by C. J. Scott
"Where will I find a lawyer? How will I pay for one?"
"We'll think of something." I rested my hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry."
The back door banged. It had always done that, even when we were kids. Ryder was home.
"Dad?" he called. "Dad, where are you?"
"Kitchen," Mr. C called back.
Ryder strode into sight, stopping in the doorway when he saw me. "Jane!" He blinked hard, like he couldn't believe I was really there in his kitchen. There was none of the sneering asshole-ness of the day before, no mocking smile. "You heard," was all he said.
"Yeah. On the news."
He nodded. "I heard too on the drive back from town. I went to your place to tell you everything, but Kate said you already knew." He set his keys on the table, his hand lingering.
"You got a call from the college," Mr. C said. "They said you need your own lawyer."
"What about theirs?"
Mr. C looked away.
"They're not going to help me, are they?" Ryder's hand fisted around his keys. "Bastards."
"Now, Son, they've got to protect themselves."
Ryder sat and dragged his hands through his hair. He blew out a long, measured breath. "I know. I just hoped they'd believe me, not her. I thought Coach at least would fight for me."
"The college can't afford to believe you. Nor can the coach. They've got their own reputations to protect."
Ryder nodded. He was giving in? Just like that?
I slammed my palm down on the table. It hurt like hell, but it got their attention. Ryder's gaze finally connected with mine. "That's wrong," I said. "The college should be helping you. It's the least they can do after all the games you've helped them win."
"Jane, I can't let other people take responsibility for my actions. I didn't do what Sabrina is accusing me of, but I haven't been the greatest guy either. I own that. It's why the college won't support me now that the media's got wind of it. I'm too much of a risk."
"So what if your reputation is less than perfect? I bet tons of college guys have done dumb things. That doesn't make them rapists!"
"It'll put the college in a bad light because they invested so much time and effort in me. Time and effort I wasted. They can't defend me anymore, not against this, and not in a way that will make them come out looking good."
"Have the police spoken to you?"
He nodded. "Sabrina went to the college first and told them. They stood by me at the time, thinking she was making it up and would drop it when we got back together."
"You were dating her?"
"Sort of." He looked away again and I didn't need for him to tell me that he wasn't actually dating her, only sleeping with her. "But we never got back together. My choice, not hers."
"She wants to get revenge," I said, catching on.
"I guess so." He sighed. "I haven't spoken to her. The college suggested I didn't. A week later, I get a call from the police. She'd made a formal accusation and they investigated."
"Oh my God, Ryder. That's awful."
"It wasn't fun. I answered their questions and the college suggested I come here to keep out of the way and avoid Sabrina. She was getting intense, calling me up to twenty times a day. Their lawyers said I shouldn't speak to her, so I didn't. I blocked her number, came here and made a general ass of myself."
"No argument from me."
He heaved a sigh. "The police investigation couldn't find enough evidence to charge me."
"That's good."
He shook his head. "They couldn't find enough evidence to completely exonerate me either. It was a case of he-said-she-said, and that's not going to stand up in court so they dropped their investigation. I got the call about it yesterday, right before I came to see you."
"Oh." I'd almost forgotten about that. It seemed petty to be upset over the way he'd treated me when he was going through a crisis that could end his dream, his reputation, and change his life.
"I don't understand how the college can abandon you after the police dismissed it," I said.
"Because they can't be seen to side with an asshole of a footballer with a huge ego over a woman."
"Bad PR," I muttered. "That's pathetic."
"That's life." He cleared his throat. "Dad, I want to talk to Jane alone."
Mr. C stood slowly, rubbing his back. He slapped Ryder on the shoulder and gave me a grim smile. "We'll get a good lawyer, don't worry."
Ryder said nothing. He waited until his dad left then came over to me where I stood leaning against the bench. "I want to tell you I'm sorry, Jane. Very, very sorry. Not only for yesterday, but for every day since I've been back."
"You already did."
"I thought it worth repeating. Just in case…" He cleared his throat. "I wasn't sure you understood how much I meant it."
"I understand, Ryder. I accept your apology but I can't go back to the way things were. The friendship we had…it's gone."
"Don't say that, Jane. Please," he whispered, "don't say that."
He lifted a hand and brushed his knuckles down my cheek. It sent a warm tingle shimmering down my spine, made my blood quicken. I wanted him so much, but I'd learned my lesson. Ryder was bad for me. I couldn't risk going back to the needy, desperate girl I was before he'd kicked me to the curb. I wanted to hold onto the new me, the one with a purpose all her own. At least for now, until I felt the ground had stopped shifting under my feet.
"Something's changed in me," I told him. "In you too, obviously."
He dropped his hand. Swallowed heavily.
"Let's just get through this together," I said. "I want to help you."
"You already are."
"How?"
"By believing in me."
"Of course I believe you're innocent. You'd never a hurt a woman. Never."
"I haven't been the greatest guy while I've been at college."
"You keep saying that, but nothing you could have done would justify a girl accusing you of rape. It's a horrible thing to do to a guy if it's not true."
"Yeah, it sucks."
"I think you need to start at the beginning and tell me about Sabrina. I want to understand why someone would do this."
He nodded. "Then you'd better sit down."
CHAPTER 10
We sat on opposite sides of the kitchen table. I toyed with the stem of my wine glass, twisting it between my fingers. Ryder rested his elbows on the table, his arms folded. He'd refused a drink altogether.
"You're probably not going to like me much after I tell you what I've been doing in the last year," he said with a wry tilt of his mouth.
"I haven't liked you much since you returned to Winter anyway."
His mouth flattened and he conceded my point with a nod. "I don't know where to start."
"Your dad told me you had a good first year, but after that you worked less and started going out too much. Start from there."
"That about sums it up. I didn't have a good first year, I had a great one. I got noticed, not just by the coaches and other guys, but by girls too."
"Some of them celebrities."
"You read that?"
"I've been following your career." It pained me to admit it, but it was past time to hide my feelings for him. He needed to know the full extent of them or I could never move on. "Some of your private life made it into the media."
"Those girls introduced me to a new life. Parties, alcohol, drugs—"
"Drugs! My God, Ryder. I thought you were too smart for that. You've always been such a fitness freak. How could you do that to your body?"
"Because everyone was doing it. A dumb reason, I know. I regret it now, but back then…then it was like a whole new world. A fun world. I'd been so serious through high school, so single-minded about getting a football scholarship, that when I reached that goal, I relaxed. It was a huge weight off my shoulders and I felt like I deserved some downtime."
"I had no idea you thought that way."
"I didn't realize I thought th
at way until I got into college." He smoothed his hands over the surface of the table as if he were sweeping crumbs off. We both stared at them. Maybe looking each other in the eyes was too hard. It was for me. I didn't want to see his pain. It was difficult enough hearing it in his voice.
"That life was fake," he said. "When I discovered that, it stopped being fun."
"What do you mean? How did you discover it was fake?"
"Do you remember my high school girlfriends?"
"Of course. Why?"
"Do you remember how they dumped me for other guys?"
"Yes."
"That's what college was like. I dated some girls I liked and made friends with guys outside of the team too. Turned out, I was their stepping stone to the next, better player. The girls dated me for a few weeks, then when they'd met the rest of the team through me, they moved on. There was always a bigger star than me, and he was the one they were after. Not me."
"So you got dumped a few times. Welcome to my world."
"You never got dumped, Jane, because you never let anyone date you. You always turned guys down."
I took a sip of my wine. A long sip. He was right, but it surprised me that he'd noticed. "Was Sabrina one of those girls?"
He shook his head. "After a few months I understood how it worked, and I got mad. But instead of pulling back and dating normal girls, I partied harder and had a string of one-night stands."
"That's one way to keep your heart safe." I quite liked the sound of it. Maybe I should try it, just to see if I could do it. It might help me get over Ryder once and for all.
"It worked out fine at first. The girls weren't looking for relationships either so no one got hurt. Problem was, my only contact with women was the sort who make lists, and it warped my view of women in general."
"Lists?"
"Mental lists of guys they've slept with. Footballers ranked high, other celebrities too. I became their statistic, a tick in the box."
"There's nothing wrong with that, Ryder. Women are allowed to sleep with guys for one night if the guy is willing too."
"I know. But the girls didn't always make it clear. Like I said, I was okay with it at first, but later, I grew to hate being used as a stepping stone to the next guy." He clicked his tongue. "It sounds pathetic now that I put it into words."
I instinctively reached across the table to him. "I would feel angry if I was being used by a guy that way. Most women would. Just because the genders are reversed doesn't make it okay for them to trick you. We can't have one standard for women and another for me. They should have made it clear what they wanted from the beginning."
His hand moved toward mine and stopped mere inches away.
"So that's why you were angry with me down at the river? You thought I was like those girls?"
"I wanted you to be different. I thought if anyone out there could be loyal to her boyfriend and not tempted by the big-time footballer, it would be you."
"No wonder you were shocked when I slept with you."
"When I got over the body-shattering orgasm, yeah. I was." His fingers touched mine and a shock rippled through me. I wrapped my hand around his and held him. "I'm sorry, Jane."
"You've apologized enough."
"I'm not sure there will ever be enough apologies to make up for what I said to you yesterday."
I withdrew my hand. I couldn't think straight with him touching me. He folded his arms on the table again. "Go on," I said. "You started to hate being used by those women. What did you do about it?"
"Nothing. I thought I was being an idiot. I had a line of women wanting to have sex with me with no strings attached. Every guy's dream, right? Dozens of guys would have swapped places with me. I shrugged off my reservations and just kept on with the way things were. But after a while, I became less and less happy. I felt hollow. It wasn't until too late that I realized what I really wanted was a relationship again, one with a woman who wanted me, not because I was a footballer or because I could get her into parties where the cooler guys are."
"When did you come to realize this?"
"After Sabrina."
"I'm guessing she was one of the girls you had a brief affair with."
He nodded. "By the time I met her, I was sick of the people who pandered to me just to get to other guys, but I didn't break away from them. I should have, but I was too entrenched in that lifestyle and couldn't get out. I wasn't aware that I needed to get out then. Sabrina had been trying to get my attention for weeks, and although I was growing tired of that type of girl, I ended up with her. We had a couple of nights together. She was pretty and fun, but that's all. She wasn't a girl I wanted to be with long-term. The problem was, she actually did want to be my girlfriend, something else I didn't know until too late."
"Until after she brought the charges?"
"Before then. She kept calling me. Constantly. I stopped answering my phone when her number came up, but she'd use other people's phones and get through."
"She sounds unhinged."
"I probably aggravated the situation by ignoring her."
"That many calls would annoy even a saint."
"God knows I'm no saint."
"It's not your fault, Ryder. She should have backed off after you made it clear you weren't interested."
"Maybe."
"Stop beating yourself up over it! Sure, you probably said some things to her in anger that you shouldn't have. You probably should have stopped the one-night stands earlier, or not slept with her at all in the first place. You made mistakes, but none of them justify what she's doing to you. Did she give you a warning that she was going to bring charges?"
"No, but I didn't answer all her calls, so who knows."
"Have you still got the messages?"
"I deleted them. The call history is still there, but that wasn't enough for the police to reach the conclusion that she made it up. The other problem is that she was seen leaving my room in tears. She was crying because I told her we were over, but it also works in her favor too now."
"There's got to be something that proves she's making it up. Something to satisfy the media and the police."
"Nothing short of a full retraction from Sabrina, I'm afraid."
I sighed and closed my eyes, trying to think like a girl so angry with Ryder that she'd go to such horrible lengths to get back at him. But even at my lowest, when I'd been absolutely furious, I wouldn't have done that. It was impossible to comprehend.
"Jane," he murmured. He sounded close, my name filling the room, despite being softly spoken.
I opened my eyes. He was still sitting opposite me. His gaze focused on mine, smoky and intense. "Yes, Ryder?"
"I never told you why I stopped calling you."
I lifted one shoulder, trying to pretend it didn't matter. But it mattered a hell of a lot. The lack of contact had hurt me more than anything else he'd done. It meant he'd cut me out of his life, good and proper. It meant he couldn't care less. Not caring was worse than his anger.
"You always asked about the things I was up to," he said.
"That's what friends do. They exchange news."
"Yes, but at the time, my news was all about which party I went to, which girl I'd slept with or broken up with, what drugs I'd taken. Telling you any of that stuff was my worst nightmare. I couldn't do it."
"Why?" I snapped. "Because good old Plain Jane wouldn't understand what you were going through? You should have tried, Ryder. You could always tell me anything. I've never judged you."
"I've never done anything as bad as this before." He reached for me, but I held my hands back. "I couldn't face having you be ashamed of me, Jane."
My throat swelled. My mouth went dry.
"You're my mirror," he said. "I look at you and I see what kind of guy I am reflected in your eyes."
"Stop it, Ryder. Don't say anymore." The tears were close. Too close. I didn't want to cry in front of him. Not now. Not anymore.
"I have to tell you. At the time, I did
n't want to see myself. Deep down, I knew I wouldn't like what I saw. I wanted to ignore what I'd become because it was easier, and for a while it was fun. By the time it stopped being fun, it was too late. The damage was done. I kept you at arm's length, safely out of my way here in Winter, because you had the power to make me crumble, Jane. You could make me see what an asshole I'd become, and I didn't want to see. I wanted to remain blind and ignorant."
He may have paused for a response, but I gave none. I couldn't. Everything was too tight and if I spoke, I would unravel. I needed to keep it together.
"I guess I wanted to wallow in my self-pity," he went on. "It was easier to go on living the same crazy lifestyle than listen to you telling me to knuckle down and work hard, give up the drugs and parties."
He paused. I didn't dare look at him. The knots I'd tied myself into were so close to being pulled loose. It would only take one tug.
"I was right though."
I did look up then and the tears in his eyes stripped me to the bone. His face was taut, the muscles strained, his lips flattened. It was like he was trying hard to hold himself together too.
"I couldn't escape either you or my conscience in the end. Every time I saw you after returning home, I saw my reflection in your eyes. I hated what I saw, but that made my reaction worse. I hated myself even more."
"Stop, Ryder. You don't have to explain."
"I do. If you can't understand, then what hope is there for me? You've probably never hated yourself like I've hated myself, but it's a strange thing. It's tough to pull yourself out of it on your own. It's tough seeing the other side. You fall into a spiral of self-hatred and pity and it's easier to slide down rather than swim against the tide and go up. I thought I was mentally tough, but I guess I'm not. You are. You've always had it together. You never bowed to peer pressure. I always admired that about you."
If only he knew how much I'd cried after we'd made love. I hadn't been tough then.
"Thank you, Jane. Not only for believing I'm innocent, but also for not giving up on me. I didn't know how much I needed it until yesterday."
"Yeah, well, that's me. I don't go anywhere. I'm always here for everybody." God, I sounded like a sarcastic bitch. "Sorry," I muttered.