“What?”
My brows knitted as I concentrated on what I was doing. “Carl and Rosa want me to go into...one of the health sciences, focus on research. Marquette—their daughter—was going to become a doctor like them.”
Rider was quiet as he worked slightly above me, to my left. “Is that what you want to do?”
“I...” I stopped, lowering the can as I stared at the first three letters of my name. I already knew the answer, but I thought about how Carl had laughed and outright dismissed my idea of going into social work. I didn’t want Rider to do the same. “I don’t...know.” I looked over at him. “Do you think that’s not what I want?”
He paused, his gaze finding mine. “I don’t know the answer to that, Mouse. You’re not the same girl I knew four years ago.”
Sometimes I felt like I was exactly the same girl.
He started spraying again and the heavy scent of paint puffed into the air. “As long as it’s what you’re passionate about, go for it.”
I was so not passionate about research, but I had a feeling I would be when it came to social work. I just didn’t want to disappoint Carl and Rosa, and I knew if I decided to do something like that, I would. But what else was I passionate about?
Rider talked about the different jobs he’d done, some of the shapes he had to paint. I’d laughed when he said he had to do a clown on a van once. That was about fifty levels of creepy. We filled in our letters. Rider got all fancy, zig-zagging designs throughout the letters. I tried it and it looked like blood splatter.
And I thought more about what I was passionate about. What screamed my name, and I realized as I finished filling in the Y, I had no answer. Everything about me was superficial, barely scratched the surface. I liked to read. I liked to carve soap. I liked to watch Project Runway. I didn’t love any of those things.
I didn’t want to write like Ainsley did. Carving soap was more of a weird hobby—my own version of meditation. And I couldn’t design a white cotton T-shirt to save my life.
Man, I was...kind of blank. Like the spots on the canvas that had just the tiniest drops of paint on it. There were things I liked, things that had caught my attention over the years, but for the most part, I was empty.
Over the past couple of years, I’d been slowly unpacking all the emotional baggage from the past, all the trauma and fear, but that mess had done more than just keep me silent, existing in the background. It had held me back from—from living. Wasn’t that what being passionate really was? Living? Except that fear was still there and because of it, I was this blank thing.
Oddly, a pressure lifted from my shoulders. I didn’t feel bad about this as I rose. I was basically a blank canvas and that wasn’t a bad thing, I decided in that moment, because that meant I...I could be whatever.
I could become anything.
I just had to do it.
But my name looked like a bloody marshmallow.
I grinned behind the mask.
“I like it.” Rider removed his mask as he walked over to the bench, dropping the can and mask there. “What do you think?”
Tugging the mask off over my head, I smiled at him. “I like it.” I glanced back at our names. “Thank you for bringing me here. I’m sure the party...is probably more interesting—”
“Not true. I can’t think of a place I’d rather be,” he said, twisting his long and lean body toward mine. “Honestly.”
My brows flew up. I wasn’t sure if I should believe him or not.
He picked up a cloth. “Show me your hands.”
I did. Two of my fingers had red smudges on them, much like his always seemed to. Taking my hand between his, he gently scrubbed at the paint. “I’m being serious, Mallory. I’m happy you’re here. I don’t care about a party.”
Staring up at him as he diligently cleaned my hand, I decided to let myself believe what he was saying. To take his words at face value. Pulling the cloth away, he inspected my hand. “You don’t see what I see.”
“What?”
His brows furrowed together as he swiped the cloth over my pointer finger once more. Then he dropped the cloth behind him and picked up the red spray can.
“I want to back up to this whole caring about me thing,” he said, surprising me as he made his way back to the canvas. “I know you care about me, Mallory.”
My heart started beating fast as he shook the can.
“I care about you.” He knelt halfway down. A second passed and he moved his arm, spraying on the canvas. “And I think this was missing something.”
Having no idea what he was doing or where he was going with this, I waited until he rose and stepped back, to the side. My lips parted on a soft gasp. Rider had spray-painted a heart between our names. I saw it with my own eyes:
* * *
Angling toward me, his grin was sheepish. Boyish. “That was probably really corny, wasn’t it?”
My heart was doing overtime, thumping so fast I thought I might have a heart attack.
“Or it was too much?” He tossed the can in a nearby trash can and slowly approached me. His cheeks were a vibrant pink. “It was definitely too much.”
I didn’t know what to say or do.
Rider wasn’t doing any of those things Ainsley said he’d do. He wasn’t playing it cool or hard to get. He was putting it out there, and I...I was...
“I like you, Mallory. And God knows you deserve a hell of a lot better than me.” He dipped his chin, laughing as he thrust his hand through his hair. “God. I suck at this. Can we just forget—”
I snapped out of it. “You like me?”
His gaze flew to mine. “Yeah, I do. And I know I’ve been with Paige and I’m not going to pretend that meant nothing, but it’s not how I feel for you. Not remotely like how I feel for you. And it’s not because of our past—because of you and I knowing each other for so long,” he said, and the words kept coming out in a rush. “At first, I thought that was why—this attraction I have to you. I thought it was because of everything we’d shared. And then the night I came to your place and you fixed me up, I thought it was just this physical thing.” Pink raced across his cheeks. “And it is most definitely a physical thing, but it wasn’t just that. I think part of me knew that from the very first time you said my name.”
Now my pulse was pounding. He liked-liked me. Oh my God, this was unexpected. This was totally unplanned. It was an infinite, vast sea of unknown.
“I know you deserve better, but I want to be better. I want to be that for you.” His voice dropped low as he stopped in front of me. “That’s why I’m going to ask what I’m about to.”
The fluttering was deep in my chest and in my stomach. I felt breathless as I stared into his eyes. “Ask me what?”
A muscle flickered along his jaw as his chest rose sharply. “Can I kiss you?”
Chapter 23
There wasn’t a series of halted moments where my mind raced to analyze every little detail of what was happening before I made a decision.
I didn’t think.
I acted.
“Yes,” I whispered.
Rider made this sound in the back of his throat. It was deep and masculine, part groan and growl, and it made me shiver. He folded one hand along my cheek and lowered his head to mine, but he didn’t kiss me.
No.
His warm breath glided over my forehead as his hand slid across my cheek, his fingers spreading into my hair at the base. His other hand landed low on my back, and the weight did insane things to my insides. He drew it up my back, leaving a trail of fire in its wake. My eyes fluttered shut as his lips brushed over the curve of my cheek. It was the craziest torture. My entire body tensed, prepared for the moment when his lips met mine.
And it was the sweetest pressure, a feather-light brush of his lips over mine. Once. Then twice. I felt the touch everywhere, a jolt to the system that zipped through my veins, and then the pressure increased.
Rider kissed me then.
It was a
real one, soft and beautiful, and when the kiss deepened, it wasn’t a shy one. He knew what he was doing, and even though I didn’t, an innate knowledge told me it didn’t matter. His lips mapped out mine, and my insides were in tight coils.
Kissing was awesome. Amazing. Astonishing. I could probably think of a couple of more words to describe it. Kissing blew me away, and when he lifted his mouth, both of us were breathing hard. He rested his forehead against mine. Neither of us spoke for several moments.
I still wasn’t thinking. I had no idea how my hands had gotten to Rider’s chest, but his heart pounded under my palm as fast as mine did. My mind was blissfully blank as I breathed in his scent, a mix of his citrusy cologne and the faint trace of paint.
“Did you like that?” he asked, dragging his fingers out of my hair and over the line of my jaw.
Screaming yes, oh, God, yes, would’ve probably been a little too excessive, so I managed a somewhat subdued, “Yes.”
As Rider grinned, his lips brushed mine. “Good. Because I really liked it.”
I turned my cheek into his hand. None of this felt real, like I was dreaming and would wake up at any moment and be thrust back into reality, a world where there was just the past and a present I was barely living in. Not this reality where I’d been kissed for the first time. Not a reality where I was actually experiencing each second as it happened instead of rushing forward and then having to look back on it.
“We should really talk about what we’re doing, but I want...” Rider drew in a deep breath and his voice dropped again, became rougher. “I want to do it again.”
The swelling was back in my chest, and I swore it would lift me right up to the ceiling. Talking would be smart, but I was tired of being smart. “I...I want...that, too.”
Rider didn’t hesitate.
He tilted his head ever so slightly and his lips were the softest of all pressures against mine. My second kiss was just as amazing as the first, but it was different after a few seconds. He lingered longer, as if following the path of my lips, learning it and committing them to memory. I wanted to do the same.
I leaned in, sliding one hand up his shoulder. The hand on my lower back moved, and then his arm was around my waist. He drew me closer, until we were chest to chest. A rush of sensations hit me, and even though our bodies touched, I wanted to be closer. Needed to be closer. I felt the tip of his tongue. Instinct guided me. My lips parted and—
We jerked apart as a loud, shattering bang came from the front of the garage. Rider looked up sharply, his brows furrowing. “What the hell?”
My lips were still tingling as he slipped his arm from around me. “Are we going to...get in trouble?”
“Nah. But no one should be here.” He looked down at me, his jaw set hard. “I want you to stay here, okay?”
“But—”
“I’m sure it’s nothing, but I want to check it out.” He let go of my hand. “Just stay back here for now, okay?”
I folded my arms across my waist and nodded. He stared at me for a moment, like he wasn’t sure he believed me, and then wheeled around. He walked over to the bench and picked up a long, slender piece of metal.
A tire iron did not signal nothing.
Rider started back down the covered cars, and there was no way I was going to stand here. Nothing about this situation felt good. I started forward just as a voice rang out from the front of the garage.
“Yo! Rider. You in here?”
“Jesus,” muttered Rider, and then louder, “Jayden, is that you?”
There was a pause. “Yeah. Where you at?”
Rider glanced back at me, and I hurried toward him. “His...voice sounds weird,” I said, and it did, like his letters were mushed together.
He nodded and then reached down with his free hand and found mine. He didn’t drop the tire iron on the way to the front of the garage. “Where in the hell have you been, Jayden?” Rider called out as he led me around a car that appeared to be in pieces. “Hector and your grandma are going crazy looking for you. Why...?”
Gasping, I smacked my hand over my mouth.
At the front of the hall, Jayden stood with his back to us. He was shirtless. A bruise covered the side of his back, a horrible mesh of red and blue. Jayden turned around.
Rider stiffened, dropping my hand. “Damn.”
Jayden lifted his chin, and it got worse. One eye was an ugly purple color, swollen shut. An angry red slash split his bottom lip as he stepped forward. “I’m in a lot of trouble, man.”
Chapter 24
Rider escorted Jayden to a break room that was at the back of the garage. It was a small, harshly bright room with a scratched table and a refrigerator that hummed and clanged around like it was on its last leg. He’d gathered ice from the freezer and wrapped it in the cleanest rag he could find.
“Man, I’m sorry.” Jayden mumbled the words as he pressed the ice to his eye. “I didn’t know you had her here. I just thought you’d be here and I could clean up.” Pausing, he slowly turned his head toward me, and I forced myself not to show a reaction to how messed up he looked. I called on the many years of experience with Rider after Mr. Henry got ahold of him. “Serious, bebé. I wouldn’t bring this shit to you on purpose.”
“I know,” I whispered.
“But you did,” Rider fired back, surprising me. “You brought this shit to me—to her. That’s not cool, man.”
My wide gaze shot to Rider.
The muscle in Rider’s jaw was spasming as he lowered his phone. “Hector’s on his way. Heads-up. He’s pissed.”
I sat beside Jayden, unsure of how to help other than sitting there and staying out of their way.
“You didn’t need to call him.” Jayden lowered the ice. “This has nothing to do with him. No te preocupes.”
“No need to worry? Are you out of your fucking mind? Have you seen yourself? And put the damn ice back on your eye.” Rider shook his head. “This was Braden, wasn’t it?”
I recognized that name from the guy I’d seen in school.
Jayden said nothing.
“I told you to stay the hell away from him. So did Hector. You’ve disappeared the last couple of days, doing God knows what for that piece of shit and now look at you.”
The younger boy lowered his chin as he placed the cloth back to his eye. “I thought I could recoup what I lost.”
I lifted my gaze to Rider and he read the question in my stare. I expected him not to answer, but he did.
“Jayden here, being extraordinarily bright—”
“Man,” Jayden muttered under his breath.
“Thought he could run shit for Braden. Front the stuff,” Rider continued, and it didn’t take a wild leap of logic to guess what shit meant. “Except he sold the junk and didn’t exactly return the money in the amounts he was supposed to.”
“People do it all the time,” Jayden argued. “You’ve done it!”
You’ve done it.
I stilled and might’ve stopped breathing. My gaze swung to Rider. I knew what fronting was. Selling stuff that was given to you under the promise of whatever it was being sold and the money being paid back. I also knew they weren’t talking about fronting sunglasses.
They were talking about fronting drugs.
Nausea rose.
His eyes remained on Jayden. “I used to. Used to, Jayden. Then I decided to rub two brain cells together and realized I didn’t want to end up dead in a damn alley just to make a hundred bucks.”
Rider used to deal drugs. Used to. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to feel relief or not as I stared at them. All I could feel was rising horror.
“I’m not going to end up dead.”
Rider looked like he wanted to add to Jayden’s bruises.
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