Skipped a Beat

by Salsbury, JB

  I don’t know how long I sleep for, only that I wake to snuggle deeper into my blanket that I pulled up over my head at some point. It’s soft and smells of coconut sunblock and—wait, blanket?

  I open my eyes to a set of muscular calves covered in golden hair only inches from my face.

  “Oh, shit!” I fling the towel off me and scramble upright, then lumber to get away only to cry out as my ankle lights up. I drop to my knees and turn back to see if the guy is coming after me, but I freeze solid. “Ryder?”

  He’s leaning forward, his arms resting on his cocked knees. He’s dressed in a black shirt and tan shorts, and even though a Volcom hat covers his hair and Ray-Bans cover his eyes, I’d recognize those lips in the dark.

  “I’m dreaming.”

  His classic black sunglass frames stay fixed on me, and I watch the muscles in his jaw tick. Nope, if this was a dream, we’d be kissing by now.

  I swallow and settle back to sitting, making sure to maintain my distance because he looks as if he’s about to blow.

  “The Uber, I’ll pay you back.” Someday. I notice the beach towel sitting near the Trader Joe’s bag. Did he cover me while I was sleeping? My heart clenches, and my stupid eyes burn. I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve him.

  “You think I give a fuck about the money?” He’s not yelling at me, instead his voice is quiet. Scarily calm. “You ran out on me.”

  “I didn’t have a choice—”

  “What the fuck, Jade!” Okay, he’s yelling now. He turns his head away, and I spot the fresh cuts and bruises on his face and neck. God, was that only last night? “There’s always a choice.”

  “How did you find me?”

  When he turns back toward me, I wish he’d take off his sunglasses so I could see his eyes and dip into his soul to know what he’s thinking. “I went to the location where the Uber dropped you off. The woman who works there said you took a bus to Santa Monica. Wasn’t hard to find the girl with the crutches wearing hospital scrubs.” The muscles in his forearms jump. “When we first met, you said you were headed to LA to meet up with your mom.”

  The quiver of a quickly crumbling damn flutters in my chest. “I did.” I scoot closer, just enough to push the bag toward Ryder’s hip.

  He casts his gaze down at it, then leans a little to look inside. His eyebrows slant behind his glasses. “Is that…”

  “My mom.”

  “Shit.” There’s compassion in his voice as he rubs the back of his neck. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  With that one question, the dam bursts. My lips quiver in a last-ditch effort to hold it back, but the attempt is useless. I hang my head, my hair my only defense against him seeing me break. I cry for my mom, for my brother, for Steven’s wife and daughters. I cry for Ryder and for the pain I caused him, and finally I cry for the baby in my belly who’ll be forever tied to me.

  Home-wrecker.

  Heartbreaker.

  Liar.

  Mother murderer.

  Ryder’s arms come around me like two bands of solid muscle that tighten with every spine-curling sob. He buries his nose at my nape and holds me as if he could hold me together, but it’s useless. I fall apart anyway. He whispers the sweetest things against my skin, tells me everything is going to be okay and he’s never going to let me run again.

  Little does he know that when I tell him everything, it’ll be him who runs.

  Ryder

  I can’t take it.

  There’s nothing worse than watching someone you love suffer.

  And I do love Jade.

  The tangible attraction the night at the club when we danced, our explosive chemistry the first time we kissed, and every time after. My inability to let her go after the accident. How could I have ignored all the warning signs? My feelings for Jade became clear as fucking day when I saw her curled up on the beach dead from exhaustion.

  The sun was beating down on her exposed skin. I tried to wake her, but when she wouldn’t budge, I covered her with a towel I keep in my truck and decided to sit with her until she woke.

  In the thirty minutes plus I sat staring at the waves as they crashed ashore, I planned what I was going to say. I reworked my speech a million times, and when she finally woke and her terrified gray eyes were on mine, I lost my ability to speak.

  I wanted to kiss her and shake her, tell her I loved her and hated her for what she’d put me through. Why she didn’t just tell me the truth about her mom, I don’t know, but I’m resolved to find out.

  I press kisses to the nape of her neck and breathe her in. The smell of hospital masks her rainwater scent, but it’s there underneath, a balm for my frazzled nerves. When she finally calms, she shifts in my arms. I release her to look up at me, and she blinks swollen eyelids over bloodshot eyes.

  “Come home with me?”

  With pinched brows and a quivering lip, she nods.

  I resist the urge to fall back to the sand and thank God she’s agreeing to come with me. Instead, I gather her crutches and pull her to her feet, settling them under her arms. Once I’m sure she’s steady, I grab my towel and the bag containing her mom’s remains.

  “I’m over here.” I hate that I can’t hold her hand or, hell, just pick her up and carry her. She moves slowly through the sand, wincing every few steps. “You okay?”

  “A little sore, that’s all.”

  Satisfaction rolls through me upon hearing her honesty. She could’ve just said she’s fine, but I get the sense she really is ready to drop all the walls and finally let me in.

  I hit the key fob for my truck and open the passenger-side door to help her in. I take her crutches and throw them in the truck bed, then hand her the Trader Joe’s bag. She settles it into her lap.

  “We’re only twenty minutes from my place. Are you comfortable?”

  “Yeah.” Her stomach growls, and her eyes dart to mine.

  Without any money, she probably hasn’t eaten since yesterday. When was the last time I ate? Also yesterday.

  We don’t talk about the heavy stuff on the short ride from Santa Monica to Malibu. Jade asks questions about how long I’ve lived here, whether or not I like it, and how cold it gets in the winter.

  I pull into my garage, and when I try to help her out, she waves me off. I grab her crutches and the bag, and hand them to her, and she follows me inside. Or I think she does, but when I turn around, she’s standing still in the doorway.

  “What is it?”

  “I, uh…” She looks at her feet. “Without shoes… my feet are filthy.”

  I’m about to tell her not to worry about it when I realize this is an opportunity to get what I so desperately want. To touch her.

  I pull her crutches away. She cradles the bag to her chest, and I scoop her into my arms. “You good?”

  When she nods, I carry her through the house to the guest room on the lower level. When I bought this condo, I made sure there was a full bedroom and bathroom downstairs so my sister could come visit and stay comfortably.

  I take Jade directly to the bathroom complete with shower, separate Jacuzzi tub, and double vanity with a view of the ocean. I set her feet on the bath mat and make sure she’s steady. “I’ll grab you something to wear, and you can get cleaned up. You should have everything you need—shampoo and conditioner. There’s a bunch of new toothbrushes in the top drawer. I’ll be right back.”

  I run upstairs and pull sweatpants and a T-shirt from of my drawers, half scared that when I get back into the bathroom Jade will be gone again. I find her with her hands braced on the countertop, her head hanging low between her shoulders. “Here.” I slide the clothes next to her. “Do you, um… need some help, or…”

  She sniffles and I catch a tear slip from her cheek to the counter. “I…”

  “Hey.” I slide up next to her and use my fingers to lift her chin. Tears streak down her face. “Let me help you. You don’t have anything I haven’t seen before.” I smirk, and she smiles bashfully before nodding her
consent.

  “Shower or bath?”

  She stares longingly at the bath, and when I think she’s about to choose it, she looks away and says, “Shower.”

  I turn the water on and adjust the cold and hot to make it the perfect warm. “You can sit here to get undressed.” I pull out the vanity stool and she limps, then drops on it.

  “I’ll be back in a sec.” I want to give her some privacy, so I open a food-delivery app and order enough P.F. Chang’s to feed five people.

  When I go back into the bathroom, Jade is topless standing on one leg, working her scrubs off her bad foot while balancing on her good one.

  “I got it.” I set my phone on the counter next to the ACE bandage she unraveled from her foot, and I duck under her arm. The heat of her bare torso seeps through my shirt, making my blood pump a little harder. I refuse to stare at her nakedness while I hold her up and help slip the pants off her leg to pool around her good ankle. I gently lift her out and carry her to the shower.

  “You’re going to get wet,” she says as I step inside with her.

  “That’s okay. It’s just water.” I want her to feel safe with me so I keep the barrier between us. I set her down, and she leans against the tiled wall with a hiss. “You need some Advil.”

  “I need a lot of things,” she mumbles.

  Let me be the one to give them all to you.

  I bite my tongue and maneuver her under the spray. “Keep your hands on my shoulders.” I reach for the body wash and squirt a liberal amount in my hands as she tilts her head back and allows the water to pour over her hair and face. Water sluices down her long neck, over her collarbone, and to her breasts where it splits to take a path between them or over to drip off her hardening nipples. I clear my throat and force my dick to behave while I suds-up my hands. Starting at her hips, I run my palms up her sleek curves. After making a trail from her waist to her shoulders, I circle around to her back and repeat. Water mixes with bubbles and cascades down her soft belly to disappear between her legs. I squeeze more soap in my palms and wash the length of her arms from her hands at my shoulders to her throat and slip down to cup her heavy breasts. A soft sigh falls from her parted lips, but I don’t linger. I wash what I can and then say in a voice that is much too deep and dark to be my own, “Turn around.”

  I steady her as she hops to turn around, her palms flat to the wall as I wash her back, trailing my hands down to her full, sexy ass and back up again. I fill my hands with shampoo and wash her hair, then condition it, and her good leg shakes with the effort of holding herself up.

  “Turn back around. I’ll get your feet.”

  She was self-conscious about them when she came in, and I want to make sure I get them clean so she can relax. I lean her back against the tile wall and squat at her feet. My clothes are soaked, but I don’t give a fuck. I’m embarrassed by how hard I am. I want her to know she’s safe with me and that I can take care of her non-sexual needs.

  I run my soapy hands up her good leg from ankle to thigh, and my fingers accidentally brush against her pussy. She moans, and when I look up, her eyes are closed and her lips parted. I repeat the motion, up, down, up, down, and then focus on her foot before moving to the next.

  The leg of her bad foot is bent, her swollen ankle hovering off the ground. I do my best to clean her foot gently, and she hisses when I clean her toes. I repeat the motion I did on her good leg, and when my hand brushes between her legs, her hips surge forward. I bite my lip and focus on getting her clean, reminding myself that if I push her I may lose her again.

  When I’m finished, I fall back to sit on my heels and look at her to see indecision burning in her tear-soaked eyes. She wants to push me away, but she needs me. Why won’t she accept that we belong together? I clear my throat. “Dinner should be here any minute.”

  “Ryder, there’s something I need to say—”

  “We’ll talk after we eat, okay?” I get to my feet and shut off the water, grab her a towel, and wrap her in it before helping her to the vanity stool. “You good?”

  “Yeah.” She smiles sadly and dries off.

  “You need help getting dressed?”

  “I got it.”

  “I’m going to go upstairs and change. I’ll be right back.”

  I run upstairs and trade my wet shorts and T-shirt for a pair of black flannel pants and a navy-blue tee. When I come back, Jade is dressed in my sweat pants and shirt and is raking a comb through her hair with a toothbrush in her mouth.

  Seeing her in my clothes and comfortable in my space conjures images of us together doing the mundane bedtime tasks side-by-side before we crawl into bed and make love for hours. Afterward we’d hold each other, and she’d tell me stories about the new girl at work, and I’d tell her about a new song we wrote, and—

  The doorbell rings, saving me from my own thoughts.

  28

  Ryder

  “Did you get enough to eat?” My eyes are wide at the two orders of orange-peel chicken Jade polished off.

  “I was really hungry.” She has her hands on her stomach, slouched on the couch next to me.

  “You want a beer?” I take the empty containers to the kitchen.

  “No. Thanks. I’ll just stick with water.”

  “You sure?”

  She picks at the label of her water bottle. “Yeah.”

  “I have wine too.”

  “No thanks, I’m good.”

  I snag a beer for myself and join her on the L-shaped couch. Her back is propped up with pillows, and her legs are elevated, while I drop into the joint of the couch, right at her feet. “Where do you want to start?”

  She sits up as much as she can with her ankle elevated. “You already know I was a nurse in Massachusetts. I was dating a doctor who told me he was divorced. He never showed public affection because he didn’t want people at the hospital to know he was dating so soon after his divorce was final.” She shakes her head. “That should’ve been a dead giveaway. We spent all our time at my apartment or my neighborhood. I was too stupid to see what was really going on.”

  “You’re not stupid. You got played by someone who knew what he was doing. You can’t blame yourself for believing him.”

  “Maybe.” Her gaze fixes on the sunset view through the window behind me. “After my brother died, my mom never pulled out of her grief. Not having the money to put any of us through college, she always encouraged the military, so she felt responsible. Soon after his funeral, she started complaining about having back pain and got hooked on prescription pain meds.” She chews her bottom lip thoughtfully. “Deep down I always knew the back pain was really emotional pain. She wanted to be numb. I don’t blame her. Anyway, she couldn’t work, so I would send her money. She didn’t want my other brother to know what kind of shape she was in. Eventually her doctors stopped renewing her prescription. I mentioned it to my boyfriend, the doctor, thinking maybe he could write one, just to get her through until she got back to work. He never really said yes, but he said he had a pre-signed scrip pad in his desk. I used it, wrote a few scrips, had them filled and sent them to her. Four weeks later, I found out she OD’d.”

  “And you feel responsible for her death.” It would explain why she thinks so little of herself. “But you’re not. You know that, right?”

  “I know. I mean, on some level I know. But I can’t help but think she’d still be here if it weren’t for me. I was so upset when I found out, I showed up at my ex’s house. He was in the doorway kissing his wife, and it was clear they were very much not divorced. When he saw me, our eyes locked, and there was no recognition there. He looked at me like he’d never seen me before in his life.”

  “Jesus…”

  “Then he told his wife to call the cops. ‘Tell them there’s a colored woman on our property.’” She laughs humorlessly. “I went from being the woman he loved to a colored woman? As soon as his wife went inside to call the police, he stormed up to me and said, ‘If you ruin my marriage, I’ll tur
n you in for writing prescriptions.’”

  “Did he?”

  “No. He told me if I surrender my nursing license to the state, he’ll pretend it never happened. At that point, knowing I’d killed my own mom—”

  “Jade.”

  “I happily surrendered it. I didn’t deserve to be a nurse. I quit my job, and they kept calling me to come get my mom or she’d end up buried in some dirt lot with the rest of the unclaimed dead in LA. I took what little money I had left after supporting myself and my mom off my salary. I sold what I could, took only what I could carry, and found a bus leaving the next day to LA from Raleigh. I had to take a red-eye to get there in time and I was so tired. I had two hours to kill before my bus left and I fell asleep. When I woke up, my bag was gone. I had no one to call, no phone to use, so I went from homeless shelter to homeless shelter, hitchhiking as far as I could until…”

  “Until you ran into us.”

  “Yes.”

  I rub my forehead, careful to be sensitive around my stitches. “That’s a lot.”

  “That’s not all.”

  My stomach plummets at the seriousness in her voice.

  “You asked why I ran from the hospital?” Her voice cracks with emotion.

  “Yes.”

  “When the doctor came in to speak to me one more time…”

  I nod, remembering how badly I didn’t want to leave her when he asked me for privacy.

  Her face pales, and her shoulders straighten as if she’s expecting an incoming blow. “He told me I’m pregnant.”

  Jade

  When I told Ryder the news that I’m pregnant, I expected confusion. Maybe disappointment. I suppose I could even understand anger.

  The one response I didn’t expect was happiness.

  The second the words came out of my mouth, Ryder’s eyes went wide in wonder, as if I were sharing with him the secret of life. Then his lips slowly tilted up, and now he’s looking at me as if I’m the vessel of some holy being sent to save the world.