Stealing Ryder (4 page)

“What?” I asked
, confused.

“I mean…w
e could see if it would be an option if I could move back there. I want to talk to my parents, and maybe even yours…”

“No way. You can talk to
them all you want, but no way am I going to see them. No fucking way, Kylee.”

“Ry, I think you should at least hear them out. My mom told me your
’s has been asking about you. Just hear ‘em out.”

“Nope. No way, no how. Not happenin
’. I’ll call Knox. Tell him I’m comin’ to the wedding but I ain’t going to Houston.”

“Okay
, Ryder. Well, I am going to Houston before the wedding. Evelyn is going to be the flower girl, so she is coming with me.”

“Fine. Where are y
’all staying, at Knox’s place? The one in Galveston?”

“
No, the one in Sugar Land. Savannah said I could stay in one of the rooms. That place is huge. She said you could, too…”

“We ar
e staying in different rooms.”

I was trying to figure out how I was going to tell Harper
; she was going to flip out.

“I know
, Ry, I know,” she said looking away, clearly annoyed that I kept turning her down.

“I’ll call Knox
; we’ll figure this out.”

After a few quiet moments, Kylee asked in her genuine voice
, and not that fake bullshit she puts on to entice people, “Is Harper going?”

“I
’ve got to see if she can. She’s starting school back up again, so I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t know if I want her there. It’d be too tough, being in the same state as everything that happened with my parents. I don’t want them to pull something and have her there to witness it.”

I s
aw a glimpse of evil in Kylee when I told her I didn’t want Harper to come, but all she could do was click her tongue and say, “How close can you get to someone without showing them all the different sides of you?”

She walked over to Evelyn
, picked her up, and both of them said goodbye.

“See you in Texas.”

It was August and the sun was blazing down, sweat was glistening off my arms as my shirt clung tightly against my chest.

Fuck. If I was going to go to Texas
, I had to call Knox. I punched his number into my phone. He hashed out all the details of his big day, sounding really exciting when he talked about Savannah. In the back of my mind, I had to wonder if that’s what I sounded like when I talked about Harper.

He told me I would be stayin
’ on his side of the house, and that he had an extra room for me, which saved me from Kylee’s crap. I didn’t want her tryin’ anything and messing anything up with what I had now.

I asked him if Harper could come, but he
hesitated. He had assumed that Kylee and I were still married, and I didn’t have a plus one because she was already invited. I told him it wasn’t a big deal and that Harper was probably not even goin’ to make it. We hung up and I went to the bar, where I was meeting up with Finn, Skye, and Harper.

***

When I got to the bar, after bein’ stuck in rush hour traffic, I saw Finn sitting in a corner table, drinkin’ a pale ale. Harper and Skye weren’t going to meet us for another hour, so I grabbed a beer over at the bar before headin’ to the table.

“What’s up
, brah?” Finn asked in his stereotypical SoCal accent.

“Nothin
’, just got off the phone with Kayden. You know him and Savannah are getting married?” I asked. Finn had knew about Knox by me talking about him.

“No way
, dude. Totally rad. You going?”

“Yeah, thinking about it. The weirdest part was that he thought me and Kylee were still together, so I didn’t really get a plus one; don’t know what to do.”

“Doesn’t Harper have school starting up anyways? She’ll be fine. You’re going to go support your buddy is all. Right?”

“Yeah, I guess your right
; I just don’t know how I am going to tell her. She is going to think I am abandoning her, or that I don’t want her there, or something.”

“Just tell her after you give her some of that D
, dude.” Finn joked, laughing hysterically.

We talked
about the surfing competition he kept wanting me to enter in October. When I heard two heels clinking, I turned around and immediately spotted Skye coming towards us. She was a sweet girl, troubled like Harper, but maybe that’s why they got along. She never fit in, though; I never understood why Harper liked her, because she exuded wealth, something I wasn’t a huge fan of. Harper came in behind her in her comfortable and more sensible flip flops. Finn cleared his throat beside me. He loved to flirt, period. He especially loved flirting with hot girls, like Skye.

“Hey Ry,”
Skype called out, coming over and air-kissing me on the cheek. “Finn.”

“Thank
God someone with taste is here,” he joked, and gave her a kiss on the cheek. Really, it was Harper who commanded my attention. She was stunning with her hair pulled back in a ponytail and dressed in little clothing since it was so hot outside. What she had on made me want to rip it off and take her in the crowded bar.

“Hey
, baby,” she murmured, before kissing me softly on the lips. They both sat down next to us, and Skye ordered the typical mojito, and Harper a summer beer.

“Your boy here has got to enter this competition. Convince him
,” Finn said to Harper.

“Competition?”

“Yeah, I told you about it; the one in October. Finn wants me to enter. Pat thinks it’s a good idea for my image or somethin’,” I responded.

“You should do it. Why not?” Harper asked.

“Yeah! I would know a famous surfer!” Skye chimed in.

“Hey now ladies…” Finn interjected.

“I said I would think about it.”

“I think it’s a really good idea, baby,” she said
, before leaning closer into my ear and cupping it with her hands so that no one could hear. “Seeing you ride those waves is such a turn on.”

God damn that woman was sexy. She knew how to press every button to turn me on.
Fuck, she really was beautiful in that hey-sexy-come-hither sort of way.

“Skye, how is the wedding coming along? Thinking anymore of dumping that rich fiancé of yours and hanging out with a pro
-surfer all day?” Finn joked.

“You wish, Finn!” She laughed at him
and then turned to order another one of those fancy drinks.

We all enjoyed ourselves laughin
’ about different people who walked in, or just life in general. Finn was drunk…like verging on the line of belligerently drunk. We had been there for a couple hours, and as per Skye’s request, we had done a couple of shots in between our beers.

“Finn
,” Skye cried in her obnoxious voice that got really high at the end of her sentences.

“Skye. Oh, my beautiful
, unattainable Skye. What could you possibly want?” Finn slurred out.

“
Tell us something that no one else knows. I want to know a secret,” she said conspiratorially.

“L
ets not go there, Skye,” I interjected, lookin’ over at Finn, hopin’ he wouldn’t say anything and keep his fuckin’ mouth shut about everything. Harper was just sitting in the corner, enjoyin’ the scene that was unfolding, completely unaware that Finn just heard something I wasn’t prepared to tell her yet.

“Oh
, I got a good story; you ladies ready to hear this?” Finn asked, completely oblivious to my glares.

“Yeah, baby!” Skye
shrilled.

“Tell us
, Finn,” Harper spoke up.

I swear to
God, if this asshole said anything, I’d kill him. Literally, pound his mother fuckin’ face into the ground.

“There is this guy I know. A total fucking hottie for you ladies…”

Harper and Skye both laughed, but I continued starin’ him down, deadpan in the eyes. This fucker…

“Anyways, he was this massive playboy when I first met him
, just loved fucking those ladies sideways until they fell down and begged him to stay for more.”

“Ohh
h my,” Harper squealed, but clearly interested in knowing more of the story.

“He has this kid too
, with this chick who is the hottest of them all. No one knows why he won’t just fuck her senseless and continue doing it, because she is truly a walking goddess. That’s beside the point. The point is now, he is going to take both women for a spin. He is bringing the one, his ex, back home…home, where he…”

My eyes were frozen in place. I kne
w I needed to move to attack this son of a bitch, and beat the shit outta him, but Harper was just staring at him breathlessly. Skye’s bubbly domeanor was immediately taken over by someone who sat there with a sullen look. Finn’s drunk ass had absolutely no idea what he was doing, and he kept gesturing around and drinking his beer while telling his story.

“He got invited to this guy
’s wedding, and he is going to the wedding with— get this—his ex-wife.” He started laughing hysterically, but Harper looked at me with sadness in her eyes. She looked the way I saw her before she met me: broken and confused. Skye slapped Finn across the face.

“Shut the fuck up
, you asshole,” she said seriously, breaking the silence that echoed in the loud bar.

“I can
’t…” Harper turned to me, looking at me with her nose wrinkled in disgust, “I just cant…”

She got up from her seat and walked out, with Skye in tow.

“Why the fuck did you say that shit? I am goin’ to kill you, Finn, seriously.”

“I totally thought you had already told her. I swear. I don’t know
,” he said truthfully, chugging his beer.

“Call me
tomorrow, take a cab.” I chucked him a couple of twenties and walked out to try to find Harper. I hoped she wasn’t already gone.

Chapter 4

Harper

I cannot even begin to fathom why that asshole would start telling that story.

“I am so sorry, Harp. When I told him to tell us something we don’t know about him, I didn’t know that is what he was going to say. I am sorry,” Skye said, trying desperately to keep up with me in her pumps.

“It’s not your fault. I
’m going home. Call me tomorrow.”

“Are you okay? You can come stay with me.”

I turned around to face her, and stared at her with an empty look on my face. I was disgusted by that piece of shit. I couldn’t even describe my anger with him. I wanted nothing to do with him anymore. I wanted to run away from here; he would just be added to my list of big disappointments.

I knew all of this was too good to be true.
Ryder was going back to Kylee, going back to Texas, and probably would stay there for good.

“I’m fine. Call me later
,” I said, leaving Skye there and turning the corner. I walked a couple of blocks down, hoping the fresh air would calm me; I felt nothing but the numb feeling of bleakness.

I turned around to see if by any stroke of luck Ryder was following me
, or if he wanted to chase after me, but I didn’t see anything but a cloak of darkness.

I looked down at my phone and saw the text messages that kept coming in. They were coming from Skye
and Ryder, and I didn’t have the courage, or the strength, to open them.

I didn’t what to deal with any of this.
Why was it always so complicated to fall in love?

I walked until my legs were going to give out on me
, and realized I was in front of a small dive bar. I walked in and took a seat on the old, rugged, leather barstool. It was dimly lit and full, mostly with older men in leather jackets and jeans.

“What can I get
cha?” the bartender mumbled, clearly miserable with his shitty job.

“Corona,
please,” I replied, and pulled my purse tightly against my chest.

When the beer arrived
, I sat and watched the small television playing the baseball game in the corner. I felt the stool next to me shift, and could see a large figure in the corner of my eye.

“You here alone?” I turned around and saw a guy with blonde hair
, who had a couple wrinkles on his face.

“Yup. Alone
,” I emphasized, looking back at the game and sipping my beer.

“You watch baseball?”

“Nope.” I tried to turn away again, but the guy wasn’t feeling it.

Honestly, I had no idea what I was doing. I wanted to be alone for a while, sit
with my thoughts and figure out why Ryder would even think about going to Texas without telling me. Why couldn’t I go with him as a date to the wedding? How could he imagine going to Texas for the first time in years, and not bring me? It was all illogical. A wall he set that I was desperately trying to climb but couldn’t, and kept falling down. Over and over again…

“What’s your name?” the strange guy next to me asked.

I turned around to him and figured, why not? If Ryder could do it to me, why not move on the way I knew how?

“Harper, what’s yours?” I slid
my seat closer to his.

There were thoughts running through my mind, telling me I was making the wrong decision
; but knowing this was the only way to cope, I tried to fix the feelings I was drowning in.

“Sam. You lookin’ to drink another one of those?”
he asked, pointing at my already half-downed beer.

“Sure. Why not, right?”

“That’s the spirit.” He pointed
and motioned to the bartender for a refill on the beer I was drinking.

Fuck him for doing this for me. I was doing this because of Ryder. I was doing this because he knew how sensitive I was
, and now he was taking his ex-wife as a date to a wedding.

“So, you single?” I asked
, winking at him.

Seriously, who lets their
drunken best friend blurt that out at a bar? How can you be that insensitive of an asshole, not to pull your girlfriend, who you practically live with, aside and tell her?

I was going to lie to this guy and live my life as a different person, even if it was just for tonight. I needed to be someone else for tonight. I needed to be the old Harper, the one who would fuck anything blind.

“I am. Are you?”

I thought about this.
Was I single? What didthis even mean for us? I can’t even begin to explain how I felt, or fathom how I
should’ve
felt right then. I wanted to feel angry, bitter, or sad, but I felt numb to the world. It’s my go-to emotion: numbness. It takes the pain and suffering from my world and transported it somewhere else. Fuck this. Seriously. I can’t do this anymore. I couldn’t be with someone who doesn’t make me a priority. I had been there and done that. Never again will I be someone’s number two when I deserve to be number one.

“
It’s complicated,” I answered, while drinking the beer the bartender had just poured.

Where do I go from here? Do I run away like I am used to doing
, and fall back into my old habits of sleeping with random men, like I was trying to do right then? Do I go home, or go back to his place? I didn’t know what to do. I simply had no idea where to go from here. I’m lost, alone, and sick and tired of feeling like this all the time. When would it be my turn to be in love, and life be a little easier? When would it ever be my turn to feel like someone in my life is there to make me happy, and not just to turn around on me? Who could answer these questions for me?

“You ever been in love?” I asked randomly
, taking him off guard, knowing never to hit on a guy by talking about love or their exes; but this was different.

I needed to know if all men acted like Ryder. Ryder was always
supposed to be there for me…always. Now he was going back to Texas, and who knows if he even considered asking me. This wouldn’t be a big deal if one, he wasn’t taking his ex-wife as a date to a wedding, and two, if he wasn’t going to a place that was emotionally devastating for him. Ryder hadn’t been back to Texas in years because he hated his family and what they did to him, shunning him because he didn’t believe in what they wanted.

“
Love? No. Not in love; don’t plan on falling in love. You into that kinda shit?” the stranger next to me asked.

I pondered the question for a second. Could I ever open up to trust Ryder
again after all this? Everything for us was intense and fast. We fell in love too quickly, and we fight at the drop of a hat. It was as if the world was trying to force us together while pulling us apart. We needed each other because of this unexplainable emotion we contained, but at the same time, no one around us knew what to do. Kylee was jealous, his parents probably hated me because I wasn’t Kylee, and Finn was a stupid drunk. How can you be with someone when everyone works so hard to keep you apart? Maybe it’s just not worth it anymore….

“
Yes, I do believe in falling in love,” I said, after waiting a couple seconds to think about it.

Of course I wanted love. A couple months ago, I would never admit to this kind of thing. I would never confess I wanted to be in love with someone
; but now, everything was different. With Ryder, I felt the world around me. I felt what happiness and joy was like. I felt what it meant to be full and complete, but that meant I could also feel sorrow, anger, and betrayal. Like right then, I felt betrayed by him.

“You wanna go someplace a little more quiet
?” the stranger asked.

Did I? Did I want to go home with him and do all this all over again? What would Skye think? More importantly
, what would I think about myself again? I would be that Harper I vowed never to be, and here I was doing the same thing again.

No, I don’t think I wanted to go home with
him; I wanted to go see Ryder. I’d like to give him one chance to make me believe him but if he couldn’t,  I was done. That was it for me. Everyone deserved a second chance, I believe that fully, but sometimes second chances lead to third and fourth and I don’t want that. So one more chance for Ryder. I would at least give him thatGive him the chance to at least explain what Finn meant, or what he was going to be doing with Kylee and Houston. Ryder made me feel, period. He allowed me to experience what emotions were, and sometimes that meant feeling a loss like this. But that low feeling was countered by an unexplainable emotional high. I needed him as much as I knew, deep in my heart, he needed me.

“Sorry, I don’t think so. Thanks for the beer
,” I said, and walked out, priding myself on how I didn’t go home with him. I walked out with my head held high.

I was still that indep
endent Harper everyone knew, but this time, I had the support of a man who loved me. When I got outside, I hailed a cab, and drove straight to Ryder’s house.

***

I pulled up to the expansive beach mansion and
quickly paid the cab driver. I was fumbling for my key in my purse while standing on the front step when I heard the door rush open.

“Harper
,” Ryder said breathlessly, the lines in his forehead etched deep into his skin. He was stressed, and the redness of his eyes showed his worry and exhaustion.

“We need to talk
,” I said, pushing past him and walking towards the kitchen to get a glass of water.

“I know
; I should have told you earlier. I am so sorry,” He pronounced, helping me get the water from the filtered jug.

“I don’t get why Finn had to tell me when he was drunk. I don’t even know
what’s going on. Tell me,” I demanded.

“I got invited to an old friend from
Texas’s wedding, Kayden Knox. His fiancé, Savannah, also knew Kylee. They figured we were still married and would come as dates, and asked if we would be in their wedding party. When I called Knox, he said he figured since we were married and already invited, we didn’t need plus ones. I told him that Kylee and I had divorced, and I was seein’ you.”

“Okay, so did you get the plus one?” I interjected.

“Not exactly. Something about there not being enough plates; but I thought it would be okay with you because it was right around when school would start, and I knew how busy you said you were goin’ to be. I just figured…”

“I know what you figured
, Ryder, but you can’t just not ask me. Even if I was going to say no, don’t you think it’s important to ask me if I wanted to come? I mean, you are going to Texas for the first time in four years. I would invite you if I ever went back to Chicago, just for moral support.”

“I get it. You have every right to be mad at me
, and you have no idea how bad I want you there with me. I was goin’ to tell you, I swear to you, I was; I just didn’t get the chance to before we met up with Finn. I didn’t want our night to be completely ruined.”

“But it was anyways. Don’t you see that? It was ruined because this got out and I had to hear it from Finn and not from you
,” I said, watching him from across the kitchen. He didn’t get close to me; instead, he stood by the sink, running his hands through his hair repeatedly.

“Yeah
, I do. Please, Harper. Please, forgive me. I don’t know what I would do without you. Why does it always seem like there is something keepin’ us apart? I need you in my life, and I don’t know where I would be without you here.”

I thought about what he said
, and truthfully, I felt the same way. I needed him with me every second of every day, but I also knew his other responsibilities. If an old friend wanted him to stand up in his wedding, I shouldn’t be the one to stop him. I had to trust Ryder wasn’t going to be like my abusive ex, Tye. I had to trust that Ryder wouldn’t betray me and leave me for the next best thing.

I could see tears welling up in Ryder’s eyes and moved over towards him. When I got close enough
, he opened his arms wide, and I ran towards them. These were the arms I felt safe in. These were the arms that comforted me in my darkest times, and carried me through the happiest. It’s so hard to fall in love, but when it’s right, you know, because everything seems to just click.

“When is this wedding
, anyways?” I asked curiously when we parted briefly.

“
It’s in late August, so pretty soon. I would fly out on a Thursday and be back on a Sunday. I want you to come with me. I don’t care what Knox says, I’m sure he will be fine with it. The asshole is rich enough; he can afford another plate. Plus, he owes me a couple favors.”

“
No, I want you to go. You should be able to go to a wedding without me, especially if you’re a groomsman. I’m just scared with Kylee there. I mean, what if she convinces you to stay.”

“She wouldn’t. I would never factor her opinion into that conversation without gettin
' you involved too. We would have to come up with a solution and then talk to her. You come first Harper, always and forever.”