The Problem with Forever

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

  He answered every question Carl posed. How long was he in a group home? What neighborhood did he live in? What subject in school was he most interested in? Which, not surprisingly, turned out to be art class. The questions kept coming and coming, so much so that Rosa didn’t get a word in edgewise.

  I was so embarrassed.

  And so incredibly disappointed.

  “What do your foster parents do for a living?” Carl asked.

  My fingers tightened around my fork as I breathed through my nose. This...this was getting out of hand.

  Rider was unfazed. “I only have one foster parent. Mrs. Luna’s husband passed away before I came into the picture. She works at the phone company.”

  “And what do you plan to do when you graduate high school?” Carl kept on firing. “You’ll age out of the system and I assume you don’t plan on staying with Mrs. Luna. Are you heading to college?”

  “I currently don’t have any plans to go to college,” Rider responded as he pushed his chickpeas across his plate. “That costs a lot of money, and Mrs. Luna has already done so much for me. I couldn’t expect her to pay for my college.”

  “There are grants and scholarships,” Carl reasoned as he cut into the slice of pot roast. “I’m under the impression that you’re very bright.”

  “He is,” I said. “And he’s also very talented. He...he has artwork displayed at a place in the city.”

  Rider grinned at me.

  “You do?” Rosa responded smoothly. “At an art gallery?”

  As Rider answered her question, I prayed that Carl would stop with the third degree.

  Rider looked over and asked for a second time, “You’re not eating?”

  Half of my mouthwatering pot roast sat untouched. I was too frustrated to chew my food without spitting it onto the table.

  He nudged my arm and said in a low voice, “Eat.”

  Sighing, I picked up my fork and stabbed the meat. “Happy?”

  His dimple appeared in his cheek. “Thoroughly.”

  Carl’s perpetual frown faded a bit and he eased off at that point. Sort of. When he asked what we planned to do tomorrow, it was me who answered, but he kept directing the questions to Rider. Thirty minutes after dinner was finished, I kind of wanted to flip a table.

  It had been a very, very long time since I’d felt that way.

  “Mallory tells me you have a girlfriend,” Carl said, and I nearly choked as my eyes widened. “How does she feel about you coming to dinner tonight?”

  Rosa looked over at her husband, her brows raised. I opened my mouth to point out that his girlfriend really, seriously wasn’t any of his business when Rider shocked me.

  “I don’t have a girlfriend, sir.”

  I jerked back in my seat as my head swung toward him. “What?”

  “I mean, I did.” Rider’s cheeks pinked as his gaze met mine. “Paige and I... Well, we broke up.”

  My stomach dropped to my feet as I stared at him. A thousand thoughts whirled. I couldn’t have been more shocked. He hadn’t mentioned anything. Then again, I hadn’t asked about him and Paige since last week, but how could he not have mentioned that?

  “Well, this appears to be a surprise to everyone.” Carl’s tone was flat.

  He continued to speak and Rider continued to answer his questions, but I wasn’t paying attention as I stared at Rider’s profile. There had been signs recently that things weren’t normal between them. They really hadn’t been talking to each other. Paige hadn’t sought me out. Hector had said that they’d gotten into it and that was why Rider wasn’t in class Friday. He’d been tore up. Maybe he hadn’t been drinking. Maybe he’d been torn up because they’d broken up?

  Maybe Paige was done with his friendship with me. Rider had said before if he had to choose between us... Oh, God, I really hoped it had nothing to do with our friendship. I didn’t want to be that person who showed up and just...screwed up other people’s lives.

  I was still stunned when the table was cleared and Rider was leaving. “Thank you for dinner,” he said to the Rivases, polite as ever. “It was delicious.”

  Snapping out of my head, I rose with him. “Do...you need a ride?”

  He shook his head as he pushed the seat in.

  “It was lovely meeting you.” Rosa rose, placing her napkin on the table. “Don’t be a stranger,” she said, leaning in to give Rider a quick hug.

  Carl nodded in his direction as we walked around the table. Rider stopped, extending his hand while Carl stood. “Thank you again, sir.”

  He smiled tightly as he shook Rider’s hand. No words were exchanged, and I walked Rider outside. Streetlamps were on, casting buttery light on the smooth cement of the sidewalks.

  “You sure I...I can’t give you a ride?” I asked.

  Nodding, he stopped on the steps and faced me. Our gazes connected, and that heady warmth was back. “I had a good time.”

  I raised a brow. “Really?”

  He laughed as he shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Yeah. They’re pretty cool people.”

  “Carl wasn’t... He wasn’t very friendly. He asked you so many questions and he...he wasn’t very kind about it.” Anger surfaced, scratching at my skin. “I’m sorry about that.”

  “You don’t need to apologize, Mouse.”

  I folded my arms across my waist, realizing the roles reversed a little tonight. Instead of him defending me, it was the other way around, and that was a strange feeling. “I feel...feel like I have to.”

  One shoulder rose. “He’s just protective of you and I’m glad you’ve got people wanting to look out for you.” He paused. “Don’t worry about me. It’s all good.”

  Nothing about how Carl acted screamed all good to me.

  “I’m not scared off easily,” he said after a moment.

  Shoving aside my anger with Carl, I asked what I’d been dying to know. “You and Paige really broke up?”

  Rider nodded. “Yeah. Last week. Thursday night.”

  I slowly shook my head. “You...never said anything.”

  “It’s not really something I wanted to talk about,” he said, his gaze steady. “Paige and I have been friends since I first moved in with Hector and Jayden. I’m not sure if I...I can still say that.”

  “I’m sorry.” And I meant that. Despite the feelings I had for him, the way I responded whenever he was near, I was still sorry he was hurting.

  He smiled slightly. “I am, too. But being with her... Well, it wasn’t right. Not anymore.”

  Well, that answered who broke up with who. I glanced over my shoulder, wondering why it wasn’t right anymore. I wanted to ask what had broken them up, but couldn’t exactly find the courage to speak those words. “You missed school last week...because of it?”

  His brows knitted. “The breakup sucked, Mouse. I didn’t want to hurt her and I know I did. Hurting her was the last thing I wanted.” His shoulders rose with a deep breath. “We’ll talk more about it tomorrow, okay?”

  Tomorrow.

  “Okay,” I breathed.

  He stilled as he watched me. Then his gaze slipped over my shoulder, and he seemed to make up his mind about something, because the next second he was coming back up the steps. He stopped just below me. “The soap carvings are pretty cool, and I hope to see more of them,” he said, and then he leaned in, kissing my cheek. My breath caught.

  Rider pulled away, his gaze serious. “See you tomorrow, Mallory.”

  My cheek tingled as I watched him pivot on the step and walk down, out onto the sidewalk. He glanced over his shoulder, saw me and smiled before continuing to walk. I stood there until he disappeared from sight, allowed myself the moment to replay his parting words, and then I prepared myself.

  The shock of Paige and Rider’s breakup along with Rider’s request to see more of the soap carvings faded a bit and I allowed the anger and frustration to resurface.

  Carl was leaning against the counter as Rosa was placing the last of the dishes in
to the dishwasher when I walked back in. For once in my life, I wasn’t thinking about the thousands of different words I could speak. I knew exactly what I wanted to say.

  I stopped in front of the island. “You weren’t very nice to Rider.”

  Carl faced me, his expression blank. “I’m sorry?”

  “You weren’t very nice to Rider,” I repeated. “You treated him like he was...a suspect at a crime scene.”

  Rosa’s lips parted.

  He straightened as his eyes widened. “Mallory—”

  “Rider doesn’t live like we do,” I said, eyes and throat burning. “His foster mom isn’t a doctor and he doesn’t think he can afford college. None of that makes him...a bad person.”

  “We didn’t say he was a bad person.” Rosa stepped around Carl, expression earnest. “And if we gave the impression—”

  “You did.” I spoke directly to Carl, my voice shaking. “You kept questioning him and no matter...how he answered, it wasn’t enough.”

  Wrinkles formed around his eyes. “If you want to talk about Rider, let’s talk about the fact that he doesn’t have a girlfriend.”

  “He did have one. They broke up.”

  “Convenient,” Carl murmured.

  “See!” I all but threw up my hands. “You think...that’s convenient. As if I’ve lied about it, or Rider has. I want him to be a part of my life...of our life. And I was so excited about tonight—about you all finally meeting him.” My lower lip trembled. “He...he saved my life many times and I thought... I thought you would respect him for that.”

  “Mallory,” Carl said.

  Turning around, I did something I’d never done before. I ignored Carl as I climbed the steps. I was done with the conversation.

  Chapter 21

  The desk lamp in the library had been left on, casting the space in soft yellow light. It smelled faintly of peaches in the room. I drifted along the bookshelves, running my fingers over their spines. I stopped at the center bookcase and my hand fell to my side. Somehow I’d found myself in our home library that morning, after a crappy night’s sleep following an even crappier dinner.

  I’d woken early and roamed the house while Carl and Rosa slept, restless and unable to go back to bed. Some of that had to do with seeing Rider and Ainsley later. Some had to do with learning Rider and Paige weren’t together.

  Ainsley had offered up her usual brand of wisdom when I’d filled her in on the dinner disaster. She said Carl’s reaction was normal, that when she first brought Todd home she was convinced her father was going to toss him out the front door.

  I wasn’t quite so sure that was the case.

  Then she focused on the Paige and Rider drama, convinced the breakup meant something for me. I couldn’t even allow my head to go there, because it didn’t know what to do with all of that.

  I thought about the book that Rider used to read to me when we were little—a story that always made me cry but also filled me with hope that one day we’d be real, too, that we’d be loved.

  Because that was how it felt growing up. Like Rider and I weren’t real. No one thought about us or worried. We were forgotten, left behind to virtually fend for ourselves.

  Now I had two people who thought about me, who fended for me and who worried. I should be grateful for that, as Rider had reminded me last night, but right now I just felt mad.

  Carl and Rosa knew all about Rider, all about everything he’d done for me growing up. I’d thought that would’ve put Rider in a good place with Carl, but he’d been skeptical and distrustful. Judging.

  And I still couldn’t believe I’d said what I said to Carl. Even now, my pulse kicked up and I sort of felt sick. I knew Carl was upset with me, most likely even mad for saying what I said. I wanted to...I wanted to be perfect for him—for them, and I wasn’t perfect last night.

  I’d avoided both of them last night and that was the game plan for today.

  Sighing, I moved along the bookcases. The two center shelves were full of framed photos, starting with a happy-looking baby and moving all the way up to a beautiful, bright teenage girl with long dark hair and shining brown eyes.

  I stared at the pictures of Marquette, and I couldn’t help but think how unfair it was that she was no longer here. And it wasn’t fair that the kid Rosa worked on would never walk again. All the terrible things that Rider witnessed, experienced, hadn’t been fair. It wasn’t fair that I’d—

  Closing my eyes, I shut the path of thoughts off. If I went there now, in my head, I’d be a mess. There’d be things I didn’t want to think about.

  When I reopened my eyes, Marquette stared back at me in a picture taken a few months before her death. She was at the beach, wearing a pretty black two-piece bikini that I doubted I’d ever have the confidence to pull off. Hot pink sunglasses shielded her eyes, and her smile was huge. White sand glimmered under her feet, and the ocean sparkled behind her.

  Marquette had a boyfriend, one she had started dating during her junior year. I didn’t know his name, only that he’d existed from the bits and pieces of conversations I’d picked up over the years. She also had a lot of friends. Popular. Smart. In all of her pictures, she looked like someone who was nice. Someone like Keira.

  I thought about the boy who would never walk again. What was his life like? It didn’t matter, I quickly realized, if he was unkind and not well liked or if he was the most popular boy at school. It wasn’t fair.

  Stepping back from the pictures, I wondered something I’d thought about a million times. And it was wrong, such a horrible thing to consider, but I couldn’t help it. If Marquette was still alive today, would I be where I was? Would Carl and Rosa still have fought to bring me into their home? Given me all the opportunities that so many others had missed out on?

  I didn’t know the answers to that and they nagged at me, but I did know two things.

  Her life was cut short.

  And I was given a second chance.

  I continued to stare at her picture. I had a second chance when so many people only had one chance, and I couldn’t let it be in vain.

  What had Santos said in speech class about trying and living? It was all about trying, and that was what I would do.

  I would try.

  * * *

  “Oh my God,” Ainsley squealed as I neared the bench she was sitting at. She popped up, adjusting her sunglasses as they started to slip down her nose. “You look freaking adorable!”

  Slowing, I glanced down at myself in relief. Picking out my outfit for this moment had been a pretty stressful endeavor. I’d ended up settling on black leggings, a white lacy cami and a pale blue cardigan. I’d left my hair down and smoothed it out with Rosa’s flatiron. I’d been amazed by the fact I hadn’t fried my hair in the process and I’d washed the makeup off my face about three times before settling on what was supposed to be a “fresh” look I’d learned from watching YouTube, which took about thirty minutes to pull off.

  Ainsley grabbed my hand and started pulling me toward the door of the café she’d picked out. “Okay. So you’re about five minutes early, and he’s going to be here any minute, and I want to freak out.”

  I grinned. She wanted to freak out? I felt like I was seconds from hyperventilating.

  She led us into the restaurant. The place wasn’t that busy and we were seated immediately, at a table big enough for four. She sat across from me, leaving the seat next to me open, and my heart jumped.

  Pushing the sunglasses onto her head, she winced when she looked to our left, at the all-glass front. Bright sunlight poured into the restaurant. She shifted her chair so she wasn’t sitting directly in the light.

  “Are your...eyes still...bothering you?” I asked.

  Rolling said eyes, she sighed. “Yeah. I don’t know what’s going on with them. The eye doctor where I went to get new glasses told Mom I needed to see some kind of specialist.”

  Concern blossomed in the pit of my belly. “What...for?”

  She raised a
shoulder. “He saw something weird when he was looking at my eyes and thinks a retina specialist needs to take a look at them. He doesn’t think it’s a big deal.”

  A specialist sounded like a big deal. “Does he think something is wrong?”