She noticed a group of teenage girls on the corner across the street, all nudging and pointing, giggling behind their hands as they watched the tall, gorgeous Genie stride with such purpose. All Genies had magnetism, but Ryder possessed something more, a quality that made females from babies to octogenarians simper.
Or maybe she was biased.
The wind whooshed as it picked up, flapping the short skirt around her legs. She pulled the lapels of his leather jacket around her body, inhaling his unique scent. It made her belly flip, like a conditioned response.
He stopped suddenly, her body colliding with his. He steadied her with an apologetic grin. “We’re here.”
So lost in her thoughts, she hadn’t noticed where he was leading her. All she saw was the hospital. “Here?”
He nodded. With one strong hand on her back, he ushered her in through the automatic doors.
Behind the circular desk, a woman with frizzy ginger hair and a harried expression broke into one big beam as she saw them. “Ryder!” she exclaimed. The nametag that stretched over her bust read Carolyn. “We didn’t expect you today.”
“That’s me. Unexpected.” Ryder brought Hailey closer. “Carolyn, Hailey. Hailey, Carolyn.”
“Of course, I recognize you from the Star.” Carolyn turned her smile to Hailey. It was like being hit by a bolt of sunshine. “Nice to meet you.”
“Uh, yeah. Likewise.”
“Ben will be so pleased to see you,” Carolyn said to Ryder, pressing a clipboard to her chest. “You’ll stop there first, right?”
“Always do. You don’t mind me taking Hailey up, do you?”
“Course not.” Carolyn turned at the sound of her name, made a face. “Better get on. We’re swamped today.” She bustled off with a hurried wave over her shoulder.
Ryder led Hailey toward the elevator bank. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.” He headed into the elevator as it pinged open.
She followed and slumped against the interior. They were the only two in the metal cage as it started sliding up.
She considered him, arms folded. “That woman recognized me from the paper.”
“Yup.”
“Me. Like I’m some kind of celebrity.”
“I hear you’re dating one.”
“Glad to see someone has a healthy ego.” She rolled her eyes, glanced at the button panel. No clues there. “Seriously, where are we heading?”
“Jeez, do you have to plan everything?”
“Not funny.”
He smiled as if he’d disagree. “Another minute.”
The elevator doors opened. Hailey saw immediately this wasn’t like any other department in the hospital. The standard white walls and sterile smell clung doggedly to the place, but color splashed in the waiting room, with toys spread along coffee tables and around the edges. Murals of kids’ drawings coated one wall, and a wish mural took up the parallel side, Hailey saw as she drifted closer. Letters with wonky pencil writing spelled out what the kids would wish for from a Genie. And every single one read to get well.
Her heart seized painfully. And here she had a wish without a clue how to use it. If only she could transfer it, but WFY’s party line was “who wins, wishes.”
Ryder was watching her. “Come on,” he repeated, softer. He didn’t reach for her hand but stuffed his in his pockets.
Kids in wheelchairs and hospital gowns chattered to their pushers as they passed Hailey and Ryder, some clutching teddy bears as they wandered with a supervising adult, IV drips on wheels shadowing them like wraiths.
They passed rooms where obnoxious cartoon voices blared from TVs, and one room whose door was shut but through which the sound of desperate sobbing was heard.
Hailey touched Ryder’s arm as he strode across the linoleum floor. “They’re cancer patients, aren’t they?”
“Some. Some have heart conditions, lung problems. But they’re all critical.” His face was blank, but his eyes fired with amber.
She remembered him telling her the limitations of Genie powers. No curing people. Even kids. So why put himself through this?
Duh. Because he was Ryder. Because he cared.
She felt a kind of melting inside and quickly brought the rules to mind, the commands in bold. Don’t forget, Lawson. No emotional entangling. Even if he was making it harder than pushing a boulder up a mountainside not to care.
He abruptly turned toward an open door. With a quick glance at her, he stopped. This was their destination, she realized, black inky worry uncurling at the idea of what was in there.
Ryder visibly steeled himself and a bright, carefree smile curved his beautiful lips.
“Ben, my man,” he said as he headed in with a swagger. “You must have gained fifteen pounds since I last saw you. Sneaking pudding from the nurses again?”
Hailey drifted in behind. When Ryder moved aside, she got her first look at the boy in the bed. Ice filtered through her veins as a fist reached into her chest and squeezed her heart.
No. It was a soft inner exclamation. So small.
No more than ten, he was skin and bones and a grayish color that reminded her of clouds that choked a summer sky. His hair was thin and light blond like duckling feathers. Purple slashed under his eyes, which were bright despite the rest of his appearance. They looked up with interest at her as she came forward.
“I brought someone to see you.” Ryder sat on the edge of the bed and indicated Hailey to join. “Don’t get too excited because this one’s mine. I’ll not have you steal her away like you did with Kate.”
A little squeak of a laugh escaped the boy’s lips.
Hailey wanted to cry. She forced a smile. “Hi, Ben. I’m Hailey.” She glanced at the book in his lap. A common link. “You, ah, like to read?”
He nodded. “I . . . like looking at . . . the pictures.” His voice was breathless as if every word required immense effort.
“Our Ben’s an imagination traveler.” Ryder grinned, completely normal. Only she saw the frenzied beat of his pulse at his neck as he gently shook Ben’s leg on top of the covering sheet. “He’s been everywhere in the pages of a book.”
“Where’s your favorite place?” Hailey took her cue from Ryder and sat on the cushioned chair at the side of the bed.
“I like . . . Egypt. The . . . camels look so . . . strange.”
Ryder leaned forward. “Hailey’s scared of them,” he said in a stage whisper. His eyebrows lifted in a shared joke.
“No way.” Ben looked at her with a funny smile. “They’re . . . only camels.”
“Hey, they spit.”
Ryder flicked a hand. “But aren’t they cute?”
In front of Ben a bubble formed, exactly like a glass ball. Within, an image of Egypt flickered to life, the sun beating down on men in their headdresses leading their camels across hot sand. It was as if it was a portal to a different continent, like they were spying through space.
Even Hailey was wowed. Ben looked as if he’d jump out his skin.
“Do . . . the North Pole,” he begged. “The polar . . . bears.”
Hailey and Ryder stayed for half an hour, Ryder changing the images in the floating bubble until Ben’s eyelids started to droop.
Hailey waited by the door, her heart aching, as Ryder lifted Ben’s hand and fist-bumped him.
“I’ll be back on Friday,” he said to him. “I’ll bring those cakes you like.”
Ben zonked out before Ryder even got to the door. Pain haunted her Genie’s eyes, boiling amber flecks within brown, as he slumped on the wall outside Ben’s room.
Damn the rules.
Hailey rubbed his arm and leaned her forehead against his chest. After a minute, his arms came around her. He held her for what seemed a long time.
24.
“How do you know him?” Hailey asked as she passed Ryder a beer from the fridge she’d stocked for him last week. And, yes, she was aware that action might show some exp
ectation of the affair stretching out, but she’d reasoned it as her preference for being prepared. Besides, she liked beer. It was no big deal.
After the hospital, where Ryder had visited some of the other children and performed magic tricks like a two-bit carnival magician, she hadn’t felt like climbing Everest or whatever he’d had planned, so had asked him to flash them back to her place He hadn’t argued.
He now lounged on her couch, in what she’d come to think of as his spot, cheekbones prominent as if his skin was stretched too tight. She wanted to curl into his lap and hold him close, comfort him, but keeping to the boundaries in their casual relationship, sat on the other side of the couch.
Ryder thanked her and swigged from the bottle. He dangled it over his knee, swishing what was left almost absently.
“I don’t know him, exactly,” he said, eyes flickering to her and back to the cooking show she’d switched on for background noise. “I just visit him a lot.”
“He’s got cancer?”
Ryder shook his head. “Heart condition. He needs a new one.”
“You can’t just wish . . . ?”
“No. Only the Partners could enforce that huge a request, and even then, so many things could go wrong. Healing is draining, and a trade is usually required. Someone else could die—maybe even one of them.” Ryder shrugged. “If they could heal everyone in the world without side effects, don’t you think they would?”
Hailey understood but . . . she thought of the bright-eyed little boy who was so keen to travel, and her heart wept. A hard lump rose in her throat. “So he’s going to die?”
“If he doesn’t get a transplant.” A gusty breath left him. “Even if I wanted to attempt granting him a heart, WFY has strict rules. One of the most important is not to endanger human or Genie life, and the consequences of such a wish could be damaging to either.” He looked so defeated as he shrugged again.
“You were right.” Hailey swallowed some wine to displace that mountain-sized lump. “Perspective given. Ethan said a few hurtful things to me and I’m still upset?” She scoffed. “Pathetic.”
“Hey. It’s not a bad thing to be upset about.” Ryder produced a tired smile, circled the rim of his beer bottle with his thumb. It made a hollow noise. “Besides, what about the happiness you brought to that kid today? To all the kids—especially the one you made that balloon snake for?”
“The most superior of the balloon animals.” Hailey settled against the back of the couch, wine in hand. “I guess that did feel good. You go there every week?”
“Pretty much. I like to give back. The world’s been good to me since I became a Genie.” He shrugged.
Hailey pursed her lips, respect shimmering like gold dust. “You are the most decent man.”
To her delight, a blush settled on his cheeks. “Get out.”
“You’re squirming,” she pointed out to be mean.
He leered. “Bet I can make you do it, too.”
“Cute.” She hesitated. The rules, Lawson, remember the—She cut off her inner voice. “Why do you go if it hurts so much?” Hey, she’d ask a friend the same thing.
His sigh was long-suffering. “Dog. Bone. Get what I’m saying?”
“It better not be you comparing me to a slobbery canine.”
“Hey, I’ve seen you look at me with my shirt off.” He laughed as she hitched up and threw one of the couch cushions at him. A thought from him and it floated safely to the chair. “All right. All right. I started right after Leo and I became Genies.”
“Because that was a great thing that happened to you?”
He hesitated. The look he gave her was intense, completely different from the playful Ryder from minutes ago. “Yeah.”
“Your parents must have been thrilled.”
“Dad was.”
“Your mom not so happy?”
Shadows crept steadily into the brown as he gazed at her. “Mom . . . died when Leo and I were twenty-one.”
Cursing herself, Hailey put the wineglass down on the table with a thunk. She should’ve stuck to the boundaries. Her hands felt awkward as she clenched and unclenched them. “I’m sorry, Ryder. My foot likes to live in my mouth. You’ve probably noticed.”
“It’s okay. How would you know?” He studied the bottle in his hands as if he’d never seen one before. As she watched, nimble fingers began to pluck the label as if it was the most important thing he could be doing at that moment.
She sat on the words she ached to say, reluctant to venture farther out of where they’d drawn the line. Casual sex meant not going into the emotional stuff, no sharing of pasts. They’d already waded in far too much. So even though she felt like she was turning blue with the not asking, she was going to control herself.
Ryder, the veteran of casual sex, didn’t seem to notice they were coloring outside the lines. “She had breast cancer,” he said, the words soft, each one vibrating with old pain as he concentrated on the label’s corner.
Her insides turned out, wrung like a towel, grated into nothing. Ryder. He’d lost both his parents and then to lose another . . . “God. I’m so sorry.”
“Everyone said that. Didn’t help though.” Ryder’s smile was wry, painful. He lost interest in his label project and leaned forward to put his bottle on the table. “Didn’t help that we knew it was coming. Mom . . . she found the lump too late. Doctors put her through chemo anyway but there was nothing that could eradicate it completely. Eventually she stopped treatment. Said she wanted to go out with dignity.”
“Ryder . . .” She had no words.
“It’s okay. I mean, I miss her. We all do. But life goes on, right?”
Screw it. She needed it as much as he did.
Hailey got up and slid onto his lap. She nestled her head on his chest until his arms slowly came around her.
“When I visit those kids,” he said, so quiet, as if he was breathing the words into her skin, “I feel like I can help. Genies should help, right? They shouldn’t be bound by stupid rules or side effects that prevent a child from getting the heart they need.”
“Ben might still get the help he needs,” she said, more optimist than truth.
Ryder inhaled. Exhaled. Then his hands tightened on her back. “My brother didn’t.”
“Leo?” Her stomach churned. God. Not more. She didn’t raise her head, somehow knew he wouldn’t be able to say more if she was looking at him. “He was sick?”
Ryder stood anyway, sliding her off his knee, and paced to the window. His broad frame was silhouetted against the sunset. He looked . . . alone.
“It was seven years after mom had . . . passed.” He braced an arm on the window and gazed through it. His face was mirrored back to her, empty of Ryder. “We’d finally started to move on. Dad had started to smile again. Then Leo started having blackouts. Headaches. He’d say the most random things.”
“God.”
“Yeah.” His laugh was a broken thing, one hand flat on her window. “Tumor. Critical. Pressing on the brain. All these things that basically meant my twin was going to die. Like my parents. Like my mom.”
She felt helpless. Any words that she came up with sounded stupid. She didn’t want to crowd him. She was useless.
“I couldn’t stand it, Hailey.” His voice grated, raw, against her ragged emotions. “I couldn’t stand my twin dying.”
Something clicked into place. She wrapped her arms around herself, like she longed to do for him, but he’d already rejected her once. “So you went to WFY.”
“I’d met Luka when I was working outside the city on a horse farm. He was on one of his solo trips to clear his head and we talked for a bit. He seemed nice. Bizarre, but that was Genies for you. I thought if I could make my case to him, he might help.”
“But he wouldn’t cure him.”
“He couldn’t. To his credit, he came with me to the house—a senior Handler—and examined Leo. Hand on the head stuff. He said the tumor was too far gone, it had passed into the terminal st
age.” Ryder brooded into the window. “I think I’d have killed myself if Leo had died, or gone insane. Luckily, Luka had a third option.”
“He made you both Genies.”
A nod. “You see, when someone becomes a Genie, their mortal body is frozen in time. Leo’s tumor included. As soon as he became a Genie, he was safe.”
“You saved his life.”
“I saved both of us.”
He’d been dealt such a crappy hand. To think when she’d first met him she’d assumed he had it so easy because he was a Genie. That nothing had touched him, could touch him. Death had visited his family again and again until he’d thwarted it with a Hail Mary pass. Everything about him clicked into place until she saw the final jigsaw piece. Why he surrounded himself with people and cared so much and lived for now.
The party for Leo. What had Ryder said?
He needs to celebrate life.
It wasn’t just a party to celebrate their becoming Genies. It was a celebration of Leo’s continued life.
Right then, she vowed to make it the absolute best party she could drum up. He wanted fire jugglers on stilts? She’d make it happen. Exotic-dancing girls? She’d provide blindfolds for the guests who didn’t approve—or were just into kink.
Something powerful crowded her throat as she stared at him. Tenderness, caring, whatever it was, it wasn’t what she wanted to feel for someone she was meant to be casual about.
But after what he’d just shared, the last thing she felt was casual.
Damn it to hell and back. Thick panic scraped her throat. This wasn’t how it was meant to go.
Her arms slid down to dangle useless at her sides. The air was thick with emotion, hurt and pain and embarrassment. She didn’t know how to break it, but she did know one thing. Even if it was stupid. “I’m glad you told me.”
“I don’t even know why I did.” His smile was funny as he turned to her. One eyebrow cocked. “You got some hidden powers I don’t know about?”
“Oh yeah.” She nodded seriously, determined to make him relax, make him smile again. Draw him back to the light, to where they were supposed to be. “All kinds of talents. Like . . . did I ever tell you what I can do with a cherry?”
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