“Is it?” I asked. What a moronic question. I wanted to smack myself. But Ryder didn’t call me on it.
“Yeah. Harder than . . . well, harder than a lot of things.” I wouldn’t know. Apart from social drinking, I’d never experimented with any sort of substances. Well, pot a few times in college. But that was it. I hadn’t really liked the high feeling. Couldn’t see what all the fuss was about.
“But it’s worth it,” he said as we strolled up the street. At this rate it was going to take us forever to get to the café I had in mind.
“Yeah?” I asked.
“Yeah. I feel . . . clear. Open. For the first time in a long time. It’s good. I hope.” I didn’t feel qualified to offer advice on this particular subject. “The downside, though, is that I have to deal with all my shit instead of getting wasted. That’s the part that sucks ass.”
“Or you could just ignore stuff until it goes away. That’s what I do with something I don’t want to do.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, that’s another option. I’ll keep it in mind.”
We started to talk about other things. Ryder was always asking me about my new designs and what I was working on and so forth.
“Well, now I have to start organizing my show, so I need a venue and I have to hire models and a whole ton of other things. I’ll make Inari do most of the work, poor girl. But she’s much better at it than I am.” That girl could organize her way out of anything, which was why she made such a kickass assistant.
“Maybe that’s what I need. An assistant. Someone to do all the things I don’t want to do. How much would I have to pay someone to do that?” he asked.
I snorted. “A lot.” I paid Inari ridiculously well so she wouldn’t leave me because she definitely put up with a lot.
“Shit. I have negative dollars. Guess that’s not going to work.”
We finally reached the little shop which was crammed between a bodega and a pawn shop. Grungy on the outside, it was much larger than it looked once you got inside.
Ryder opened the door for me. “Ladies first,” he said with a bow. God, he was sexy. So damn sexy.
I walked in and headed for the counter to order. Ryder followed, standing so close to me, my back brushed his front. If I leaned back, I’d be tucked right under his chin. I wasn’t used to feeling that small, but Ryder and I were matched perfectly, height-wise anyway.
“What are you going to get?” he asked, leaning down and speaking in my ear. He hadn’t said anything dirty, but he might as well have. Heat radiated out from my body and I couldn’t think, let alone read the menu.
“What can I get you?” the teenage girl behind the counter asked me in a bored voice.
“Huh?” I said, too distracted by Ryder. I didn’t know if he was doing it on purpose, but it was driving me crazy anyway.
“What can I get you?” she repeated in a slow voice, as if I didn’t understand her.
“Oh, um,” I said, trying to get my words out. “Tea?”
“What kind?” she asked with a heavy sigh. I was really making her life difficult today.
“Earl Grey,” I said. It was the first thing that came to mind.
“Anything else?” she asked, punching the order into the register. I scanned the glass bakery case. They had cronuts. Score.
“And a cronut.”
I stepped aside to let Ryder order. Also to clear my brain out. He made it hard to think when he was standing that close.
“I’ll have the same,” he said, and she added his order. I reached into my purse for my credit card, but Ryder pushed it away and handed the girl cash.
“I got this,” he said. The tea and cronuts weren’t super expensive, but I knew money was tight for him right now. “Don’t even bother trying to protest. You won’t win. I’m fucking stubborn.” He winked at the girl, and her face went red. Oh, Ryder. He just couldn’t help it.
“Fine,” I said, putting my card away. “But I’ll get you next time.”
“Sure.” The girl gave Ryder his change back and dropped some of the coins and a few bills on the counter. She seemed more flustered than bored now.
“No worries,” Ryder said, giving her a smile and scooped everything up as she tried to help him. He dropped the lot in the tip jar and she thanked him.
“Buy yourself something nice.” She blushed again and stared at him until the next customer cleared their throat.
I walked to the other end of the counter to wait for our orders. “You’re shameless,” I said.
“What are you talking about?”
I rolled my eyes at him. “You know what I’m talking about. You flirt with everyone.”
“Do I?” He pretended to be surprised.
I smacked him in the chest. “Shut up, you know you do.”
“Huh. News to me.”
Our orders arrived and we sat at a tiny table near the window that was unoccupied. Ryder added tons of honey to his tea and spent a long time stirring it before he sipped. I had mine straight up.
“So, what the hell is a cronut?” he asked, staring at it like it was something poisonous.
“It’s a cross between a croissant and a donut. It’s a new thing.” I picked mine up and took a bite. I hated jumping on trendy bandwagons, but these things were delicious.
“Huh. What do you know? I guess I missed that one.” He picked his up and took a tentative bite, like a kid being asked to try Brussels sprouts for the first time. He chewed and thought about it before he swallowed. ”Fucking delicious.” He smiled and finished the thing in a few more bites.
“Thought so,” I said, eating my own cronut a little more slowly.
We sipped our tea, and I tried not to stare at Ryder, but he was definitely staring at me.
“Do I have something on my face?” I asked. I really hoped I didn’t have something on my face. How embarrassing.
“No. Just looking at you. You’re nice to look at. I can’t help it.” His words nearly knocked me over. He said it so casually.
“Oh.” I looked down into my tea and hoped my face wasn’t too red.
“I like it when you blush,” he said, finishing the last of his tea and setting the empty cup down.
“Hasn’t anyone ever told you it’s rude to stare?” I said, and I finally looked up. Yup, he was still staring.
“Yes. But, as you’ve noticed, I don’t exactly follow rules for normal social behavior.” Wasn’t that the truth? Ryder just sort of did whatever he wanted, regardless of what other people thought. It was one of the things I liked so much about him. Confidence is sexy.
“Hmm,” I said, finishing my tea.
Ryder sat back and stopped staring at me, watching the people walk by.
“Sometimes I just like to go to public places and watch people walk by. I try to guess what kind of lives they lead based on their clothes and how they walk. Do you ever do that?” His eyes came back to me.
“Sometimes. Mostly I just criticize their outfits.” Some people walked around like they dressed in the dark. Or had no fashion sense. Or both. It was a battle not to go up to them and give them a fashion intervention. Thankfully, I had all my friends trained and they had excellent taste in clothing. Or at least they did after I’d gone through their wardrobes and told them what to wear and what to never, ever wear again.
“I can imagine that. So, how about my outfit?” he said, holding his arms out and gesturing to his clothes. He had to know he looked good in his distressed jeans, black motorcycle boots and faded band t-shirt. Add to that the tattoos on his arms and his messy hair, and he was a sight to behold. A beautiful ginger sight.
“Fishing for compliments, are we?” I asked, folding my arms.
“No. I really want to know.” No he didn’t. The impish gleam in his eye told me that he was messing with me.
“You know you look good, Ryder. You don’t have to even try.” He’d look good no matter what he wore. Well, maybe not sandals and socks. But he’d probably rock those, too.
“Why
thank you, S. Harris,” he said, bowing his head.
“You’re welcome R. Blythe.”
He chuckled and shifted in his seat. “Ready to go?” he asked.
“Sure,” I said, and we took our dishes to the counter and headed out of the little café.
I really didn’t want to go back to work, even though I was working on Rory’s dress.
“Walk you back to work?” Ryder asked, and I nodded. He lapsed into silence and I wondered if it was something I said or did, or if he was just being thoughtful.
“So, I have a question for you,” he finally said.
“Fire away.”
“How do you feel about art?”
I had no idea what this pertained to. I was going to need some more information before giving him a definite answer.
“Um, I like art. What kind are we talking about? Monet? Sculpture? Graffiti?”
He put his hands in his pockets as he walked. “Well, I was thinking that one of the guys I met at therapy is doing this art show. He uses trash and makes it into sculptures and shit. I’ve seen pictures, and the stuff is really neat. He invited me to his show opening on Friday night. I thought maybe we could go. If you wanted to.” He was back to being nervous.
I smiled and looked down at the sidewalk. “You mean as a date?” It couldn’t be a date. We’d just gotten through discussing all the reasons why we couldn’t date or do anything resembling dating.
“No. Can’t we just go to something without putting a label on it? Drives me crazy that two people of the opposite sex can’t go somewhere together without getting the third degree from everyone,” he said.
“Who’s everyone?”
He threw his arms up in the air in frustration. “People!”
“Jesus, calm down. I just asked you a question.”
He looked over at me. “Sorry. Things like that just piss me off. I can’t help it.”
I sighed. “I know what you mean. Um, sure. I’d love to go.” It sounded interesting and I’d get to see Ryder. Win, win.
“Great. How about if I just meet you there? Seeing as how I have no transportation at the moment. I’m saving up to get a bike, but I can’t really picture you on a motorcycle.”
“Why not?” Sure, I’d never been on one, but it wasn’t because I had anything against them. Motorcycles were sexy.
“The helmet might mess up your hair,” he said, bumping my shoulder with his.
“Hey! I am not a diva,” I said, bumping him back as he laughed at me.
We reached my building and stopped in front of the door. “The show starts at seven, so how about I meet you at 6:30 in front of the building? I’ll text you with the address.”
“Sounds good. Thanks for the tea and cronut. It was nice to get out of the studio. My interns drive me nucking futs.” Especially now since so many of them had quit.
He laughed again. “Oh, I’m sure you whip them right into shape.” He somehow made that sound dirty, and I looked away from him.
“Yeah, well. I should go in.” I pointed to the building. Ugh, I sounded like an idiot. I needed to go now before I said something else stupid. When Ryder was around, I tended to get tongue-tied.
“Okay, then. I guess I’ll see you for dinner tomorrow night?” he asked. Right. I forgot about the whole dinner thing.
“Yup.”
He held the door open for me. “See you then,” he said, and I stumbled my way into the building. He threw off my balance as well as making it hard to say words.
“Bye,” I said as the door closed behind me. I gave a dumb little wave through the glass, and Ryder just shook his head and walked away.
I mentally slapped myself and headed back to work.
“I’m going to this art show on Friday, so I can’t go out,” I said to Rory that night as I made dinner. Lucah had to stay late at the office for something, so Rory had come to hang out with me. I missed having her around all the time. I’d underestimated how much it would suck not having a roommate.
“What kind of art show?” she asked, grabbing an olive from the jar I had opened to add to the Greek pasta salad I was making as a side dish.
“Stop that!” I said, smacking her hand away as she went for another one. “Um, I’m not sure.” I wouldn’t have even told her about it, except that we had planned to go out to the bar and watch open mic night.
“Okayyyyy,” she said, drawing out the word and sitting back on her stool. “There is something you’re not telling me.” Oh, there was more than one something.
“Yeah, okay, so . . . Ryder invited me. It’s not a date. It’s just a thing that we’re both going to. As two people who are going to an event at the same place at the same time with no romantic intentions.”
She gave me a look that said she didn’t believe me.
“So, are you telling me, by the look on your face, that you don’t think Ryder and I can go to an event together without it being sexual?”
“Sloane. How many times have you told me you wanted to have sex with him?” A few. Hundreds. But that was before. I’m much more mature and have my head screwed on straight now. For the most part.
“That’s not the point. I can want to sleep with someone and still spend platonic time with them. Hell, the other day he said he didn’t think we should see each other at all. I’m not going to do something to screw that up. Clearly, he doesn’t want any sort of complications right now. I don’t want to mess up his life.” Not when he’d just started getting it back on track. I couldn’t ruin all his progress.
“Okay,” Rory said with a sigh. “I trust you. It’s him I don’t trust. He has that effect on you. I should know. I think it’s in the Blythe DNA.” She’d been completely unable to resist Lucah from the first moment she’d met him. I liked to think I had a little more self-control.
“It’ll be fine,” I said, dumping the olives onto the cutting board and roughly chopping them up to add to the chilled pasta.
“Are you sure about that?” She sipped her glass of wine, and I had to look away from her scrutiny. Rory had a way of seeing bullshit a mile away.
“Honestly? I’m not sure. But I’m going to try really hard to be good. Probably harder than I ever have before.” Most of the time I didn’t see the point in being “good” in the conventional sense. I’d always pretty much done what I wanted and so far things had worked out.
“I have faith in you,” Rory said, raising her glass to me. “Not so much in him, but don’t tell him I said that. And don’t tell Lucah I said that. Though he’d probably agree with me.”
I poured myself a glass of wine. I was definitely going to need it tonight.
“Well, he kept his hands to himself today. Other than invading my personal bubble and a few sexual comments, he was a complete gentleman.” A dirty gentleman. The best kind, in my opinion. He’d open the door for you, but ogle your ass as you walked through it.
“Wow. That must have taken terrific restraint for him.” We both laughed.
“Maybe he’s less sexual when he’s sober. Although I don’t know how many times he was on something when we interacted before and I’m not about to ask,” I said.
“Yeah, I’d definitely avoid mentioning anything to do with his former . . . hobbies.” Hobbies. That was the nicest way to put it. I never asked about his drug use. He’d ended up in the hospital with a pill overdose, but there was other stuff, too.
I told myself it didn’t matter when he looked at me and made me all tingly inside. But really? It did kind of matter. I mean, if he’d been smoking pot, that was one thing. Crack cocaine was something else altogether. I just didn’t see how he could go cold turkey if he’d been in that deep. I wanted to be positive and supportive, so I kept my mouth shut, which was kind of a first for me. I wasn’t used to censoring anything I said.
“That’s my plan.” We clinked our wine glasses together, and then there was a knock at the door.
“Speaking of gingers,” I said, going to answer the door. Lucah was standing on the oth
er side, dark circles under his eyes.
“You look like shit,” I said as he walked in. Dude needed a glass of wine, so I went to get him one.
“Thanks.” He went to give Rory a kiss. “Hello, my love,” he said, smiling.
“Hello back,” she said.
I handed him a glass and he almost downed it in one gulp. “Rough day at work?” I asked.
Rory and Lucah shared a look. “You could say that,” he said. “We’re working on something top secret and it’s taking a hell of a lot of time and energy. Oh, remind me to thank Lilia tomorrow. She was extremely helpful today.”
“Will do,” she said. I tried not to feel like the third wheel as they talked about office politics and so forth. They didn’t get to talk as much during the day now since they didn’t work in the same department. It was known they were dating, but they liked to keep things on the down low anyway, which was probably smart.
Fortunately, I occupied myself with cooking, and Rory soon brought me back into the conversation.
“So how’s work going?” she asked.
I sighed. “I need more interns.”
“Didn’t you just hire a bunch?” Lucah asked, which earned him a sharp look from Rory.
“Yes, and they quit. I’m a bitch, apparently.”
Rory snorted into her glass of wine. “Sorry, but you are. It’s one of the things I love about you, but you are. Maybe try yelling less. Or positive reinforcement.”
I rolled my eyes and stirred the sauce I was making for the chicken baking in the oven. “They’re not puppies. I’m not trying to train them not to pee on the carpet.”
Lucah and Rory both laughed. “True. But a little bit of niceness can go a long way,” Rory said. I knew she was right, but I just had no patience for stupidity.
“I guess,” I said, grumbling.
Ryder didn’t breathe a word of our Friday night plans the next night at dinner. He also turned his flirt level way down, probably to throw off suspicion. It was a good plan, but I wished he’d let me in on it. I was so used to him flirting with me, I didn’t even know what to make of him not turning everything I said into something sexual.
“Well, I have to work in the morning, so I’m going to call it a night,” he said with an exaggerated yawn.