The Problem with Forever (23 page)

I folded my arms across my waist, realizing the roles reversed a little tonight. Instead of him defending me, it was the other way around, and that was a strange feeling. “I feel...feel like I have to.”

One shoulder rose. “He’s just protective of you and I’m glad you’ve got people wanting to look out for you.” He paused. “Don’t worry about me. It’s all good.”

Nothing about how Carl acted screamed
all good
to me.

“I’m not scared off easily,” he said after a moment.

Shoving aside my anger with Carl, I asked what I’d been dying to know. “You and Paige really broke up?”

Rider nodded. “Yeah. Last week. Thursday night.”

I slowly shook my head. “You...never said anything.”

“It’s not really something I wanted to talk about,” he said, his gaze steady. “Paige and I have been friends since I first moved in with Hector and Jayden. I’m not sure if I...I can still say that.”

“I’m sorry.” And I meant that. Despite the feelings I had for him, the way I responded whenever he was near, I was still sorry he was hurting.

He smiled slightly. “I am, too. But being with her... Well, it wasn’t right. Not anymore.”

Well, that answered who broke up with who. I glanced over my shoulder, wondering why it wasn’t right anymore. I wanted to ask what had broken them up, but couldn’t exactly find the courage to speak those words. “You missed school last week...because of it?”

His brows knitted. “The breakup sucked, Mouse. I didn’t want to hurt her and I know I did. Hurting her was the last thing I wanted.” His shoulders rose with a deep breath. “We’ll talk more about it tomorrow, okay?”

Tomorrow
.

“Okay,” I breathed.

He stilled as he watched me. Then his gaze slipped over my shoulder, and he seemed to make up his mind about something, because the next second he was coming back up the steps. He stopped just below me. “The soap carvings are pretty cool, and I hope to see more of them,” he said, and then he leaned in, kissing my cheek. My breath caught.

Rider pulled away, his gaze serious. “See you tomorrow, Mallory.”

My cheek tingled as I watched him pivot on the step and walk down, out onto the sidewalk. He glanced over his shoulder, saw me and smiled before continuing to walk. I stood there until he disappeared from sight, allowed myself the moment to replay his parting words, and then I prepared myself.

The shock of Paige and Rider’s breakup along with Rider’s request to see more of the soap carvings faded a bit and I allowed the anger and frustration to resurface.

Carl was leaning against the counter as Rosa was placing the last of the dishes into the dishwasher when I walked back in. For once in my life, I wasn’t thinking about the thousands of different words I could speak. I knew exactly what I wanted to say.

I stopped in front of the island. “You weren’t very nice to Rider.”

Carl faced me, his expression blank. “I’m sorry?”

“You weren’t very nice to Rider,” I repeated. “You treated him like he was...a suspect at a crime scene.”

Rosa’s lips parted.

He straightened as his eyes widened. “Mallory—”

“Rider doesn’t live like we do,” I said, eyes and throat burning. “His foster mom isn’t a doctor and he doesn’t think he can afford college. None of that makes him...a bad person.”

“We didn’t say he was a bad person.” Rosa stepped around Carl, expression earnest. “And if we gave the impression—”

“You did.” I spoke directly to Carl, my voice shaking. “You kept questioning him and no matter...how he answered, it wasn’t enough.”

Wrinkles formed around his eyes. “If you want to talk about Rider, let’s talk about the fact that he doesn’t have a girlfriend.”

“He did have one. They broke up.”

“Convenient,” Carl murmured.

“See!” I all but threw up my hands. “You think...that’s convenient. As if I’ve lied about it, or Rider has. I want him to be a part of my life...of our life. And I was so excited about tonight—about you all finally meeting him.” My lower lip trembled. “He...he saved my life many times and I thought... I thought you would respect him for that.”

“Mallory,” Carl said.

Turning around, I did something I’d never done before. I ignored Carl as I climbed the steps. I was done with the conversation.

Chapter 21

The desk lamp in the library had been left on, casting the space in soft yellow light. It smelled faintly of peaches in the room. I drifted along the bookshelves, running my fingers over their spines. I stopped at the center bookcase and my hand fell to my side. Somehow I’d found myself in our home library that morning, after a crappy night’s sleep following an even crappier dinner.

I’d woken early and roamed the house while Carl and Rosa slept, restless and unable to go back to bed. Some of that had to do with seeing Rider and Ainsley later. Some had to do with learning Rider and Paige weren’t together.

Ainsley had offered up her usual brand of wisdom when I’d filled her in on the dinner disaster. She said Carl’s reaction was normal, that when she first brought Todd home she was convinced her father was going to toss him out the front door.

I wasn’t quite so sure that was the case.

Then she focused on the Paige and Rider drama, convinced the breakup meant something for me. I couldn’t even allow my head to go there, because it didn’t know what to do with all of that.

I thought about the book that Rider used to read to me when we were little—a story that always made me cry but also filled me with hope that one day we’d be real, too, that we’d be loved.

Because that was how it felt growing up. Like Rider and I weren’t real. No one thought about us or worried. We were forgotten, left behind to virtually fend for ourselves.

Now I had two people who thought about me, who fended for me and who worried. I should be grateful for that, as Rider had reminded me last night, but right now I just felt mad.

Carl and Rosa knew all about Rider, all about everything he’d done for me growing up. I’d thought that would’ve put Rider in a good place with Carl, but he’d been skeptical and distrustful. Judging.

And I still couldn’t believe I’d said what I said to Carl. Even now, my pulse kicked up and I sort of felt sick. I knew Carl was upset with me, most likely even mad for saying what I said. I wanted to...I wanted to be perfect for him—for them, and I wasn’t perfect last night.

I’d avoided both of them last night and that was the game plan for today.

Sighing, I moved along the bookcases. The two center shelves were full of framed photos, starting with a happy-looking baby and moving all the way up to a beautiful, bright teenage girl with long dark hair and shining brown eyes.

I stared at the pictures of Marquette, and I couldn’t help but think how unfair it was that she was no longer here. And it wasn’t fair that the kid Rosa worked on would never walk again. All the terrible things that Rider witnessed, experienced, hadn’t been fair. It wasn’t fair that I’d—

Closing my eyes, I shut the path of thoughts off. If I went there now, in my head, I’d be a mess. There’d be things I didn’t want to think about.

When I reopened my eyes, Marquette stared back at me in a picture taken a few months before her death. She was at the beach, wearing a pretty black two-piece bikini that I doubted I’d ever have the confidence to pull off. Hot pink sunglasses shielded her eyes, and her smile was huge. White sand glimmered under her feet, and the ocean sparkled behind her.

Marquette had a boyfriend, one she had started dating during her junior year. I didn’t know his name, only that he’d existed from the bits and pieces of conversations I’d picked up over the years. She also had a lot of friends. Popular. Smart. In all of her pictures, she looked like someone who was nice. Someone like Keira.

I thought about the boy who would never walk again. What was his life like? It didn’t matter, I quickly realized, if he was unkind and not well liked or if he was the most popular boy at school. It wasn’t fair.

Stepping back from the pictures, I wondered something I’d thought about a million times. And it was wrong, such a horrible thing to consider, but I couldn’t help it. If Marquette was still alive today, would I be where I was? Would Carl and Rosa still have fought to bring me into their home? Given me all the opportunities that so many others had missed out on?

I didn’t know the answers to that and they nagged at me, but I did know two things.

Her life was cut short.

And I was given a second chance.

I continued to stare at her picture. I had a second chance when so many people only had one chance, and I couldn’t let it be in vain.

What had Santos said in speech class about trying and living? It was all about trying, and that was what I would do.

I would try.

* * *

“Oh my God,” Ainsley squealed as I neared the bench she was sitting at. She popped up, adjusting her sunglasses as they started to slip down her nose. “You look freaking adorable!”

Slowing, I glanced down at myself in relief. Picking out my outfit for this moment had been a pretty stressful endeavor. I’d ended up settling on black leggings, a white lacy cami and a pale blue cardigan. I’d left my hair down and smoothed it out with Rosa’s flatiron. I’d been amazed by the fact I hadn’t fried my hair in the process and I’d washed the makeup off my face about three times before settling on what was supposed to be a “fresh” look I’d learned from watching YouTube, which took about thirty minutes to pull off.

Ainsley grabbed my hand and started pulling me toward the door of the café she’d picked out. “Okay. So you’re about five minutes early, and he’s going to be here any minute, and I want to freak out.”

I grinned. She wanted to freak out? I felt like I was seconds from hyperventilating.

She led us into the restaurant. The place wasn’t that busy and we were seated immediately, at a table big enough for four. She sat across from me, leaving the seat next to me open, and my heart jumped.

Pushing the sunglasses onto her head, she winced when she looked to our left, at the all-glass front. Bright sunlight poured into the restaurant. She shifted her chair so she wasn’t sitting directly in the light.

“Are your...eyes still...bothering you?” I asked.

Rolling said eyes, she sighed. “Yeah. I don’t know what’s going on with them. The eye doctor where I went to get new glasses told Mom I needed to see some kind of specialist.”

Concern blossomed in the pit of my belly. “What...for?”

She raised a shoulder. “He saw something weird when he was looking at my eyes and thinks a retina specialist needs to take a look at them. He doesn’t think it’s a big deal.”

A specialist sounded like a big deal. “Does he think something is wrong?”

She shook her head. “Not sure. He didn’t really say much beyond that.”

“When is...your appointment?” I asked, pausing when the waitress appeared and filled our three glasses with water.

“Two weeks from now. Anyway, enough about me. Are you nervous?” she asked, wrapping her fingers around the menu.

I nodded even though I wasn’t sure if Ainsley was telling me the whole truth about whatever was going on with her eyes. “Yes.”

“You know what this is like, right?” She tugged the menu to her chest. “This is like a date.”

My stomach dropped all the way to the floor. I shook my head.

“Yes. Yes,” she reiterated. “It’s just like a date. Like a practice date.”

Practice dates? Were there such things? I started to ask her, but she continued, “Okay. Let’s look at the evidence here. From the moment you two saw each other, he has made every attempt to reach out to you, right? He’s skipped class to have lunch with you. When you freaked out in class, he left to make sure you were okay and then showed you that graffiti stuff. He helped you with your speech, and he actually came over to meet Carl and Rosa. That means he’s interested.”

It also meant he could just want to be a part of my life, but before I could point that out, I saw him. Rider was here. He turned sideways and scanned the restaurant.

I stiffened. His gaze locked with mine and a slow grin appeared on his face. He didn’t look like he had last night. More like he did every day at school. Worn jeans. A black henley instead of a T-shirt and beat-up sneakers, but goodness, I couldn’t think.

Okay. Not true. I could think, but I was thinking things I really had no concept of. I was thinking about those full, slightly curved lips and how they must feel in places...other than my forehead or cheek. I was thinking about his hands and how strong they were and the oddly pleasant calluses on his palms. I was thinking about...about a lot of things—things that now didn’t feel so wrong since he was actually single.

Noticing my near-prone position, Ainsley looked over her shoulder. “Oh, my good God almighty,” she murmured. “That’s him?”

“Yes,” I whispered. That was so him.

She whipped back around, her blue eyes wide. “Mallory. Wow.”

I couldn’t respond, because I was focused on Rider. He walked through the center of the restaurant with a confidence that oozed from him. An older woman sitting with her husband looked up as he passed her table. She smiled, her gaze following him.

And then he was at the table. I might’ve stopped breathing as he stepped around and pulled out the chair beside mine and sat. “Sorry,” he said, looking at me. “I’m a few minutes late.”

He was?

“Hector gave me a ride in,” he continued. “He’s around here somewhere. Didn’t want to crash our lunch, though.”

Had Rider invited him? If so, did that change the fact that Ainsley thought it was a practice date? Did those really exist? Did any of this matter?

Ainsley jerked forward, smiling at Rider. “I’m Ainsley. Hi.”

Rider cocked his head to the side, grinning at her. “I’m Rider.”

“I know,” she said. “You are definitely Rider.”

I narrowed my eyes at her.

She ignored me. “I’m so glad to finally meet you. I’ve heard so much about you.”

“Really?” He lifted his brows, glancing over at me. “What have you been telling her, Mouse?”

I opened my mouth, but there were no words. The right side of his lips kicked up. The dimple came out. Oh, Lord.

“Mallory has said you’re an amazing guy,” she said, and I wasn’t quite sure I’d ever said that in those words. “And you two grew up together. Best friends?”

“Yeah,” he murmured, still looking at me with that...that damn grin. “We were best friends.” Pausing, he finally looked over at Ainsley. “But I think I’ve been replaced.”

“You have,” she quipped. “It’s a good thing I like to share.”

He chuckled. “I guess so.”

My heart pounded fast and I knew I needed to say something. Anything. “Have...you eaten here before?”

That kind of sounded lame.

Rider shook his head, unfazed by my lameness. “No.” He glanced down at the menu. “But the burgers look good.”

Suddenly, I thought about the Firehouse. The small-time diner was more his style, laid back and well-worn. This place, with all the glass and shiny white tabletops... It was the kind of place Ainsley and I ate at all the time now, but I would’ve never set foot in before Carl and Rosa.

Did Rider feel out of place? Did he even care? Or was I just being stupid?

Probably stupid.

“Their hamburgers are awesome,” Ainsley advised. “So is their hummus.”

“Hummus?” Rider tipped his head back and laughed. “Not my style. Give me meat.”

“Have you tried hummus?” she asked. “On meat?”

My nose wrinkled.

“No.” He laughed again. “I’ve never tried that.”

“You should,” she replied.

“You shouldn’t,” I said.

When the waitress arrived, Rider ordered a hamburger without hummus. I got the same and added a Coke. Ainsley went for the hummus appetizer that she would consume all by herself.

Rider and Ainsley fell into an easy conversation. She asked him about school. He asked her about homeschooling, and by the time we’d finished our lunch, they were chatting like they’d known each other for years. I chimed in, but stayed quiet, which wasn’t a surprise. I relaxed, but was hyperaware of every movement Rider made and every time he looked in my direction.

“Are you guys doing something after lunch?” he asked, dropping his arm along the back of my seat. “Movies or something?”

“Actually, I can’t go to the movies. I have to... My parents have something for me to do this evening, so Mallory is completely free,” Ainsley said in a rush.

I stilled. What? She never mentioned having to change the plans.

Rider’s gaze flicked between us. “But I thought you two were hanging out all day?”

“Nope,” Ainsley replied quickly. “Just for a few hours. She’s all yours for the rest of the day, and word has it, her curfew is, like, eleven p.m.”

My eyes widened. Oh my God. What was happening? I looked at her and she smiled innocently at me. A heads-up would’ve been nice.

One side of his lips kicked up as he picked up his drink. “Sounds good to me.” He tapped his fingers off the back of my shoulder. “You want to head to the garage?”

The low rumble of his voice sent my heart racing into overdrive. Ainsley was staring at her empty plate. Before I could formulate a response, a cell phone rang at our table.

Rider shifted, pulling his phone out of his pocket. He glanced down at it and stood. “Be right back.”

The moment Rider was out of earshot, Ainsley turned to me. “Mal, he is hot.”

I flushed as I picked up my drink. Rider was hot with two extra
T
s. There was no questioning that, but it went beyond the physical hotness. Underneath all of that good stuff was a really...really good guy. A shiny heart.

“You were not kidding when you described him.” Ainsley grinned as she sat back in the chair. “Are you going to go with him? I mean, you kind of have to because I totally just threw you out there—but I threw you because you want to be thrown. You
need
to be thrown.”

Blinking, I nearly dropped my glass as I looked at her. “But I’m...hanging out with you all day.”

“We had our hang. Even if I couldn’t convince you to try hummus. Now’s your chance to hang with someone else. A very
hot
someone else.”

My stomach twisted, the feeling not unpleasant and all too familiar. “But—”

“Rosa and Carl think you’re with me. So as long as you get home by whenever, they’ll never know. It’s not like they’re going to talk to my parents.” Her grin was sly. “Especially considering they’re doing their own thing tonight. Date night or something.” Her nose wrinkled. “So, it’s no problem.”