I pull back from him. Somewhere down the street, there’s the sound of a car engine, getting closer. But otherwise the night is quiet, just our voices, and my heart beating more quickly in my ears with worry as I say, “I can’t let you take the house, Ryder.”
“That’s not what I mean.” He combs his fingers through my hair. “I don’t want your house,” he says. “I just don’t think it’s fair for you to be paying with your time when it’s Jamie who owes the money.”
Headlights shine in my driveway next to us as a familiar Toyota Corolla pulls up, and like an actor hitting his entrance mark or the devil hearing his name uttered, Jamie appears from the driver’s side door.
Ryder looks at him, then at me, cocking his head.
I close my eyes.
Shit.
“I thought you hadn’t heard from him?” Ryder says to me, but whether he’s angry more than he’s confused is hard to tell. “That you have no idea where he is.”
The car door slams and we watch Jamie shuffle slowly toward us. Nerves coil in my stomach as Ryder tenses up. He’s laser focused on my brother, not even looking at me anymore, and I wonder if I’ll be able to keep the apology Ryder just offered me. And if he’s about to beat Jamie into a pulp.
“Don’t be mad at her, man,” Jamie says, easing a backpack off his shoulder. “She’s good. She’s a good person and I’m an idiot and she was just trying to help me out.”
Ryder crosses his arms and widens his legs, his frame tall and solid and imposing. All business.
“Not anymore,” Ryder says. “I’m not going to let her keep fighting your battles. Where the hell have you been, kid?”
“Oh, you know,” Jamie says. He steps up to the porch. “Out and about. But I’m home now. Ready to man up, dude.”
Ryder smiles tightly. “Then let’s see you put your money where your mouth is. And by your money,” he says, “I mean mine.”
I step between the two of them, putting my hand on Ryder’s chest. “He doesn’t have it, Ryder, okay? So, look, I’ll keep doing the books until he gets whatever I don’t make up for, and that’ll be really soon, right, Jamie?” I snap my head toward Jamie and raise my eyebrows the way our mom used to do when we were one disobedient moment away from punishment.
Jamie unzips the backpack and takes out a thick Ziploc bag of bills. “Eight G’s,” he says, handing it to Ryder. “I know that doesn’t touch the interest. The rest’ll be here soon.” He looks at me. “And I’m sorry it took this long.”
Ryder opens the bag and thumbs through the money. “You know, you owe your sister nearly three grand. She’s been working her ass off just to save yours.”
“She’s going to get it,” Jamie says. “Plus interest.” He passes by us, heading toward the house.
“Jamie,” I say, following him. He stops and turns around. “Where’d you get the money?”
“I told you I had most of it.”
“But how?” I say, cringing at the thought of some other debt started just to pay this one, like an endless hall of mirrors Jamie never manages to get out of.
“It’s all cool, Cass, don’t worry,” he says. “There’s more to me than meets the eye.” He opens the front door, and nods toward Ryder behind me. “And from the looks of things when I rolled up, I guess the same goes for you.” He goes inside.
I walk back toward Ryder on the sidewalk. He has the bag of bills tucked under his arm, his hands in his jeans pockets. I touch his hips. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you he was here.”
“How long has he been home?”
I look down at our feet, almost touching on the concrete. “A few days.”
“You lied.”
I lift my eyes to his face, his brow furrowed, his lips slightly parted, the look of someone confused, angry, hurt.
“I didn’t know what else to do,” I say. “I wasn’t sure how you’d react. Or how I’d react to your reaction.”
“Do you trust me?”
I nod. “But I’ve been wrong in the past.”
“You’re not wrong now, Cassie. But I need to be able to trust you, too. So the lying, the covering for people, the withholding of information, it stops now. It has to. Do you understand?”
I push back a wave of guilt. There’s still one thing I have to withhold.
“I understand,” I whisper.
“Good.”
He puts his hands on my waist and kisses me, his mouth warm and wet, firm and soft at the same time, and I let myself feel his biceps, his chest, his ass, all the parts of him I’ve been resisting since he showed up, afraid that once I started touching him I wouldn’t be able to stop, wouldn’t want to be able to stop, like conducting a train that’s running off the tracks into paradise. I won’t think about Sebastian. That part of my life is over now.