It was late morning when we began our ride back through town. There was some traffic, but the morning-rush-hour nightmare traffic had diminished, which allowed us to cruise comfortably along the Pacific Coast Highway, smelling the salt air. It only took forty minutes of travel to get back to the apartment. To keep from remembering how good he felt as I wrapped my arms around his waist, and how good he smelled, I started trying to solve my more immediate problems. I was determined not to focus so much on how tied I felt to a guy who wanted nothing to do with me.
Everything was up in the air. Someone was trying to kill me, which meant I couldn’t go back to my apartment and would likely have to do some crawling to get my aunt to let me stay with her for a while. As far as I knew, I still had my job, so that was good. Maybe offering to pay my aunt’s bills for the next six months would persuade her to have a heart.
Because it was a weekday and most of the residents had gone to work, parking was wide-open. We were able to park the bike right outside the gates. It felt surreal being back on Earth, where everything was familiar. I looked across the street at the apartment complex and had a fleeting thought that Mrs. Myrtle had had to walk to school on her own the last few mornings. I hoped she was all right.
Stiffly, I took my helmet off, and keeping my eyes on the task of scooping the straps neatly back into the helmet, I said, “Thank you for the ride, and for protecting me. I really do appreciate what you’ve done for me.” Carefully trying not to touch him more than necessary, I swung a leg off the bike, wanting simultaneously for this moment to be prolonged and for my immediate escape, so I could start my self-medicating crying jag. I know. It didn’t make sense, but nothing in my world made sense anymore. Everything that I’d thought I could count on was altered.
Ryder got off the bike and took his helmet off, running his fingers through his black hair in a purely masculine gesture. I turned my gaze away, remembering how soft his hair had felt in my grasp and desperate to forget. He took both of our helmets and put them on the bike before turning to me. Clearly something was on his mind as he scanned the immediate area.
“It’s not safe for you to be here.” He was looking around the neighborhood rather than at me.
“Yeah, I figured. I’ll work it out.” I nodded, hugging my waist.
“How?” He confronted me dead on, his cool green eyes watching me steadily.
“Don’t concern yourself. I’ll be fine. I’m not your problem.” I said this evenly, firmly, up until the last word, when my voice cracked and I had to take a calming breath. How could anything hurt so much? It was like my whole body needed to weep in great gusts. There was an open wound bleeding profusely in me, and I needed to see to it, but he wasn’t letting me escape.
“Thinking of going to your aunt’s?” he asked calmly.
“Maybe I am. It’s none of your business.”
“The abusive one?”
“Better that than dead.” I smirked.
“That’s not acceptable,” he said grimly.
“Who are you to judge?” At least with her, I wouldn’t get blindsided.
“I’m the guy who’s going to protect you.” He stated this in firm tones.
“Whatever, dude. Have a nice life.” I spun off and pushed through the security gate, for once glad to see that someone had propped it open with a rock, because I didn’t want to have to dig my keys out. Of course, as soon as I went through the gate and started up the stairs, I realized Ryder was right behind me, which was making me furious and excited at the same time.
Dammit!
“What do you want?” I snapped, stopping on the stairs. We were eye level with each other, since he was a couple of stairs below me.
“Pack a bag. You’re staying with me.”
“No.” I snapped this almost gleefully, enjoying denying him the ability to feel like I was his responsibility. No more do-gooding with me. He’d had the opportunity to care for me and had squandered it, looking at me like I was shit on his heel. His parents, too. They could all go take a flying leap into Dysfunctionland. To remind us both, I coldly stated, “I believe your last words were that I was your enemy.”
“It was a fucking shock, Taylor. I didn’t see it coming.” His voice was low, but I could sense a tone of rawness. He was in as much emotional upheaval as I was, but that was his problem. He didn’t want my help. He didn’t want me.
“I’m not talking about this with you.”
“Fine. Pack a bag.”
“What good will that do? You’re right next door.”
“I’ve got a place in Venice Beach that’s a more permanent residence when I’m here.”
“So the apartment you moved into next to mine was only so you could keep a better eye? Spy better?”
He remained quiet a moment, staring at me with a serious, unreadable expression. “That was part of it.”
“Part of it.” I realized he was being deliberately evasive and that he wasn’t going to tell me the other part yet.
“Yeah, well, screw that. I’ve always taken care of myself, and that’s not going to change now.”
“You tell him, sister,” one of the middle-aged frat boys called from his front porch on the first floor, not too far away. Realizing we’d been providing a floor show for the frat boys had my face heating up. It was barely noon, and the guy was already nursing a beer with his roommate.
“Dude, shut up.” His roommate scowled, not so far gone yet. “That dude’s fucking huge.”
I realized Ryder was giving them a menacing look and that he was in a state of mind in which one more comment might set him off, and then there would be bloodshed. Inevitability. Again.
“Dammit! Come with me.” I grabbed Ryder’s arm. Reluctantly, he allowed me to drag him to my apartment door, thereby saving frat boy’s life. I managed to dig my keys out and was glad that at least my apartment hadn’t been broken into again. It was still fairly well cleaned up, but it was freaking hot and stuffy, and something had gone south in the kitchen.
The trash was rank. It needed to be taken out. And seeing Ryder in my stank, stiflingly oppressive apartment, when I knew he was used to so much better, and when I knew that he thought me beneath him, was enough to just deflate me.
“Leave me alone. Just let me be,” I whispered plaintively. “Why can’t you just do that?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m tired of being your job. I don’t want to be your job. I’m my own responsibility.”
“Taylor, you’re not just a job,” he said quietly, releasing a long breath of air. “I need to know you’re safe.”
“Why?”
He looked at me steadily. “Because someone’s trying to kill you.”
“I’ll take care of myself.”
“Not while I’m here.”
“Why?” I needed to know.
“Do you always need to question everything?” He said this with some irritation.
“Yes! I do! People who are close to me seem to want to fuck me over all the time, and you’re no different.”
“That’s bullshit!” he growled, scowling at me.
“Then tell me why you need to be here!”
“I don’t know!” He prowled the room and muttered again, “I don’t know. I don’t understand it. It’s...you’re inside me...somehow.” He paused in front of me, reaching a hand out to grasp my waist. “Come with me. Let’s solve this together, and then maybe we can talk?”
No, no, no! There was nothing to talk about! But the hint of vulnerability in his pale green eyes and the warm familiarity of his deep voice—part of what made me feel connected to him—were my undoing. I could feel my resolve crumbling. I’d felt so sure before, but the longer he stood there, so proud and strong, reminding me of what we’d gone through together, protecting me to the point of putting his life on the line for me, the less I could tolerate seeing him walk away and the more I wanted to cling.