“You left me.”
The brokenness in his voice weaved through me, making me feel his pain as acutely as my own. “I wanted to protect you.”
He shook his head as if he did not accept that answer. “I don’t want to talk about this right now. That’s not why I’m here.”
His dismissal of my intentions burned. “Okay, then why are you here?”
“Why did you come back? Phoenix said you’re in trouble. Why would you come back here if you’re in trouble?”
I let out a humorless laugh and plopped down on the bed. “I’m always in trouble, Ryder. I thought you of all people would know that.” He raised his eyebrows expectantly, waiting for more. “I had a visitor the other night. Hermes came to see me.”
“Hermes? The god?”
I shrugged a shoulder. It wasn’t all that impressive. That sneaky bastard could pop up anywhere he wanted. “He told me you were in trouble. I just wanted to see for myself.”
His eyebrows went even higher and he leaned forward to clarify, “You thought I was in trouble so you came out of hiding to check on me?”
God, when he put it like that, after last night, I felt like such an idiot. “Well, he said my mom and Honor were in trouble too. I don’t really care about Ava.” Although I was starting to wonder if that was still true. “But I’m worried about Honor. I couldn’t get ahold of Smith and so I started to worry Hermes was telling the truth. When I got here, I found out you were okay, but Exie and Sloane are not.”
“It was you the other morning.” He pointed an accusatory finger at me. “The unknown caller.”
“I wanted to know you were at least alive.”
He retracted his hand and stared at me silently. I could see him working something out behind those gray eyes, but I didn’t think I wanted to know what it was. Finally, in a very smooth voice, he said, “I’m alive.”
I pressed my lips together to keep from smiling and agreed. “You are alive.”
“So tell me about Exie and Sloane. What did you find out?”
“They’re gone. You were right. Nix took them shortly after I left. I couldn’t find Exie’s mom, but Sloane’s told me even she didn’t know where Nix had taken them.”
Ryder’s expression turned very grim. “And what did you find out about your mom?”
“She’s gone too. Nix handed her over to the Fates.”
“Give it to me, Red. Tell me everything you know.”
I shook my head. “I don’t want to pull you into this. I don’t even know what’s going on or how involved I am yet. I don’t want to put you in danger again.”
He stalked over to me, each footstep punctuating his growing frustration. I cleared my throat nervously, unsure what he wanted from me or why we needed to be so close.
He might be super pissed at me, but I had spent our separation convinced I stayed away because I loved him. Nothing about my feelings for him had lessened. In fact, they might have grown stronger. It didn’t seem fair because this was the first polite conversation we’d had since the night Nix had nearly killed him. This thing inside of me should have faded or lessened or done anything but grow and burn and turn into this hot blaze inside of me.
He stood over me with his arms still crossed and said, “That is not a decision you get to make. You can be a martyr for your friends or for your mom or whomever else you deem too weak to stand up for, but I am not that person, Ivy. I don’t want you to fight my battles for me or choose how and when to keep me out of danger. I decide when I want to get involved and when I want to stay out of it. It has always been that way for me. Even with you. Especially with you. So do me a favor and don’t pull that bullshit anymore. When I ask you what is going on, either tell me that you don’t want to say because you don’t want to say or tell me what’s going on. Don’t keep it from me because you think you’re protecting me.”
He said “protecting me” like it was a curse word. But his rant had made some sense and forced me to examine my motives for keeping everything a secret. When I was honest with myself, I found that I wanted to tell him. I wanted to talk it out and see if he could pick up on something I had missed.
“Fine, Ryder. You want to know all of the sordid details, that’s just fine.”
“Good.”
“Just… just tell me why you want to know first. Why do you want to get mixed up in this again?”
He let out a weary sigh and sat down on the bed with me. He sat nowhere near me; there was plenty of space between us, but I felt him this close. I felt him all over my skin and deep in my bones.
“Morbid curiosity,” he answered.
I didn’t believe him for a second. “Not good enough.”
“Well, it’s as good as you’re going to get.” He sounded very serious about that.
“Listen, Ryder, you’ve made it perfectly clear that you want nothing to do with me. I’m just trying to figure out why you’re here.”
“Is that what you think? You think I’m acting like this and that I wrote a song about you and that I dragged my ass out of bed first thing this morning when Phoenix called me and told me you were crashing at his place because I want nothing to do with you?”
“Yes,” I whispered, feeling like it was a lie.
He just shook his head. “Tell me what’s going on, Ivy.”
I could tell that he really had lost whatever patience he’d started with. I decided it was probably just better to give him what he wanted. I told him everything. I started with where I had been for the past year and ended with waking up in Phoenix’s bed with Ryder looming over me.
“Where is Nix now?” he asked thoughtfully.
I lifted one shoulder and rested my cheek on it. “Probably on his way. I have no idea where he’s coming from, but if Thalia called him, I have no doubt he’s going to be here soon.”
“So what’s your plan?”
I shrugged again. “I need to figure out what happened to Honor. I feel like I should figure out what’s going on with my mom… I don’t know where to start.”
“Why do you even care? That woman deserves whatever they do to her.”
The fury radiating off him surprised me. I knew he hated Nix, but I had no idea how deep his hatred for my mother went. “I agree with you. I don’t know though… there’s just something off with the whole thing. What do they want with her? What are they doing to her? I’m not saying I want to rescue her. I just have this feeling that I need to know what’s going on. I’m missing a piece of this puzzle.”
“Red, we’re missing a lot of pieces.”
This time when I laughed, it was real. “Fair enough.”
“So what’s the plan?”
I chewed on my bottom lip while I tried to make one up really quickly. I didn’t exactly have a plan. “I want to drive by Smith’s house. I’d like to see if any of his employees are there and can tell me anything. I’d also like to swing by my old apartment and see if my mom still owns it or if she sold it or what.”
“She didn’t sell it,” Ryder said softly but with conviction.
“How do you know?”
He rubbed the back of his neck and looked away from me. If I didn’t know any better I would think he was embarrassed. But he couldn’t be. He had nothing to be embarrassed about.
“I’ve, uh, been checking up on it.”
“You’ve been checking up on it?” I clarified. Those words knocked the wind right out of me. I felt sucker-punched.
“Okay, don’t make a big deal out of it,” he demanded, sounding pissy again.
“I’m not.”
“You are. It wasn’t anything. I just wanted to know if you came back to town, all right? I had no way of knowing what happened to you or if you were dead or what. Okay?”
“Okay, geez.” My chest bloomed with pain again. “You really thought I was dead?”
His gaze shifted to mine and held. I felt breathless again but for a different reason this time. “Yeah, Ivy. I thought it was a real possibility.”
I slid forward until we were just a few inches apart. My hand shook as I reached out and touched the top of his. I just barely grazed the back of his hand with my fingertips, afraid of what more physical contact with him would do to my fragile heart.
He stilled so completely, I had to look at him just to make sure he was still breathing.
“I’m not dead, Ryder. See? Perfectly alive.”
His jaw clenched tightly. “I can see that, Red. A phone call wouldn’t have hurt you though, yeah? You left me… in the hospital. Do you know what that did to me? I couldn’t go after you. I couldn’t stop you or talk you out of it or anything. Do you have any idea what that did to me?”
I struggled to swallow around the huge lump in my throat. “I did what was best for you… for us.”
“You did what was best for you.”
I pulled back and jumped to my feet. “You’re not even trying to see it from my perspective! You of all people should know how badly I needed to leave! I don’t understand why you’re so pissed when I did what you wanted me to!”
He shot to his feet and prowled after me. “I didn’t want you to leave by yourself! I never wanted you to leave by yourself! The plan was you and me. You and me! I never wanted anything else!”
I stumbled back a step. My hand flew to my chest as if I could stop the splintering from tearing me into a thousand unfixable pieces. “We have to stop this,” I pleaded. “I can’t… I can’t keep doing this. I have to find out what happened to Honor.”
He took a step back too, but it was less about retreat and more about resigning himself to my request. “Fine, Ivy. Fine. You don’t want to talk about this, that’s fine. Let’s go check out Smith’s house and then we’ll figure out how to get into your mom’s place.”
“We? What do you mean we? I’m not asking you for help, Ryder. I can handle this.”
Anger mingled with obvious frustration and he threw both hands out to his side. “For the love, Red! How are you going to get to Smith’s house? Or your mom’s? Planning on taking the bus? What if Nix shows up? What are you going to do then? You need my help.”
Okay, he had a few valid points.
Still, I didn’t want to spend the day going back and forth with Ryder about how horrible of a person I was.
Mainly because it was agony. I could see his points. I could understand why he hated me… why he wanted nothing to do with me again. And that was the worst part.
Ryder was right. And I hated that I was wrong.
Now that I was here, I couldn’t believe that I had stayed away for all of this time and never considered how Ryder was fairing without me.
I had been selfish. I had thought only about myself.
Those were hard truths to face.
“Ryder, I can’t ask you to help me,” I told him on a whisper.
“You’re not asking. I’m offering. And you’re going to take me up on my offer.” When I hesitated, he finished with, “I want to help you, Ivy. Whatever happened to us in the past, I still want you to get out and get away from all of these horrible people. If you think something happened to Honor, we’ll go find out. If you think whatever is happening to your mom might affect you, we’ll go find that out too. But as soon as we tie up these loose ends, I’m going to help you leave and this time you stay away. Do not give Nix another opportunity to find you.”
I nodded slowly, unable to process all of his words. How could he be so sweet to me after everything? How could he still want the best for me?
I ignored the crashing disappointment when I realized he had said that I would get out… alone… without him.
Not that I expected him to drop everything for me after all of this time. Or run away with me.
Or still want to run away with me.
No, I couldn’t think about that now.
“Thank you, Ryder.”
“Come on, Red, let’s go make you safe again.”
Chapter Seven
We walked downstairs to find Phoenix shoveling cereal into his mouth. “You want?” he asked around a mouthful of Captain Crunch.
“No, thanks,” I said immediately.
“Red prefers her breakfast highly caffeinated and in twenty ounce cups.” Ryder walked into the kitchen and dangled his keys in front of Phoenix. I ignored how sweet it was to hear him talk about me familiarly. If I were honest, I hadn’t had a caramel macchiato since I’d left the States. I’d weaned myself off of coffee for the most part and when I needed something to pick me up, I would buy a cup of espresso from Fleur and then swear off coffee for the rest of my life. Café Callisto served toxic waste disguised as caffeine. It was abominably way too strong for me.
Still… I couldn’t deny that a Caramel Macchiato sounded amazing.
“So you kissed and made up?” Phoenix waggled his eyebrows at us.
Ice cold tension burst through the room like Phoenix had detonated a bomb made out of hypothermic weather. I felt the chill snake over my skin as Ryder took a step away from me.
“We worked some things out,” Ryder deflected. “We’re friends.”
“Is that what we are?” I hated the defensiveness in my voice, but I couldn’t do anything about it.
“Uh…” Phoenix raised his eyebrows at me. I shook my head. I didn’t know what he expected to happen by bringing Ryder here, but I thought Phoenix might have been as heartbroken as me with the way his eyes lost some of their brightness and his broad shoulders slumped.
Ryder either didn’t notice Phoenix’s disappointment or didn’t care. He pushed on by announcing, “I’m going to help Ivy run some errands. I’ll call you later.”
“I can go with you,” Phoenix jumped to his feet and slammed his bowl of cereal on the countertop. Milk sloshed over the side, taking some cereal with it. He ignored the mess.
“We need more time to talk,” Ryder explained quickly.
“Ah, but I miss the ninja! I need some quality time with my favorite ginger.” Phoenix’s solid arm slid around my back and he pulled me into his side. I took comfort in his easy forgiveness and genuine desire to be around me. There weren’t many people that felt that way.
Ryder’s voice was granite when he explained, “She’ll be around for a couple days, Man. We need to get this stuff taken care of first.”
Phoenix was undeterred. “I could help. I’m excellent at errands!”
“I’ll see you later, Phoenix,” I jumped in. “This is probably something I should do with Ryder, but I promise I’ll come hang out with you later. I’m sure you have another movie I need to watch or my life will forever be incomplete.” I smiled at him and hoped that would be enough. It wasn’t as if I wanted to spend all this alone time with just Ryder, because I didn’t. I just didn’t want to bring Phoenix into my messy life. So far he had been completely protected from the negative side effects of knowing me and I wanted it to stay that way forever.
“Yeah, alright,” he conceded slowly. “I do have a few movies that I know you haven’t seen yet. Mighty Ducks?” he asked and I shook my head. His grin grew back slowly. “Terminator? Aliens? Sandlot?”
“None of those.” I wrapped my arms around his waist and squeezed tight. “We have hours of bonding ahead of us.”
“Good news.” He looked down at me and pinched my cheek. “Be safe, yeah? Call if you need help.”
“We will.”
“Let’s go, Red.” Ryder backed out of the kitchen and I got the message.
I turned around and followed Ryder to the front lawn where his new and improved Bronco sat waiting for us.
“Wow,” I exclaimed. “She looks amazing!”
“Yep.”
“Have you been working on her this whole time?” I ran my fingers over the glittery new paint and perfectly restored door handles.
Ryder’s Bronco had once been the most pathetic vehicle I’d ever been in. I called it the Death Trap, while Ryder lovingly referred to the horrid thing as his baby. Last I’d seen it, I’d basically stolen it to leave the hospital and get
myself to Smith’s. I’d left it there and hoped Smith would return it.
Apparently he had.
“Yep,” Ryder answered succinctly.
“She looks really good, Ryder. Seriously. I don’t feel like I’m risking my life anymore just standing near her.”
“Get in, Ivy.”
Okay, then. Apparently the car was off limits.
I slid into the passenger’s seat, enjoying the new upholstery. I pressed my palm to the clean dash and marveled at all of the work he had done.
After he closed the door and started the car, I asked, “This is the same car, right? Or is this a new one?”
“It’s the same car.”
“But it looks so new! Did you do all of this yourself?”
“Red, I really don’t want to talk about the car right now.”
I slumped back in the seat and avoided looking anywhere in his general direction when I buckled up. He took off through the neighborhood while I gave him directions to Smith’s.
As soon as he was headed in the right direction, I crossed my arms over my chest and fell silent.
I could admit to myself that I didn’t always know how to act around Ryder. He had always been this overwhelming force of something I couldn’t exactly understand. At the same time he felt both too much for me and just enough. He was too smart, too strong and too perceptive while I floundered in front of him always exposed and always frustratingly vulnerable. He had been, up until this point, always ready to catch me, while I had been forever poised at the edge of a cliff ready to fall.
And now all of that was amplified intensely because those things had never been truer.
I didn’t know what to say because whatever I said felt wrong. I didn’t know how to behave because whatever I did felt like not enough. And I really, really didn’t know how to think because every thought I had about him was in absolute opposition to how he felt about me.
“Smith,” he finally said and I didn’t understand at first.
“You’re going the right way,” I told him.