Ryan (The Mallick Brothers #2)

by Jessica Gadziala

  The day before, he had said 'hey' to me.

  And I about had a stroke.

  See, I wasn't a freak. Until about two years before, I was a pretty normal person who had normal interactions with people (men included). I even dated and had relationships. Granted, I was always a bit on the anxious side and ran toward shy in social situations and especially in the presence of the opposite sex, but I interacted with them on a pretty daily basis.

  But ever since two years before, the only men I ever spoke to were my uncle, Bry, and his partner Carl. That was it.

  So my reaction was, well, just surprise I guess.

  He talked to me, in that perfect deep, smooth, shiver-inducing voice of his.

  And I had made a right fool of myself.

  Because that was just par for the course in my life.

  It shouldn't have mattered. It wasn't like it was ever going to happen again. He had moved in a year before and that was the first time he had ever attempted conversation. The chances that he would again, especially after such an idiotic display, were slim to none.

  But it still mattered.

  It was just yet another thing to feel shitty about myself over. I was good at that. The overthinking, overanalyzing, over-everything-ing.

  That was my specialty.

  Well, that and learning how to do literally everything I needed to do from the comfort of my prison. I mean, apartment. Apartment.

  It was a nice apartment too. I had spent a lot of time trying to get it to the perfect comfort-level for myself. That meant that it was generally very bright and airy. The walls were a very light sage green and I had nothing on the windows except white sheers so the sunlight could stream in from everywhere. All the wood in the space was white, from the kitchen cabinets to my coffee table and TV stand. My couch was patch-work style, all different patterns, but all the colors a bit muted, nothing loud, nothing overwhelming.

  I used to like bold.

  My old apartment had been a mismatch of different colors and styles and artwork and craziness. Beaded doors here, bright red walls there, huge canvas art everywhere. Nothing matched, but somehow it always worked. My clothes were always strewn about and my dishes perpetually undone.

  It was chaos.

  Once upon a time, I had thrived on it.

  Now, nothing scared me more.

  So my house was almost OCD tidy. Everything had a place and was in it. My dishes were cleaned as soon as I finished a meal. Everything worked together style-wise. My clothes were in the closet or hamper or washer/dryer combo I had installed in my coat closet after begging and pleading (via email) the super allow me to do so.

  I reached into the cabinet and grabbed a can of Rocky's food, putting it into the bowl and rinsing out the tin and putting it in my recycling before moving off toward the hall that led to my bedroom.

  The walls were a slightly lighter shade of sage and my bedding was all white. The nightstands on either side of the bed and the lamps on them were white as well.

  Order.

  Always.

  I went into my closet and grabbed a robe then made my way into the bathroom that was all white when I moved in. The only difference from then to now was the fact that I had a very big, very modern, very fancy soaking tub installed. I had saved up for it for six months before I indulged.

  It wasn't a waste either.

  So many people never used their tubs.

  Being the nervous nelly I was perpetually, I tended to take relaxing baths pretty much daily. Sometimes twice a day.

  I reached to stop the drain and put the water on hot, dropping two bath bombs in and sinking in when it was mostly-full.

  I lay back, taking a deep breath, putting a hand on my belly to make sure it inflated and deflated with each breath; my therapist was always telling me the reason I was so anxious all the time was because I wasn't breathing properly and that the hand on belly technique would ensure that I breathed deeply.

  It helped.

  But it wasn't a magic cure.

  Nothing was.

  Not even the medication she kept prescribing that I stopped taking or filling months before.

  They didn't help and they made me tired all the time.

  Anxiety and agoraphobia were bad enough. Sleeping all the time had started making me depressed. And, well, that was the absolute last thing I needed on top of everything else.

  But belly breathing, yeah, it didn't fix anything. My throat didn't feel like it was in a vice grip, but my heart still felt like it was pounding and my chest was too heavy and my mind raced from here to there and everywhere in between.

  It started, as it often did, with Bry and Carl and their weekly visits. I spent the other six days of the week preparing for them. I had known Bry for a long time; in fact, had gone to school with him and he had been my only constant friend throughout my childhood and adolescence and adulthood. He had changed a bit over the years. He got more gruff; he was a little harder. But he was still the boy who used to draw monsters with me on lunch break or come up for the perfect Christmas lists for Santa over winter vacation.

  But Bry had become a man who did things less than legally.

  Bry was also the only reason I was able to stay in my apartment and take care of myself reasonably well. If not for him, I didn't know. I would have probably been a pathetic shut-in still, but likely in my uncle's basement, feeling like a complete burden and hating myself more each day because of it.

  If there was anything worse than not being able to live my own life, it was dragging anyone else into my small little world with me.

  And Uncle Danny, yeah, he would happily do that for me.

  But I couldn't let that happen.

  He did enough for me.

  Hell, he raised me for a large chunk of my life.

  I owed him more than burden and worry.

  As such, there was maybe some lying done to him. He knew I couldn't leave my apartment and he knew I provided for myself. What he didn't know was that Bry was in on the plan. He thought I made money from my writing.

  I did.

  But not nearly enough to keep me afloat. Not even if I downsized to a crummier apartment.

  Sometimes you needed to lie to the people you loved to protect them.

  Or, at least, that was what I was choosing to believe.

  I'd like to say that I made progress in therapy that I did via video call three times a week. But that would be a lie. Because anyone who was anyone knew that there was no cure for anxiety and agoraphobia. There were peaks and valleys. There were good and bad times, but it was always a part of you. And there was only so much my therapist could do when the meds didn't help and I couldn't force myself to do the only other thing to overcome my issues- exposure therapy.

  I tried.

  Every single morning I got myself up, dressed (shoes and all) and I went to my front door and I tried to go out.

  Some days I even got into the hall.

  But most days, I would stand there completely paralyzed by the swirling anxiety- the hand around my throat sensation, the lightheadedness, the rolling queasiness of my stomach, the alarming slam of my heart in my chest, the chills and goosebumps while I was breaking out into a sweat, the trembling feeling overtaking my entire body until it got so bad that I was shaking, standing there with my hand on my doorknob looking like I was having a seizure.

  It was stupid.

  Irrational.

  It was based on a false reality.

  But it was real.

  It was real and it was sickening and it was scary and it proved too hard to push past. No matter how much I tried.

  And then every single morning, I would kick out of my shoes, slip out of my clothes, and slide into a hot bath, swiping at the useless tears, and trying to convince myself that the next day would be different.

  Though the next day was never different.

  I had to believe that it might be.

  Without hope, well, there was nothing.

  I had to believe
that some day, one day, I would get back out. I would drink coffee at a coffee shop without feeling like I needed to run screaming. I would have a date without being terrified that every word I said made me sound like a neurotic freak. I would see old friends who had given up on me. I would go to see my uncle on holidays. I would get a normal, legal job and I would start living again.

  Because what I had been doing for two years, yeah, it wasn't living. It was surviving. It was going through the motions. It was a sad, pathetic imitation of life.

  And I was reaching the end of my rope about it.

  Though the frustration at my own ineptitude only made matters worse unfortunately.

  Rocky jumped up on the closed toilet lid, letting out a loud meow and dancing around in a circle for a second before sitting.

  "I know. We really made a shamble of that introduction, huh?" I asked, snagging a flower petal floating around in the water and rubbing the softness between my fingers. Rocky let out a sneeze as he brought up his paw to clean. "Alright fine," I sighed. "I made a shambles of it. You were your usual charming self... and I'm talking to my cat again," I snorted, hitting the drain with my foot and standing to reach for the towel.

  I dried off, wrapped the towel around my body, and walked over toward my mirror, looking into my eyes and taking a deep breath.

  "The next time I see him, I'm not going to make such a fool of myself," I vowed.

  At the time, I had no idea what an epic fool I would make of myself the next weekend.

  THREE

  Ryan

  "Earth to Ryan," Mark said, snapping next to my ear, making me shake my head and jerk backward in my chair, realizing that I had drifted off in the middle of a goddamn meeting.

  That wasn't like me at all.

  "Sorry," I said, shaking my head at my brother who, judging by the smirk and the dancing fucking eyes, was enjoying me being off my game. "What was that?"

  "That wasn't important," he said, shrugging. "Budgets on the women's shelter. It's all in the paperwork. What is important is the fact that you just fucking daydreamed in the middle of a work meeting. Daydreamed. I'm pretty sure you don't even dream in your mother fucking sleep, man," he added, sitting back in his chair, arms going behind his neck. "So what's her name?"

  "What?" I snapped, too quickly, too defensively. He knew me well enough to call that what it was- a stalling tactic. So I went ahead and put it out there before he could dig at me about it. "Not what you're thinking, Mark. My neighbor has herself involved with some lowlives. It's been bugging me."

  That was half-true and would likely come off as mostly honest to him. Were it maybe Eli I was talking to, I'd never get away with it. But Mark and Shane and Hunt usually accepted me at face-value. I wasn't easy to get to "know" and they generally just believed what I was was what I put out there.

  "So this neighbor," he said, head cocking to the side slightly. "Is she of the old and homely variety or the young and hot variety?"

  "She's a shut-in, Mark," I snorted. "You won't be taking her out on the town anytime soon."

  Or even if I had anything to say about it.

  Which I shouldn't have, but I apparently did.

  "Don't really need to take her out to have fun, now do I?" he asked, smirking higher. "That just answered my question too. She's hot."

  "Stay away from her," I growled before I could seem to stop myself.

  I was fucking losing it over nothing.

  "Oh, fuck," he said, sitting forward again, chuckling slightly. "You have a thing for your neighbor. About fucking time too. You've been in a dry spell for what now..."

  "I do fine, thanks," I said, shaking my head.

  While Mark and Shane (before he found Lea) were of the manwhore variety, I had always been a bit too busy to put that much emphasis on bed hopping. I got my fair share, but I wasn't a different girl every night or every weekend kind of guy.

  "Fine isn't great though, bro. Great is great. Banging your hot neighbor until you wake up the whole building is great."

  "Can we get back to the budget and leave my personal life alone?"

  "No, I don't think we can do that," Shane's voice said from the side and I turned to find him standing in the door to the office, his hulking frame almost taking up the whole space. "What personal life? Since the fuck when do you have anything that even resembles a personal life?"

  So I was a workaholic.

  That was no secret.

  There was a lot that went into the family business. And loansharking was only part of the family business. There was also the bar and the dozen or so other businesses we all owned between us. And our dirty money got laundered through those legit businesses so I had to keep the books for everything even though I technically had no hand in the operations of Shane's gym or the landscaping company or the liquor store or any of the other things my brothers actually owned.

  Then on top of those types of books, there were the businesses that I did, in fact, own. And had to staff and make orders for and do improvements on and settle disputes for. On top of all of that, I took on the women's shelter. They had run out of money and were going to lose their business and because my family was so involved with it to start with, we decided to step in. I just so happened to be the only one with enough disposable cash to take it over. And it came with its own headaches, though I did force Mark to do a lot of the work around the place to save me some hassle.

  I was fucking busy.

  From the moment I woke up until about an hour before I crashed, I was fucking swamped.

  They were right; I had almost no personal life.

  And maybe they were right. Maybe it was getting to me. Maybe I needed to get out a little, get laid, unwind. It would explain why I was zoning out during a goddamn business meeting.

  "Ry has the hots for his housebound neighbor," Mark supplied, making me pick up a pen at throw it at him.

  Brothers, they were every bit as invasive as sisters, no matter what anyone said. Or maybe that was only true in families as close as ours was.

  "Housebound, huh?" Shane asked, smile going devilish. "That kind of works out then, doesn't it? No tracking her down. No taking her out to a fancy dinner. You just show up and you're fucking."

  "I'm not sleeping with my neighbor," I said immediately. Even if I had thought about it. Often. Usually in the shower. Like some kind of horny fucking teenager.

  "But he wants to. And she apparently has some kind of drama with some dirtbags," Mark added.

  There was no such thing as privacy in the Mallick family. If Mark knew it, so did Shane. Then from there, Lea, Fee, Hunter, Eli, and our parents.

  My goddamn cell would be ringing and beeping all night.

  Great.

  "You're gonna knight-in-shining-armor her?" Shane asked, leaning against the wall, crossing his arms. "Not a bad move. I mean, not the shortest shortcut to pussy. But it will work eventually."

  "Jesus Christ," I sighed, raking a hand down my face, my palms catching on scruff I must have forgotten to shave off somehow. "Enough. I'm not sleeping with her. I don't plan on sleeping with her. This conversation is over."

  "Uh-huh," Mark said, nodding, smirk still in place. "Sure, man. So Shane," he said as I sat back on a sigh, knowing what was to follow. "I have my money on... a week," he offered, betting on shit like we were always known to.

  Shane looked over at me. "Nah, man. He's practically a monk and she's a shut-in. I say three."

  "Hunt will do the smart thing and take the bet in the middle," Mark mused. "And Fee will likely..."

  "Alright, I have better places to be," I said, standing, buttoning my suit jacket. "Like literally fucking anywhere but here," I added, grabbing my cell and heading toward the door. "Lock up on your way out," I finished with, closing the door behind me.

  I was in a sour fucking mood.

  I couldn't be mad at them. Had I been in their shoes, I would have been the first laying down money to bet. But being the one people were betting on, yeah, it wasn't nearly a
s fun.

  The only way to make it in any way better was to prove them wrong.

  I wasn't going to sleep with Dusty.

  In fact, since I said hello to her and she awkwardly (and fucking adorably) muttered her hello back and disappeared, yeah, I hadn't even caught sight of her.

  I probably wouldn't again for months and by then, the bet would be over anyway.

  Except that sometime late that night, after nodding off four times in the middle of a work email I was typing off on my cell at two in the morning, and finally deciding to power down and deal with it after some sleep, I was startled awake by the loud, insistent, piercing scream of an alarm.

  I shot up in bed, heart slamming as I reached for my cell, noticing immediately it wasn't my personal alarm or anything in my apartment, but was coming from the hall. I slipped my feet into a pair of loafers, threw on a sweatshirt, and headed toward the door, moving out into the hall to see the carbon alarm flashing a red warning light.

  Carbon monoxide.

  Fucking great end to a shitty day.

  I reached inside to grab my key and closed the door, moving to turn around and freezing.

  Because there standing in her doorway with a cat carrier in one hand, scratches down her hands, and completely frozen on the spot, was Dusty. The hand that wasn't holding the carrier was closed around her throat, like she was trying to ease a pressure there. Her green eyes were huge and fucking... terrified.

  A shut-in who couldn't even make herself step outside her apartment for an emergency.

  "Honey, we got to go," I urged, pocketing my keys as I moved halfway across the hall.

  "I, ah," she started, shaking her head, craning her head out toward the alarm that was flashing a number of twenty where it was always zero. "I, um, I can't. Just... can you please take Rocky with you?" she asked, thrusting the thrashing carrier out into the hall.

  Without thinking, I reached for it.

  It was knee-jerk.

  A beautiful woman begs you to take something, you just take it.

  That being said, I knew she wasn't planning on leaving. It was in her terror-filled eyes, her shallow breathing, her shaking body. She wanted me to save her cat and leave her there to possibly die.