The basement lights are dim, making the space seem cavernous and cold, and the door is soundless as I open it, though it could creak like a hardwood floor being paced by an elephant and I don’t think Ryder would be able to hear it over the pummeling he’s giving the heavy hanging punching bag in the corner.
He’s bare-footed, wearing a black tank top undershirt and long shorts, his muscular, tattooed arms glistening with sweat. His hands are taped, no gloves, and I wonder if it hurts to hit a hard bag without any kind of cushioning—and then I wonder if that’s the point: to practice getting numb to pain.
I take a breath. I’m here. He’s here. It’s the moment I’ve been literally searching for since last night. Except I don’t know how it’s supposed to begin.
So as he often does, Ryder takes control.
“What do you want?” he says, without looking at me. His tone is flat, but he punctuates the question with a hit to the bag.
“I want to explain.”
“Think your husband made everything pretty clear.” He throws a jab and the bag swings slightly backwards.
I walk toward him. “Ryder, please, just listen to me.”
“Take off your shoes,” he says, glancing at my sandaled feet.
“What?”
“Take off your fucking shoes, Cassie,” he says. “It clearly says on the door you can’t wear street shoes in here.” He smacks the bag. “You don’t just get to do whatever you want all the time.”
I bend down, slip off my sandals. “Oh. I didn’t see the sign.”
He smirks and shakes his head. “You and me both.”
I lay my hand on his arm. The feel of his bicep, flexed and hard, is familiar and comforting and electrifying, and the thought of never getting to touch him like this again terrifies me. “I’m really sorry, Ryder,” I say, lingering on every word, hoping he hears how much I mean it.
He jabs the bag. “So tell me what you’re sorry about.” My own words from our conversation the other night on my lawn tossed back at me. It feels different to be on the receiving end of them, like trying to pull yourself out of a deep well by a rope that’s beginning to unravel.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” I say, “about Sebastian.”
“Sorry you didn’t tell me or sorry I found out?”
“I shouldn’t have hidden it from you. It was just hard to find the words to explain what was happening.”
“Just keep it simple,” he says as he jabs the bag again. “Like, ‘Hey, Ryder, you know how we’re fucking? Well, there’s this other guy I fuck, too.’”
“No, I don’t,” I say. I press my lips together and cross my arms in front of my chest, like I’m guarding myself from even the suggestion of sleeping with Sebastian. It’s not something I’ve done in a while. Willingly, anyway. “I haven’t even talked to Sebastian in a month before last night. Much less done anything else with him.”
“Why would I believe that?” Ryder says.
“Because it’s the truth.”
“Oh,” he says, nodding his head slowly. “Like the truth you didn’t know where Jamie was?”
“This is different,” I say. “I didn’t lie to you about Sebastian. I just didn’t tell you about him.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“I’m just trying to put it in perspective for you.”
Ryder holds the bag, stopping its motion, and for the first time since I came into the gym, he faces me. His mouth is a tight line, his blue eyes narrowed, but there’s a softness to them as well, a depth behind his gaze that seems more complex than just anger.
“What if you found out right now I had a wife?” he says. “Or a girlfriend? And that maybe every time I’ve been hanging out with you, I was actually thinking about her.” He steps closer to me. “I was lying in bed with you, but she was there, too. Invisible. But taking up space, and you didn’t even know it.”
I blink back tears. “Ryder—”
But he cuts me off, moving closer. “I was kissing you, but it’s her lips I imagined. It was her * I tasted when I was licking yours. It was her hair I pulled. Your scent became her scent in my mind. Your laugh, your voice, the way you look when you first wake up, all those things that make it impossible not to like you—actually, I was only half noticing. Because there’s someone else. And you don’t even know she exists. How would that make you feel?”
I look up at Ryder. He’s a full foot taller than me, but I don’t think I’ve ever felt as small compared to him as I do right now. “I would be devastated,” I say.
He turns, walks back to the punching bag. “There’s your fucking perspective.”
“But, Ryder, please,” I say. I put my hands on his back and lean my head on him, between his shoulder blades. I close my eyes as I breathe in his smell. “Please listen to me. You have to understand that you are the only one I want.”
I can feel every muscle in his body tense against my face. “Leave me alone, Cassie.”
“Ryder.”
“Get out,” he says, his voice just above a whisper.