In the Stillness

CHAPTER 29



“Natalie, wake up, we’re here.” I jump at the sound of Ryker’s voice, certain I’m dreaming. He walks around to my side of the car and opens the door. “Can you walk?”

Pulling my eyebrows in, I try to gain some balance, even though I’m sitting. I stand, only to immediately fall back onto my seat. And throw up on the ground between my feet. After a few minutes, I rest my head on the doorframe, feeling empty from the inside-out.

This is just perfect.

Ryker places his hands on his hips and with a deep sigh, looks to the ground for a moment before looking at me. “Okay,” he sighs again as he leans into the car, “I’m going to carry you in. Is that all right with you?”

“Yeah.” Glancing down at my arm, I’m glad to see the bleeding has stopped. I wrap my arms around his neck, careful to turn the cut away from his shirt.

Resting my head on his shoulder, I flicker my eyes up and study Ryker’s face. His jaw is tight, gorgeous eyes focused on his front porch. He has every reason to hate me, yet he’s bringing me to his house to take care of me. It’s all too much, and I start sobbing into his shoulder.

“Does it hurt?” His voice is doused in urgent concern as he opens the door.

“Yes.”

Everything does.

Ryker sets me down on his couch. “Sit tight, I’m going to run upstairs and get some peroxide.”

While his footsteps fade up the stairs, I look around. It’s a standard large, old farmhouse but, thankfully, looks nothing like the house from my nightmare. My breath catches as Ryker comes back down the stairs with the peroxide and cotton balls in his hand. He’s absolutely stunning, even amidst this tension-filled shit-show. Sitting on the coffee table in front of me, he reaches for my hand. Our eyes meet as I surrender my hand to him and he doesn’t even look away as he grabs the bottle of peroxide.

“So what happened?” He opens the bottle and reaches for the cotton balls.

“Um, I fell . . .” I’m pretty sure he saw the whole thing.

“No, I mean, why were you at a bar I’ve never seen you at, drinking an entire pitcher of tequila?”

I swallow as the tears come again. I’ve seriously never cried so much in my entire life as I have in the last two weeks. “I doubt you’d want to know.”

Ryker sets my hand on a towel in his lap, his blue eyes still searching mine. “I asked, didn’t I?”

“I’m sorry, Ryker,” I squeak out between even more tears.

“For what?” He looks up in surprise.

“I-I-I,” I’m stuttering through an ugly cry, “I ruined your life and I’m sorry.”

His face twitches. “Deep breath.”

“Huh?”

His voice is calm and even. “Take a deep breath, this is going to sting.”

He takes one with me as he pours the peroxide over my arm. He’s right. It hurts like a bitch, but not for long.

“So,” he continues, “you were at The Harp, getting dangerously drunk because you think you ruined my life?” Ryker’s eyebrows pull in as he pours another round of peroxide over my arm.

I shrug. “Among other things . . .”

Ryker dabs the cut dry and starts looking at my arms, I guess to see if I have any more gashes.

“You didn’t ruin my life—” he stops as his calloused thumb runs along my upper, inner arm. Looking down, I find him tracing the last place I cut. “Jesus, Nat . . .”

I shrug out of his hold, but it’s too late. His hard swallow as he looks away is the only proof I need that he knows what those marks are from. He’s seen them before, even if it was only once. His face melts as he squeezes his eyes shut. Before I can respond, Ryker’s walking to the kitchen and filling up a glass of water. He returns, setting the ice-cold glass in my hand.

“Drink this.” He paces around the coffee table and rubs a hand over his face. “By the looks of things, I think it’s safe to say I ruined yours.” His tone fills me with uncomfortable anxiety. He wants me out of here, I can tell. He doesn’t need some screwed-up ex-girlfriend messing up the good thing he clearly has going for himself.

Feebly, I try to console any guilt he’s feeling. I know what I can do to a person. “You didn’t ruin anything for me, Ry.”

Ry.

In a huff, his hands are running through his hair. He seems to choose to ignore my reply. “When you said you didn’t have a home . . .” Ryker shrugs, waiting for a response.

“Oh. Well, you see,” I lay on the cheery sarcasm I’ve become good at, “my boys are staying at my parents’ house this week and my husband—I just found out—has been having an affair for the last year. Which, really, is just as well since I was leaving him anyway . . . so last night I stayed at Tosha’s.” In one breath I just told him that I’m a mom, a wife, and a soon-to-be ex-wife. Neat.

He winces and clicks his tongue against his teeth. “Is she home now?”

“No. She and Liz are at Tosha’s parents’ house for a few days, why?”

Ryker grabs the back of his neck and groans almost inaudibly to the heavens. “I can’t let you go home like this. You’re far too drunk—”

“Wait,” standing, I balance myself on the arm of the couch, “you’re not suggesting I stay here . . . are you?”

“Yeah, Nat, I am.” He chuckles, but I can’t tell if it’s from nervousness or the absurdity of the situation. Probably both. I’d like to pass out now. “Unless you’re uncomfortable . . .” His face changes, and it breaks my heart.

“No, Ryker, that’s not it. It’s just . . . I don’t see you for the better part of a decade and . . .”

He laughs nervously again. “Go figure. I can loan you some shorts and a t-shirt to sleep in.”

Yeah, sure, why not?

“Okay. Can I shower?” I’m starting to sober up at a rapid pace, but that might just be the tequila making me think that.

“Of course, shower’s upstairs.” Ryker leads me to the stairs with his hand gently pressing against the small of my back. Praise God for my dress or I’d be on fire. “You okay to do the stairs?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, I’m fine.”

And incredibly distracted by your hand. On my back.

“All right,” Ryker turns on the light in a small bathroom at the top of the stairs, “towels are here, and I’ll have you sleep in the room next door. I’ll put clothes on the bed.” He’s shaved since I saw him a few days ago, and apart from the crease between his eyebrows as he focuses on what he’s trying to tell me, he looks exactly the same as the last healthy day I saw him.

“Thanks,” I mumble while closing the bathroom door.

As promised, when I step out of the shower and wander into the room next door with a towel on, I find workout shorts and an Amherst College t-shirt. It looks a little small to fit on Ryker, then I realize it’s probably from before he even graduated high school—he bulked way up when he joined the National Guard. Sliding it over my head, I pause for a minute as I’m flooded with his scent. It’s a clean shirt, but it’s still his clean shirt.

Loud clomps announce his impending arrival up the stairs, so I hurriedly pull the shirt down and the shorts on before sitting on the edge of the bed. Ryker appears in the doorway holding more water, a box of crackers, and a bottle of Advil.

“Here. You’re gonna want something in your stomach to take the Advil, and you’re definitely going to want to take an Advil before you fall asleep.” He sits on the bed next to me. So help me God, next to me. “It’s a good thing you threw up already, that’ll help you sober up.”

“Um,” I clear my throat and try again, “is your wife going to be upset that some strange girl is sleeping in your house?” Somewhere from the recesses of my brain during my long, hot, shower, I was reminded of Ryker’s marital status. Looking at his hand, though, I don’t see a ring, and the look on his face suggests maybe I just opened an old wound.

“My wife?” He sounds like I’ve said the most ridiculous thing he’s ever heard.

“My bad, sorry, did you divorce?”

Ryker shakes his head with a grin. “Natalie, what the hell are you talking about? I’ve never been married.”

“But your dad said—” I cut myself off, trying to shuffle through my memories.

“My dad? When did you see my dad?

“When I was pregnant with the twins—”

His eyes nearly bug out of his head. “You have twins?”

I look around the room as if I’m trying to translate everything I’m trying to say into Chinese. “Yes. I saw your dad at Trader Joe’s when I was like eight months pregnant. He congratulated me, asked me about Eric, and when I asked how you were, he said ‘happily married.’ That’s why I thought you were married.”

Ryker shrugs. “He never told me he saw you.”

My stomach sinks. “Oh.”

What the hell?

“I’m sure he had his reasons.”

I snort, “Yeah, like I said, I ruined your life. He didn’t want our little dairy case run-in to screw up any healing you’d done, so he didn’t tell you.” Ryker’s hand wraps around my wrist as I reach for the Advil.

“Crackers first. Trust me.” He grabs my other hand and takes a careful breath, commanding my attention. “Natalie, you didn’t ruin my life. Stop saying that. Why would you even think that?”

It occurs to me that I actually have no idea if some of the things I’ve been thinking over the last few years are true. I use my drunkenness as a shield and forge ahead.

“Well, did you ever reenlist in the National Guard?”

His eyes close for an extra-long blink as he exhales. “No. I couldn’t.”

“And,” I pull my hand away and continue, “why not?” His brief hesitation allows me to finish, “Because I pressed charges, got a restraining order, and screwed up your record.” With that declaration out of the way, I tear open the box of crackers.

“Nat . . . it’s so much more complicated than that. Ugh. We’ll talk in the morning, okay? When you’re sober.” He opens the Advil bottle, places two pills on the bedside table, and puts the cap back on. “Take these and try to get some sleep. Do you think you’re going to throw up anymore?”

“No.”

“K,” he stands and takes the rest of the Advil with him, “night.”

“Night.”

As if I’m going to be able to sleep now.