by Keya Jay
Chapter eight: Skylar Royce
“Come in,” Skylar said at the relentless knocking at her front door.
Skylar heard a big crash and she ran out of her room and down the stairs to see what it was. She wanted to drop her jaw in disbelief but she was holding a couple of bobby pins between her lips making it impossible to do so without dropping them.
Skylar’s door was lying on her floor instead of where it should be which only meant one thing—Ryder. He wasn’t satisfied with how their conversation went yesterday and so he took his frustration out on her door.
“Uh your door is um broke,” Brooke said as she walked around it to pick it up.
“Leave it,” Skylar told her. “Ryder will be fixing this mess.”
“Ryder, as in controlling-anger-problems Ryder?”
“That’d be the one,” Skylar said around the mouthful of bobby pins.
“And I’mma take a wild guess here and say he is who you’re all dressed up to see?”
Skylar didn’t bother answering Brooke as she turned and left, headed back to her room. She finished the finishing touches on her hair before turning to face Brooke.
“Is there a reason you’re here?” she asked her.
Skylar still hasn’t forgotten that little stunt Brooke tried to pull with her mother.
“Well yea…no,” Brooke quickly corrected. “I just wanted to see you,”
—and she just wanted to laugh, Skylar thought to herself. How pathetic.
“Did you not see enough of me yesterday? We spent all day together?”
“Yea but that was yesterday, today’s a new day right?” she said hopefully.
Skylar didn’t even bother giving her a reply.
“That dress looks nice on you.”
“What can I say? Red’s my color,” Skylar said without the smallest of emotion.
“Right you and Melissa always looked good in red.”
Skylar knew what was coming next, Brooke was going to ask: Oh how is Melissa? And then Skylar would pretend she didn’t know she’d ask.
This was Brooke’s way of staying a little longer Skylar concluded, but Skylar wasn’t in the mood for it.
“Yea, Melissa’s doing great she’s a full time nurse now and her daughter just turned 2, 3 week ago. She just went through a very bad divorce and so she’s dedicating all of her time to working instead of her daughter.”
“Oh,” Brooke said simply.
Melissa is Skylar’s older sister but at times Melissa liked to act like Skylar’s mother, but now that Melissa is a mother herself it’s only going to get worse the next time she sees Skylar.
“So now if you’ll excuse me I have to finish getting ready,” Skylar said as she held her door open for Brooke to leave, and with hesitant steps Brooke did just that.
Skylar wasn’t ready to see her, what Brooke tried to do behind her back was unforgiveable.
Skylar walked over toward her closet and slipped on her shoes. She hasn’t been out since her mother had gotten sick and so she was nervous but at the same time she was looking forward to this.
Whenever anyone wanted to approach Skylar in any way they treated her with kiddy gloves, like her feelings need to be babied.
Ryder doesn’t know anything about her so he doesn’t know any better and she’d rather keep it that way. Besides even if he did know her—the real her—Skylar doesn’t think he’d run but that was the problem she doesn’t think Ryder knows how to run, it was that pride thing he has going on. Everyone else would be smart and leave her alone but not him he’d keep coming back until he got her to submit and that would never happen. She enjoys his careless banter too much, no one would dare talk to her like that too afraid of hurting her feelings or better yet too afraid of disappointing her mother. She hated the way people treated her, she’s usually not like this, talking back to people and being disrespectful as Ryder would call it but she realized that that was the way she had to be in order to get under Ryder’s skin. She doesn’t understand his need for control over every little thing, but she doesn’t care for it either way it goes, as long as he didn’t change.
Skylar smoothed out her red dress which was very comfortable to move in considering the 4 inch black pumps that will give her feet hell by the end of the night.
Skylar almost fell down the stairs from pure shock when she saw Ryder already in her house fixing her door. When did he get here?
She quickly recovered from her near death experience and descended the rest of the stairs.
When he was finished with the door he took a step back to admire his work before turning to look at her. She should have been flattered by the approval in his gaze but he ruined it.
“Do you not make noise when you enter someone else’s house? You know like rattle a pot? I would say slam a door but look what happened the last time you decided you wanted to do that.”
“Let’s go,” he said in his commander voice. He didn’t even acknowledge the fact that she had asked him a question.
Skylar placed her hands on her hips and raised her eye brow in question.
“What?” he asked.
“Aren’t you going to apologize?”
“For what?” he asked confused.
“For breaking my door,” she said as if it were obvious, which it was.
“It’s fixed now, isn’t that apology enough?”
“No,” she said firmly.
“Then let me make it up to you,” he said holding his hand out toward her.
“I don’t want you to make it up to me unless it involves some kind of apology.”
“Not gonna happen,” he simply declined dropping his hand to his side.
“Then we’re staying here,” she said crossing her arms in a defiance pose.
“Ok. Do you know how to cook or should I?” he asked as he walked toward her kitchen.
“Ok let me rephrase that ‘cause obviously you’re not understanding,” she said.
“What is there to understand?”
“I’m staying here, by myself.”
“Bēlua,” he said in a warning tone.
“It’s your choice,” she reminded him.
“So you’re going to waste that gorgeous little ass dress by sitting on the couch and doing what, watching movies?”
“If it comes to that,” she agreed. She held her smile behind the façade of her indifference as she watched him.
Every step he took was measured in equal parts anger and steps of a murderer before he stood completely in her line of vision.
He grabbed her tightly by her upper arms but she didn’t care she knew he had to inflict some kind of pain before he caved and gave into her request so she let him.
“I am sorry for breaking your damn door, now can we go?”
Skylar couldn’t help the smile that tugged at her lips, and she didn’t bother hide it.
“I’m ready when you are,” she said stepping out of his hold to grab her purse from the coat rack.
She stood at the now closed door and looked back at him expectantly.
“Aren’t you going to open the door for me?” she asked
“There’s only so much I can take,” he growled in warning as he opened her door.
“Thank you,” she said as she disappeared through the now opened door. She continued to walk until she stood at the passenger side door. She didn’t even get a chance to ask if he was going to open the door before he ripped it open and shoved her inside. She giggled as she fell over the seat, before righting herself and buckling up.
“Thank you, but next time how ‘bout we try that a little less rough, and a little more soft,” she said as he slid into the driver’s side of the car.
“After this I’m not so sure there’s going to be a next time,” he mumbled as he pulled off.
As they rode off Skylar realized too late what time it was.