. “Now I know that the two of you are inevitable. You can’t fight something like that. It’s going to happen, and you have to hold on for the ride. I fought Lucah so hard, and it only pushed me closer to him. And this time I really think he’s going to get his life together.”
I smiled. “Me too.” We didn’t talk about what would happen if he didn’t. Right now, I was still basking in the glow of his declaration of love. I couldn’t see anything else through the haze of happiness.
“Plus, if you two get married, then I can actually call you my sister,” she said. This was the second time she’d talked about me and Ryder and marriage. Before, I’d shuddered at the thought. Now? I might be able to be convinced of the pros of a matrimonial union.