Here & Now

by Melyssa Winchester

  “I’m sorry for freaking you out.”

  It’s okay.

  “Is he here with you?”

  “No, it’s just us and our friend tonight.” Belle cuts in before I can get my hands up to sign. “And before you even think about it, we’re not interested.”

  Where I expect Ryder to get mad, roll his eyes or say something disgusting the way I’m used to, he just smiles even more and nods his head in acceptance. It’s the strangest thing I’ve ever seen. Even if this wasn’t him and instead was one of the guys from my school, they would have reacted in some way that would have made me want to slap them. With Ryder, he’s doing the complete opposite.

  “No worries. I don’t fuck around with shit like that and Dillon is a friend. I just wanted to say hey.”

  “Guys like you never just want to say hello.” Belle says and I have to admit, I agree with her. The guys on Dillon’s team, Belle’s told me a lot about them and how they operate. The things that a few of them have said to her since she got here and a lot of them are total jerks.

  It seems that Ryder might just be the only one who isn’t.

  “Well, this guy does. Like I said, Murphy is a friend and even if I wanted to be a total prick right now and hit on his girl and her friend, I’ve got someone waiting on me inside.”

  I have no idea if he’s aware of it or even if Belle, who is usually as observant as me, is picking up on it, but what he’s saying, the things he wants us to believe, it’s not reaching all the way to his eyes. I’ve got no doubt he’s got someone waiting for him inside, but he’s not as excited about it as he wants us to believe.

  There’s definitely more going on here than meets the eye.

  Hi Ryder. It’s nice to meet you.

  Belle is doing her best to be Dillon, acting like some kind of guard dog for me, but she’s been standing here as long as I have now. If Ryder was going to make a move or do something inappropriate, he would have already done it. For now with this guy, I’m safe.

  “Nice to meet you too.” He grins before extending his hand. Once I’ve taken it, he grips onto it and leans his body in closer, almost as if what he’s about to say next is a secret only I can hear. Or in this case see, but Belle has no part of it and leans in with him.

  “I’m definitely letting him know the next time I see him what a lucky asshole he is.”

  Releasing the hold on my hand, he winks at me before turning and walking back toward the bar, leaving me with flushed cheeks and a very confused Belle staring back at me once he’s back inside and we’re completely alone.

  “What the hell was that?”

  “I don’t know.” I shrug. Ryder is definitely not someone I can get a read on, which considering how easy it is for me to tell things about people, annoys me.

  “He’s kind of cute.”

  “Good thing Kayden’s not around.”

  She laughs but there’s no mistaking the tinge to her cheeks. Even in the dark, she’s blushing, which means getting caught admiring another guy and me bringing up Kayden has embarrassed her.

  “I have a feeling even Kayden would admit he’s cute, if that makes sense.”

  Not wanting to get into the ways that she’s right about the way Ryder looks, and how unlike anyone else on the team he resembles, I just shrug again and decide on a subject change. The reason why we’re even outside in the first place.

  “Belle, what are we doing here?”

  “I honestly don’t know. I wanted to take a chance on something different and make Amelia happy, but I can’t take it. It’s too much. I’d rather hear Kayden yell and swear at the game then go back in there.”

  “You want me to go in and get her so we can get out of here?”

  “Yeah.” She nods. “I would love if you could do that.”

  “Are you sure you’ll be alright out here on your own for a few minutes?”

  “She’s not gonna be alone.”

  Catching the person’s lips moving before Belle can even turn around and acknowledge the voice that answered her, Kayden’s arms come up from behind her and immediately scoop her up off the ground. As happy as it makes me that I don’t have to worry about taking some random guy down for touching my friend, my heart plummets when I realize he’s alone.

  Dillon isn’t here.

  “I’ll go get her.” I inform them as I see Belle placed back on the ground, and heading toward the bar, more than a little eager now to get Amelia and get the heck out of here, a body steps in my path blocking me.

  With as much room as there is out here to move, why the hell did he have to get in my path?

  Moving to the side before starting to walk again, I finally look up and meet the person standing in front of me. The body that again as I tried to move and go around him, stepped in my path.

  He’s here.

  “Usually when your boyfriend shows up, you smile, Caddy. What’s with this frowning shit? Have I been replaced already?”

  His tone is light, his laughter infectious and after a few seconds of standing completely still and taking him in, I move forward and smack him gently on the chest before letting his arms come completely around and bring me into him.

  Safe and warm, just the way they always are.

  Pulling back just slightly, he leans his forehead into mine, our eyes locked on each other and his lips start moving, and just like every time I’m around him this way, once they start, I can’t pull away. I’m entranced.

  “I want to know what the hell Amelia was thinking bringing you here, but that can wait. There’s something else I wanna do with you more.”

  “What’s that?”

  He grins mischievously and the second I see it I start praying that he’s not going to want me to get up and sing with him, but before my mind can filter through the flood of worst case scenarios, he settles it.

  “I want to dance with my Ginger.”

  If all he wants to do is dance, I can definitely handle it and with the way he refers to me again as his Ginger, the same way he did the night of our romantic date, it makes my heart swell up and threaten to overflow from the memory it stirs to life inside me.

  “Lead the way Fred.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Dillon

  When we finally pull up in front of the bar, I’m out of the car before Kayden’s even pulled it to a complete stop. Call me paranoid, but the second I caught sight of the line of motorcycles and the ‘roided up guys standing off to the side of them, a few of them guys I was fighting against less than a year ago, there was no way I was waiting around.

  This is last fucking place Cadence needs to be and when I get my hands on Amelia, I’m gonna make sure she knows just how stupid a decision I think this was.

  What I don’t expect when I start running for the door is to see our girls outside, both of them deep in conversation, looking absolutely fine. With all the different scenes I let go through my head just on the drive here, them looking this way right now shouldn’t be what’s happening.

  It should have been something worse.

  When Kayden picks up Belle, I see the sad look in Caddy’s eyes. She’s happy that Kayden is here, but the person she really wants to see, at least to her, isn’t. I came around the back of her because of how quickly I took off out of the car and until she turns away from our friends and tries to go inside, she won’t get her wish.

  Her eyes are glued to the ground, her feet kicking rocks as she heads for the door of the bar. She doesn’t see me at all until I repeatedly try to block her path and when her eyes finally do lift, they’re pissed off.

  God, this girl. Even when she’s annoyed and angry, she makes my damn blood boil over under my skin. I’m definitely addicted.

  The way she fell into my arms, I’m pretty damn sure it’s the shit movies and books are made of. Fitting so perfectly there, her body soft against mine, which because of what I’d been expecting, is rigid and hard. I felt her content sigh before I heard it, and it just made me want to get her alone even more.
Kayden and Belle, along with Amelia just cease to exist in the moment and all I’m able to sense in every way is her.

  Wanting to dance with her, calling her my Ginger, none of it was planned. But just as easily as I wanted to get her away from here and alone, I also now have the urge to hold onto her tightly, even if it is in the middle of some fucked up bar on the outskirts of Wexfield, letting the whole damn world see she’s mine. Dance with her again, whether it’s fast or slow and lose myself in the moment.

  Motioning to Kayden and pointing to the bar, I throw my arm around my girls’ shoulders and I walk her in. The second the door opens, I’m hit with the overwhelming scent of cigarette smoke and old booze and I resist the urge to throw up right where I’m standing.

  It’s no secret I used to do a hell of a lot of drinking before, even known for a couple of years to smoke behind the back of the school during breaks, but after a while, it got old. It also helped that doing that shit as often as I was, ruined me when I was on the field and that wasn’t something I was willing to accept.

  Being slammed with it now, though, it makes me want to turn around and leave again. I don’t want to subject my girl to this shit even though she willingly did it herself a couple of hours ago when she agreed to come with Amelia and Belle.

  Making our way through the people, sometimes having to push my way through so Cadence has an easier time, we get to the jukebox and end up face to face with just the person I want to give a piece of my mind to. Tapping her on the shoulder, she turns and her eyes go dim the minute she catches the look on my face. Considering where we are and what brought us here, the look can’t be all that surprising. I’m pissed off. This is a move the old Amelia would make, not the supposed new and improved one.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Why do you think, Ames?” She goes to answer, but before she can even get the first word out I put my hand up to stop her. “Do we have a problem?”

  She shakes her head and I can tell by the seriousness in her eyes that she’s telling the truth. There’s a lot about Amelia that Cadence still doesn’t know, mainly because I think it’s her place to tell people and right now just isn’t that time or place. But if she’s confused by what’s being said, she’s not showing it as her body is angled snugly into mine, not even focusing on either of us.

  “I got tired of staying home, Dill. I’m fucking crawling the walls of my dorm, missing the hell out of Eric and I just needed to breathe again.”

  “So breathing again means coming to a bar?”

  She laughs but doesn’t say a word, just nods and goes back to looking through the book of music, her eyes lighting up, along with her face the minute she catches sight of some of the songs.

  I want to be angry with her for doing this, but considering the way I felt half the time in Toronto, only going out with the guys to keep them off my back and Kayden’s, wishing for the weekends to move faster so I could be with Caddy, I get it. Feeling this way about them, it’s fucking weird as hell for us. Amelia even more than me. After what we all learned about her last year, I never thought she’d get close to anyone, but Eric somehow broke though.

  Shows what actually giving a shit about people can do. Something I didn’t learn until Caddy walked into her mom’s class.

  “Come on.” I say, tipping Cadence’s face up to meet mine. “I wanna dance.”

  Taking her by the hand and leading her out to the area where a bunch of drunk couples are swaying the music, I look back when I’m standing with her arms wrapped around me and smile the minute I see Amelia giving me a thumbs up sign before pointing to the jukebox.

  As the one song ends and flows into another, I lift my hand and give her one back, acknowledging what she did for me. As much as I hate being here right now, dancing with my girl, it takes some of the edge off.

  Focusing on the rest of the bar as Caddy’s body moves with mine, I spot Ryder standing and talking to a few of the guys from the team, a girl draped over his lap, her eyes completely focused on him, a look there that’s so familiar it makes my stomach churn.

  It doesn’t matter whether you’re playing high school ball or college, the girls are always the same. You get the ones that are like Cadence, where they don’t give a crap about what your position is or even what you do on the field. The type of girl I like, and then you get the hangers-on. The ones that see you for the position you play and what that means for them in the long term. It’s like you’re famous and they’re using you on their rise to the top.

  That’s the kind of girl with Ryder right now and not one I would have figured for him. Then again, with what I’ve been able to piece together about the guy, girls in general aren’t his type, so what he’s doing with this one is beyond me.

  Continuing to watch, there’s movement further down the bar, at first nothing more than a random person moving, but the more I focus, the more I realize it’s someone I know. Not just that, it’s someone I know well.

  Rebecca’s here.

  What the hell is she doing here and who the fuck is that with her?

  I haven’t seen or spoken to my mom in weeks and considering all the time I’ve spent with Caddy and her mom, they haven’t had any run-ins with her either, which means that my mom has been keeping one hell of a low profile since I walked out. Seeing her here shouldn’t matter to me and it should matter even less who the hell she’s hanging out with, but the way this dude has his hands on her, its fucking wrong.

  There’s definitely more going on here and keeping my eyes trained on the both of them as they stop close to where Ryder is, I carefully take in every single movement they’re making, going so far as to pull a move like my girlfriend and reading their lips as I watch their hands move.

  Holy shit. I know what this is.

  Stopping the sway of our bodies, ignoring the music altogether, I look down at Cadence and wait until her eyes come around and meet mine.

  “My mom’s here.”

  “What?” She mouths and I spin her around quickly, not taking my eyes off them and point out until her eyes follow and she’s able to see what I’m seeing. When she looks up to me, I tell her everything that’s going on in my head.

  “I need to find out what’s going on. What the hell she’s doing here.”

  Taking a couple of steps forward, she squeezes my hand and I stop, turning back around and seeing the concern written on her face.

  Are you sure you want to get involved?

  Of course she’s going to sign the one question I’m gonna have a hard time answering. The one I have to struggle with because it’s not as cut and dry as it should be.

  I don’t want to be getting involved in whatever the fuck this is Rebecca is pulling, but even knowing that, I can’t stay away either. She might be the worst mother on the planet, checked out and completely numbed by the amount of pills and alcohol she shoves down her throat, but she’s still my mom.

  “Caddy…”

  Go. She signs and where I expect her to look annoyed or at the very least for her not to understand what the hell is going on with me, it’s the opposite. She seems to get it and the wave she’s making with her hands in my mom’s direction gives me all the incentive I need.

  Find out what is going on here, but Dillon, please don’t make anything worse.

  Making things worse. I’m the king of doing that, but this time, I have no intention of making anything worse, just getting some answers and if need be, getting my mom back home where she belongs.

  The last thing I’m looking for is a fight.

  Grasping Cadence’s hand tightly in mine, I make my way back through the crowd of people again, but this time, pull to a stop when I get close to Ryder. When he looks away from the girl in his lap and sees me standing there, his eyes go wide for a second before evening out and smiling.

  “I wondered how long it would take!” he yells over the music and I roll my eyes. Another guy who must have realized Caddy was here on her own and knew what my reaction would be.

/>   “Do me a favor?”

  “Sure man!” he yells even though I’m close enough to hear him. “What do ya need?”

  “Keep your eyes on my girl for a sec?”

  Ryder’s eyes move until they’re landing on Cadence and the smile he gave when he realized I was here is magnified. With the way she smiles back, small yet soft, it’s like a knife in my chest. Just how close did the two of them get before I showed up?

  “I didn’t mean it literally.” I snap and he pulls his attention away from Caddy and puts it back on me, the apology strong on his face without words needing to be said. “Just watch her while I deal with something. It will be a couple minutes’ tops.”

  When Ryder nods, I turn back, leaning in and kissing Caddy softly.

  “I’ll be right back.”

  “Okay.”

  “Don’t worry, okay?” I whisper, the worry in her eyes already evident and my need to erase it stronger than ever. “I’m just gonna find out what she’s doing here. That’s all.”

  “Okay.” She repeats again and I can tell she doesn’t believe a word of it. Cadence knows me way too well. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that the way I deal with getting answers almost always comes back to me using my fists first and striking up a conversation second.

  “Ry,” I call, reaching out and slamming him on the back to get his attention when after a minute or two passes he still hasn’t acknowledged me.

  “Yeah?”

  “Whatever she says, no matter how quick she moves, don’t let her out of your sight.”

  “Okay man.”

  Reaching out the minute my hand slips away from hers and I start to turn to head off toward my mom, his hand replaces it and he pulls her closer to him, which does nothing good for the girl already situated in his lap. The scowl is clear, even with me being turned almost entirely away from it.

  I can’t worry about that now. What I need to focus on is getting to my mom and getting her away from the stupid mistake she’s about to make. There’s no way in hell I can let her buy drugs so openly. She may think she’s keeping it hidden, but even from my vantage point on the dance floor I could easily make out what was happening and how much shit she would be in if someone else caught the same thing I did.