He rakes his hand through his disheveled hair, gets into his car, and, after a long lingering glance at me, drives away.
I wait until he’s out of sight, and then I turn into Ryder and wrap my arms around his neck and bury my face in him and breathe him in.
“You okay, Laurel?”
I shudder, but nod. “Yes.”
He cups my face. I look at him, let him see all of me as I am in this moment: vulnerable, frightened, upset, but okay. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
I nod again. “Yes. I’m okay. A little shaken, but honestly more pissed off than anything.” I tighten my arms around his neck and kiss him. “Thank you for being there for me. For protecting me.”
He holds me against him, his hands on my back. “I wanted to break his face so fucking bad.”
“I know,” I murmur. “But that would’ve only made things worse in the long run.”
“That’s why his skull is still intact.” Ryder glances down at me. “I’m not a violent guy, and I don’t typically have a bad temper, but if you threaten me or mine, you’ll see the ugly side of me.”
I grin up at him. “I don’t know—I wouldn’t call it ugly. It kinda turned me on.” I shiver against him. “It was all caveman and alpha and sexy.”
His fingers tighten. “We’re on your front lawn, woman. Don’t turn me into an exhibitionist.”
“Turn you into an exhibitionist?” I say, laughing. “I’m the one wearing nothing but a T-shirt out here. You move your hand wrong, my neighbors are gonna get a nice view of my bare ass.”
“Mine,” he growls, turning me away, shielding me with his bulk.
I laugh as he throws me over his shoulder and carries me inside, possessively grabbing my ass. “Ryder! Put me down!”
He puts me down once we’re inside. “Ooga-ooga. Mine! Ryder no share.”
I laugh again, gazing up at him. “For real. You being all possessive and protective is a hell of a turn-on.”
Ryder’s eyes darken. “Good to know.”
I hear Nate’s door creak open. “Mom?”
I hurry over to him, kneeling in front of him. “I’m sorry you had to see that, Nate.”
“Dad isn’t a nice person, is he?” Nate asks.
I sigh. “That’s kind of hard to answer, buddy.” I think very carefully before answering. “Your father loves you, Nate—I have absolutely no doubt about that. He’s just…sick, I guess. He needs help to get better, but he won’t do it.”
“Why not?”
“I…he…I don’t know. He just wants to pretend he’s fine when he’s not, I think.” I hug him. “You spending time with him is going to work a little differently, though, I think. I’m not sure I can trust you alone with him anymore—not after this.”
Nate nods thoughtfully. “That’s probably a good idea.”
I tilt my head and frown. “Why do you say that?”
He shrugs. “Well, just that I don’t really think Dad is very responsible. He kinda sucks at being a dad.”
I’m torn between wanting to laugh at his blunt observation and wanting to cry that he’s had to make the observation at all. “Why’s that, buddy?”
“He forgot to make me dinner last weekend. He was in his office working or something, and he just let me watch movies all day. I made myself a P-B-and-J for lunch but then it was dinnertime and Dad was still in his office with the door locked and I was hungry and he just told me to find a snack or something.”
I let out a sharp sigh. “Nate, are you serious?” My throat is closed, hot and thick. Guilt rifles through me.
He hears it in my voice. “What? I was fine. I made myself mac ’n cheese.”
“You shouldn’t have had to, Nate.” I try vainly to hold back tears. “Anything else like that you haven’t told me?”
“I didn’t want you to worry, Mom, that’s all. I can take care of myself.”
“That’s not the point, Nathaniel—or, actually, that’s exactly the point! I am your mother—it’s my job to worry about you. If I knew your father was locking himself in his office I wouldn’t have let you go over there. You’re there to spend time with him, and he’s locking himself in his office? What’s he even doing in there?” I’m working myself up into a rage, and I have to take a few deep breaths and force myself to calm down. “What else, Nate?”
He just shrugs. “He does that a lot. He says he’s working, but I don’t know what he’s doing because he won’t let me in there.” He scratches his hair. “I have to remind him to buckle his seatbelt, and sometimes in the mornings he doesn’t wake up, so I get myself breakfast, and all he has is unhealthy junk food cereal that you say is poison. One time I tried to make scrambled eggs, but they got burned and I had to throw the whole pan away because I was afraid Dad would find out I’d burned his pan and he’d get mad. He brought me to a birthday party at Brian’s house one time, and he forgot to come get me. I don’t know his phone number so I just stayed the night at Brian’s house and he came to get me at like lunchtime the next day.”
“What?” I screech. “He left you at your friend’s house overnight?”
Nate just shrugs and nods. “It was fine, because Brian’s parents are really cool, so I got to sleep in a sleeping bag in a hammock in his backyard. Plus, Mr. McKenna made us banana chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast the next morning.”
“Why didn’t you call me?” I say, still choking back tears.
“Well, I don’t know your number either. Who even memorizes phone numbers anymore? And plus, I didn’t want you to worry. It’s not like I was out on the street or something, Mom. I was with my friend and his parents.”
I can’t help a laugh. “You are far too precocious for your own good, Nathaniel Paul Madison.” I wrap him in a hug. “Anything else you haven’t told me because you didn’t want me to worry?”
He shrugs again. “Um…” He gives me a sheepish look. “That kinda stuff happens a lot. Pretty much every time I go over there, he forgets I’m there, or that he is supposed to be taking care of me.”
I grab his shoulders and squeeze. “Every single time I picked you up, I would ask how it went, and you said fine. I would ask if your dad took good care of you, and you always said yes.” I can’t stop the tears. “You should’ve told me, Nate. How can I protect you if I don’t know there’s a problem?”
He lunges into me, wrapping me up in a tight hug. “I’m sorry, Mom. I just—I didn’t want you to worry.”
“Were you trying to protect him?” I ask, pulling back.
He shrugs. “Not really. I never have much fun anyway. He lets me watch TV pretty much the whole time, but I get bored of that after a few hours, except there’s nothing else to do. I have toys there, but they’re all dumb baby toys because Dad has no clue what I like to do.”
“Why wouldn’t you want me to worry about you, Nate?”
Yet again, the roll of a shoulder. “You work a lot, and until you met Ryder you were always lonely, and I thought if I told you Dad was so irresponsible, you wouldn’t let me go over there. And if I didn’t ever go over to Dad’s, you’d always have me all the time, and I guess I thought that me going to Dad’s for visitation meant you’d have some time to yourself when you don’t have to deal with me. I know I’m kind of a handful.”
I break into sobs—shoulders shaking, incoherent, ugly crying. Ryder is standing beside me, his hand on my shoulder—he knows he can’t take this from me, that he can’t make it better, that all he can do is be there for me, so that’s what he does. It takes a few minutes, but I manage to get myself under control again, and I wipe at my eyes.
“Nate, you listen to me, okay? I’m going to tell you the truth—the adult version.” I brush his hair out of his eyes. “I never wanted to let you go over there—but I had to, because he’s your father and he has rights, legal rights to see you, ordered by the court. But he also has rights simply because he’s your father—you deserve the chance to know him, to spend time with him, and I thought…well, I guess I thou
ght he was actually using that time to hang out with you. Yes, Nate, I was lonely sometimes, and yes, I work a lot to take care of us, but letting you go over to your Dad’s was the worst and hardest part of every month. I was always sad when I dropped you off, and excited when I got to go pick you up, and worried the entire time you were with him.” I hold his shoulders. “You’re my son, so yeah, I love you because I’m your mom. But I also just like being with you. You’re fun, and you’re funny, and I love watching our shows together and making dinner together. I have never, ever, not even one single time, ever felt like having you around was something I had to deal with.”
“So…I don’t have to go over there anymore?” he asks.
“Well, it’s not that simple. I can’t just not let go you. I have to talk to the court, and you’ll probably have to tell some people all the stuff you told me, and I may have to have the McKennas write a letter explaining that he forgot to pick you up. What will end up happening, most likely, is that you’ll have what’s called supervised visitation. I’ll bring you to the library or something like that, and you’ll spend an hour or two with your father there, with someone assigned by the court to supervise the visitation, and then when the time is up, you’ll come back home with me.”
He eyes me, and then Ryder. “Are we gonna go live with Ryder?”
I smile and look at Ryder. “Um…maybe someday? I don’t know. He’ll probably be here sometimes, and yeah, we’ll go over there sometimes, but will we live there? I honestly don’t know. I just know Ryder is going to be around a lot more.” I smile at Nate. “Is that okay with you?”
Nate rolls his eyes at me. “Dude, Mom, you’ve asked me this like fifty hundred times already. Yes, it’s okay.” He shrugs, a sly smile on his face. “I think it would be cool if we lived with him. I bet you have all sorts of cool stuff at your house, huh?”
Ryder laughs. “I think that would be pretty cool, too, but it’s a bit more complicated than that. You and your mom have your own house where you live.” He ruffles Nate’s hair. “But yes, I do have a lot of cool stuff. I live on a big old farm, and there’s tractors to take apart, a big barn to climb in, and there’s even a rope swing. In the summer, one of my favorite things to do is swing out and jump off into the creek.”
Nate jumps up and down, giddy with excitement. “MOM! We can just move there, right? We don’t need this old dump.”
I laugh. “Whoa, there. I happen to like this house; so don’t go calling it a dump. And we can’t just invite ourselves to live with Ryder. Like he said, it’s more complicated than that.”
Nate rolls his eyes. “Remember what I said about when adults say things are complicated? It just means you don’t want to explain it.”
I laugh again. “Okay, fine. You’re right. The complicated part is that Ryder and I are just starting to really get to know each other. It’s a little soon for us to move in together.”
Nate waves a hand in an airy dismissal. “Nah. You guys are totally in love. You’re gonna get married. We should just move in.”
“Nate—” I start.
Ryder interrupts me. “I mean, I’m sort of on his side.”
I stand up slowly, my eyes on Ryder’s. “What?”
He grins. “I know what I know, baby girl.”
I cross my arms and arch an eyebrow at him. “And what is it you know?”
“That it may be crazy, but I’m all-in. As far as I’m concerned, you guys could move in today. One phone call and I’ll have the guys with their trucks and trailers, and we’ll have your shi—your stuff moved in by dinnertime.” He tucks a lock of my hair behind my ear. “But I also get that you may not be ready for that step, and I get that you may not want to leave your house. This is your home, and I can’t expect you to just pick up and move in with me. I’m just saying—it may be a little soon, but this whole thing has happened whirlwind fast, and this is par for the course for us, it seems to me.”
I search his face, and all I see is genuineness, openness. He’s totally serious.
“Ryder—don’t—don’t…” I’m not going to cry again. Nope, nope, nope.
I turn away, pace into the kitchen and pour myself a fresh cup of coffee, just for something to do while I gather myself. I stir the coffee, even though I didn’t put cream or sugar into it.
I feel Ryder behind me.
“Laurel, I didn’t mean to upset you, I just—”
I turn, putting my butt to the edge of the counter, holding my coffee mug as a shield between us—mainly for the sake of Nate’s innocence. “You’re serious?”
“Abso-fucking-lutely,” he murmurs, quietly so only I can hear him.
“It’s crazy!”
He just grins and shrugs—and the way he does this reminds me of Nate. They’re two peas in a pod, in a lot of ways. “Yeah, but when you know, you know. You know?”
I laugh, shaking my head. “Today?”
“Or whenever.”
I bite my lip. “Have you thought about this, like really thought about it? Me moving in means Nate moving in. It means you’re assuming the role of stepdad, for all intents and purposes.” I stare up at him. “It means me and Nate all up in your business, all the time.”
He nods. “That has crossed my mind, and I’m not going to lie, being stepdad or whatever to Nate is a little intimidating to think about, but only because I’d be worried about fu—about messing it up.”
“I don’t mind!” Nate says.
We both laugh, and I cup Ryder’s cheek. “News flash, baby—you’re gonna mess up. That’s called parenting.”
“I have zero experience.”
I nod, smiling. “I know, but you’ll do fine.”
Ryder frowns. “Okay, so…is this happening? Are you—are you saying yes?”
I nod. “It’s absolutely crazy. It’s probably a little irresponsible of us, but like you said, when you know, you know. You know?” I turn to Nate. “What do you think?”
“Can I stay home from school and help pack?”
“I guess that answers that question.” I laugh, and have to step away from Ryder so I can think clearly. “This feels rash.”
“It’s totally rash and impulsive,” Ryder says. “But it also is unquestionably the right thing, as far as I’m concerned.”
I glance at him. “Do you have enough room for us?”
Ryder laughs. “Yes, Laurel, I have enough room.”
I frown at him. “Why is that so funny?”
“Because you haven’t seen where I live. It’s a giant old six-bedroom farmhouse. It’s always been way too much house for one lonely old bachelor, but I bought the place because the barn was already set up as a mechanic’s workshop, and it’s got a giant pole barn too, so I have somewhere to store projects.” He shrugs. “I also just fell in love with the property. It’s beautiful, and peaceful, and also not even half an hour from this area where most of my jobs are.”
I look at Ryder, and then at Nate, and try to imagine us all living together all the time…
And it’s not difficult at all.
“I have a question,” Nate says.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“Can we get a dog?”
Chapter 15
Ryder and Nate are with Jesse, Franco, and James at a guys-only paintball extravaganza; Nova, Imogen, Audra, and I are with James’s daughters Nina and Ella, and the six of us are at a girls-only spa day extravaganza; it’s all part of an elaborate plan to surprise Jesse. The men are playing paintball, the women are getting our hair and nails done, and then, later this evening—as far as the men know—we’re all going to meet at a local restaurant for what we’re calling a “family dinner.”
Our original idea was to make Jesse think it was a fake birthday thing, but then we realized how stupid that was, so now we’re making him think it’s just a get-together after we all have our respective outings. Nova has rented out a private room at a restaurant and the six of us women spent the first part of the day decorating it: there’s a tow
er made of packages of diapers, a bunch of rattles and baby bottles, pink napkins and blue napkins—because obviously Imogen doesn’t know the gender yet. And, to top it all off, a massive sheet cake with pink and blue icing, and the words “Congratulations, Daddy!” on it in pink and blue icing.
None of the men know any of this, though. We figured the best way to make sure it stayed a surprise for Jesse was to not let any of the men know, and keep the planning in-house, so to speak.
We’re all super excited.
I’m in a spa chair between Audra and Nova, and we’re all getting pedicures, the last of our pampering treatments.
Imogen, on the other side of Audra, leans forward to look at me. “So, Laurel…how are things with Ryder?”
I bite my lip, because I’ve been sitting on my news this whole time, and I’m dying to share it with my friends; I glance at Nina and Ella, James’s daughters, who are raptly listening to every word spoken.
“Um, actually…” I grin. “Nate and I are moving in with him tomorrow.”
There’s about ten seconds of dead silence, and then a chorus of responses from everyone, mostly along the lines of “What?!”
Audra narrows her eyes at me. “Are you for real?”
I can only nod. “I know it’s a little soon, but…” I shrug. “It just feels right.”
“How did this come about?” Imogen asks. “I know you were trying to figure out if it was safe to let yourself fall for him, but it’s quite a jump from that to moving in together.”
“Not that much of a jump, honestly,” I say. “We both realized the whole idea of ‘letting’ yourself fall in love is stupid, mainly because we’d both already fallen in love. So the first step was admitting to ourselves, and each other, that we’re in love, and that it’s safe.”
Nova snorts. “There’s nothing safe about falling in love.”
The other three of us all stare at Nova.
“Someone is bitter,” Audra says.
“I’m not bitter,” Nova snaps. And then she laughs. “Okay, fine, I’m bitter.” She waves at me. “Continue, and please ignore my outburst of un-restrainable bitterness.”
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