“That’s yours. It got stuck in my hair when I pulled you out. I had it fixed.”
Alec gave me that necklace. I thought I’d lost it in the sea. “Thank you,” I said, not just for the necklace, but for what he did. As much as I’d wanted everything to end in that ocean, I knew how much he risked pulling me out.
“What the fuck were you thinking, Lexi?” He gave me a look of disappointment.
“I wasn’t.” It was the only answer I had. I hadn’t been thinking. I’d been so consumed with the pain it had clouded my judgment.
He nodded and stepped back. “Just do me one favor.”
“Anything.” He’d risked the one thing that meant the world to him to save me. I’d do whatever he asked.
“Can you promise me when it gets too hard that you’ll fight it? Don’t let the pain swallow you, fight back. Don’t do it for your mom or because I asked you to. Do it because you’re worth the fight.”
“You sound like David.” I laughed. He didn’t.
“David taught me to fight for me.” He turned and walked out of the room. I missed him. He was so closed off and distant. Nothing like the Ryder I’d known years before.
In the past two days, I’d clung to memories of Ryder like a lifeline. But after that visit, I knew he wasn’t as anxious as I was to catch up.
I was thirteen when I first set eyes Ryder Hayes, and I knew, even then, I had to have him. My schoolgirl crush was intense and apparently had not simmered down over the years.
After my dad died, David held us together. This caused a huge rift between him and his family. Ryder had been there the first two years.
At the time, we thought David was just an old friend of Mom’s. Looking back, it was strange we hadn’t met him before Dad died. Alec, Ryder, and I never suspected Mom and David were more than friends. They had actually been engaged way before my parents met. When we walked in on them being a little more than friendly, Ryder hadn’t taken it well. Especially since David was still married to his mom.
Our family imploded. Alec and I were so angry with Mom we barely spoke to her for months. There was an even bigger blowout the day David left his wife and moved into our house. Turns out the reason they never got married was because Mom’s parents forbade it. They were high society snobs and had it already lined up who was good enough for their daughter, and David wasn’t it.
Mom was twenty and in her third year of her college when David decided it would be better for her if they broke up. She later confided in me that she’d been devastated. She tried everything she could to get him to see she didn’t care if her parents stopped paying for school, but he wouldn’t budge. A year later, he married Ryder’s mom, and a year after that, they had a baby. So when her parents expected her to marry Dad, she stopped fighting for David and moved on.
I was angry at David for a while. I hated that Mom had replaced Dad a couple of years after his fatal heart attack. David divorced his wife and married Mom shortly after. This only fueled Ryder’s hate for his father and resentment toward me and Alec. We tried to reach out to him countless times, but he shut us out.
A year after they got married, I pushed my bitterness aside and got to know him. My parents always seemed happy, and I was sure they were, but what I came to realize later was Mom was much different with David. They weren’t two people living in the same house with their kids. They were two people who lived as one. Anyone who watched them couldn’t help but see the love they shared. Alec, of course, was more forgiving than I was. He had long since become friends with David. They were constantly chatting, playing video games, and going to the gym together.
I knew David missed Ryder; it showed when he was with Alec. I wasn’t sure what any of us were going to do without him.
Three years later…
Chapter Four
Alexis
“Mom! Calm down,” I shouted as my mom scurried around the room, straightening pillows and wiping away any traces of dust. I’d never seen my mom so anxious about someone visiting.
“You should go get changed, Alexis.” She glanced at my gray shorts and small black top like I hadn't changed in days.
“Mom, the man hasn't been here to see David in three years. Why are you treating his visit like the second coming?”
Loving us had cost David everything. After Alec died, David was withdrawn and quiet. He had come to love him as a son in the seven years they had together. Alec had helped fill that hole left by Ryder. With Alec gone, I could almost see the emptiness in David’s eyes.
In time, I resented that Ryder had cut us out of his life and had taken so long to at least give David a chance. And David had tried countless times. Maybe I was a little biased. I’d hoped for years Ryder would show his face again, but he hadn’t. I missed him the first time he disappeared from our life. The night he pulled me from the ocean was the first time I’d seen him in five years.
After that night, he texted me every couple weeks. He’d ask how I was doing, and then I wouldn’t hear from him again for a while. He’d never replied when I sent him texts about how he was. I felt like he’d built a great big wall between us that only cracked open when he wanted to check on me. I wanted him to respond to my questions. I became obsessed with the thought of Ryder, but he wouldn’t allow me to get to know who he’d become since we’d been friends.
He had saved my life in more ways than one. I looked forward to his texts, no matter how concise they were, like it was Christmas. Maybe I thought we’d build a bond because of what we shared. A year after that night, he’d sent me a message.
Won the championship. Thought you’d like to know.
It was the first time since Alec died that I really smiled and was genuinely happy. Ryder knew I blamed myself over his having to withdraw, so that message meant a lot for the guilt I carried around. A week later, he sent me another text.
Why do you wear that moon around your neck?
It was the first time he’d asked me anything personal, so I got excited.
Alec
gave it to me. Said I brightened up his dark nights.
I waited for him to send me another text, but he didn’t. After that, his texts dwindled down until they stopped. I’d sent him a few messages, but he didn’t respond.
He was on his way over to our house, and I wasn’t going to get dressed up and pretend I wasn’t annoyed he had shut me out for years.
“This means everything to David. Please, Alexis, let's do everything we can to heal this family.”
She sighed when she saw my blank expression. The bell rang, and I put my laptop on the couch, swung my legs out from under me, and decided to wait this out in my room. I knew he wasn’t here to see me, but my heart hammered with anticipation just knowing he was on the other side of the door.
I quickly sailed through the living room, foyer, and up the stairs. My room looked the same since high school. Every year I promised myself I'd move back to campus, but by year's end, I was still here. At twenty-three, I'd become stuck in limbo, and I wasn’t sure how to get myself out of it.
I jumped onto my twin bed and tried to listen for his voice downstairs. That didn’t last long. I started pacing the room. My anxiety began to grow until I couldn’t take it any longer.
I needed to see Ryder.
The last time I saw him I was strapped to a hospital bed, under psych evaluation. Two days later, he showed up at Alec’s funeral. He stayed in the back and disappeared after I scattered the dust over my brother’s coffin. I hadn’t laid eyes on him since. Well, sometimes I dreamt of him calling out to me at sea, and his words stayed with me every day.
I couldn’t just lie in my bed when Ryder was this close. I needed to see him more desperately than I’d like to admit. I ran down the stairs, pushed open the kitchen door, and my breath was stolen from me instantly. I couldn’t figure out if the man in front of me was real or if I just conjured him up in my imagination.
He
is breathtaking.
He looked better than he had three years ago. His black hair was shorter—tapered but a little longer at the top, and styled in a messy fashion. He looked larger. Maybe six-two. I knew he couldn’t have grown much taller, but his muscle mass made him appear bigger everywhere.
Firm, lick-able lips. I remembered those lips well. I’d fantasized about them as a teen.
Perfectly tanned skin. He was dark and edgy with the kind of eyes you could get lost in.
He stared at me with his intensely blue eyes, and my heart raced. He narrowed them, cocked his head, and then his scowl turned into a wickedly tempting smile.
My God, where’s the boy who walked out of the hospital room, and where did this man come from?
My body ignited with lust. He was too much to take in all at once. I devoured him with my eyes while standing wide-mouthed and wordless. Broad shoulders and arms stretched his black T-shirt until it contoured to his muscular frame. Handsome—no, alluring face. It drew you in, and before you realized it, you were gawking. There was a small cut over his left eyebrow that looked stitched up, but otherwise he was flawless.
“What happened to your face?”
He laughed, rubbing his hand over his jaw. “You don’t like my face?”
“No. I mean, yes…”
Shut up, Lexi.
My face heated up as I stumbled over my words. Of course I liked his face, but that’s not what I was trying to say. I shouldn’t have even been worried about the cut on his face.
“Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt.” I finally managed to get a grip on my fascination with this change in him.
He just stood there, staring at me longer than I was comfortable with. Who was I kidding? I wouldn't be comfortable being anywhere near him whether he was looking my way or not.
“How are you, Alexis?”
“I’m good. You?”
He shrugged. Shrugging was not an answer to my question. I wanted him to say, “I’m good, but I missed you,” or, “I wanted to check on you, but I was busy.” Something more than a nonchalant shrug.
He looked like he wanted to say more, but he shook his head, talking himself out of it. He turned back toward David and my mom, and I stepped out of the room.
I’d been a little infatuated with Ryder before seeing him again, but David's son could easily become my obsession again.
Chapter
Five
Ryder
“I need you to sign this contract.”
David looked down at the document on the table between us but made no move to sign it. I wished coming to his house was not my only option. I would’ve much rather he'd come down to the gym, but he refused. I needed him to sign the gym over to me, and then I’d never need to deal with him again.
After David left us, Uncle Drew and the gym were all I had to fall back on. David showed up at Uncle Drew’s funeral last month. After three years with no contact, I hated that seeing his face still made me angry. I avoided him as much as possible, but when the will was read and I found out the gym was left to Uncle Drew and David when their dad passed, I knew keeping my father away from my life might not be as easy as it had been. Especially since he seemed to be trying to reconcile the entire time he was at the funeral.
“Why are you making this difficult? You haven’t stepped foot in that gym in years, and now you want a piece of it?”
He looked at me, then back at the paper on the table. “If I sign this, I’ll never see you again.”
“What’s with this new interest in being part of my life? You spent years ignoring my existence, and now you want in?”
“I made a lot of mistakes, but you were never supposed to be a casualty of all this. I’ve never ignored you. I’ve tried to reach out to you. I just want a chance to be part of your life again.”
“I’m twenty-five years old. I’m not that little idiot who used to leave you those pathetic voicemails to come home, begging at your doorstep for you to come to the championship. I’m over it, David. And I’m over you. You never gave a fuck about me or Mom.”
“Ryder, your dad loves you.” Vanessa jumped into our conversation as though she had a right to be involved in our business.
“How about you stay the fuck out of it, huh? You're the reason all this shit started to begin with.” She gasped at my statement and tried to cover her embarrassment by lowering her head and letting her long auburn hair cover her face. I felt a small twinge of guilt but pushed it back when I remembered all the pain my mother dealt with when David left her for Vanessa Cole. She was the rich beauty queen who my mother had no chance of competing with. I hated to admit I really liked her before everything changed, but I did.
“Ryder, I understand you're angry, but don’t blame Vanessa. Blame me. It was my fault.”
“I don’t care whose fault—” The kitchen door swung open, cutting the words from my mouth. And the woman who walked through it cut all fucking thought from my head.
It’s her.
She looked at me with those bright hazel eyes, and I was thrown back to the night she opened her eyes and looked up at me from the sand. The night that still haunted me.
The look she gave me was different. Her gaze was hungry, and I’d let her eat at my table any day of the week. Her lip parted with a quiet gasp as she stopped and stared at me.
Fuck, why
is she looking at me like that?
She changed. Gone was the pale-faced, frail woman strapped to the hospital bed.
My gaze traveled over her tight shirt and tiny sleep shorts.
Perfect, perky tits.
Small waist.
Curvy hips.
Smooth, creamy legs.
If I had a checklist, it would take me days to check off each part of her I would like to lick. Then I’d pull those long, silky legs around my waist and…
Look away,
Hayes. You don’t need to get a hard-on in your dad’s kitchen for his stepdaughter.
She pulled her too-short shirt down in an effort to cover her exposed navel ring. Pulling it down over that smooth expanse of skin only pressed the shirt tighter against her chest, and my gaze shot up to her pebbled nipples.