Phoebe: Book One of Broken Girls Series

by J. A. Hornbuckle

  In other words, nothing like Ryker.

  I’d heard Dr. Humphreys was continuing his studies in the field of plastic surgery. A modality which more than complemented his personality.

  Dropping my ass into the chair opposite her, I took in my friend, my girl, with more than a hint of nervousness. The thing was I needed to hear her view and gain her advice on a subject near and dear to my heart. Hopefully she’d have some wisdom to share.

  And Rhonda was nothing but if not wise.

  Or was a wise-ass, take your pick.

  “I need some help,” I started, making a big production out of removing my plastic fork from its cling-film, spreading the thin napkin on my lap.

  “Uh-huh,” was her reply, shoving a thick wedge of cantaloupe from her fruit salad between her lips. “Do tell.”

  “Well, I…” Damn, this was gonna be harder than I imagined. Number one, because she didn’t really know me. Not like Diane and those of my posse did. And two, we’d never socialized, not really, outside of work. Yeah, we’d hung together at every event the hospital had thrown in the time I’d worked there. But that didn’t necessarily make us confidantes, right? “I need to ask for your opinion about something.”

  There.

  I’d said it, admitted it out loud.

  “This wouldn’t have anything at all to do with that fine piece of maleness named Ryker, would it?”

  Damn her!

  “He sure fills up your phone with texts, the kind that leaves you starry-eyed and sighing,” she continued a twinkle in her eye. “Don’t matter what’s doing in the ER, everyone knows you work a case of sweetness after sneaking off to the ladies room to read whatever the hell that boy sends you.”

  Checking, much less keeping our phones on our person could find any of us fired on the spot on any given day. I’d tried to hide it, but obviously hadn’t done a good job if Rhonda knew I couldn’t resist reading, then re-reading his texts while on duty. “I…ah…”

  Damn!

  Why couldn’t I get one cohesive sentence out without stammering?

  Her fork aimed at and then speared a purple grape as she glanced up at me. “We don’t have but a half-hour, girl. You wanna talk, then you best get to it.”

  “It’s about…” I stammered, leaning across the table and shifting my eyes from side to side to determine who might be listening in. At a hospital, and especially between employees, everyone listened so they could relay info to the others.

  Knowledge was power, after all.

  “Let’s cut to the chase, baby girl,” she drawled, going for one of the green wedges of melon in her large bowl. While Rhonda always ate fruit and salad at lunch, she snacked on thick, home-made sandwiches during her breaks.

  I trailed my fork into the salad I created, the tines scoring through the thick dressing I’d piled on though my eyes saw none of it. “Yeah, it’s about Ryker.”

  “You two doing the nasty yet?” My eyes shot to her face, watching as she used her fork to shove different pieces of lettuce into her mouth.

  I tried to play it off, but the truth of the matter was her question shocked me. “I don’t think that’s—,” I hissed, glancing around us again.

  “Yep, you’re doing it,” she announced, daintily patting the sides of her mouth with the thin piece of paper our cafeteria called a napkin, her deep brown eyes studying me. “How long? Two weeks?”

  “Three,” I admitted, unable to hold her gaze, as I felt heat bloom in my face. “And I need your help.”

  “Hmm, so things aren’t going so well in the boom-boom room, huh? Okay, if he’s kinda fast to the finish line, then all you gotta do is grab his dick real hard at the base and keep squeezing until he has a handle on not blowing his load too soon.” As if her words weren’t bad enough, Rhonda even demonstrated what she meant with a hand gesture, leaning across the table in added emphasis. “Sometimes it’s up to us women to control our guy’s schlong enough to ensure we get our own slice of heaven.”

  I swallowed even though my mind was working to process the ‘schlong’ portion of what she’d said. “It’s not that.”

  Sitting back in her chair, Rhonda dropped her fork, its light plastic not creating any sort of sound of distraction. And I craved a distraction in order to delay the conversation. “So what the hell is it?”

  Taking a chance, I wiggled in my seat and looked her dead in the eye. I needed for her to understand exactly what I was up against. “He has secrets.”

  She blinked a couple of times but didn’t say a word.

  So I continued. “Secrets he refuses to talk about.”

  Her eyes blinked again, but one hand fluffed at the napkin in her lap.

  I could totally tell she didn’t get it and I needed her to understand as quickly as possible since we only had a half-hour for our lunch-break. “He’s keeping secrets from me.”

  This should’ve said it all.

  But Rhonda wasn’t an ‘all’ kind of girl. Not like Vonnie would’ve been or even Diana.

  “Stuff about his life,” I confessed into the silence she hadn’t broached between us. “It’s like something happened from the time he was seventeen until just recently. But he won’t talk about it.”

  There.

  That should’ve explained more than enough in order to get Rhonda going.

  But at her nod, one accompanied by a calm head-tilt toward her plate, I knew she didn’t get it. Or the importance of it, anyway.

  I rallied, willing everything, every emotion within me to speak in the plainest of language to make my working-bestie understand. “If I can’t trust him, then we can’t have a relationship.”

  Cutting into one of the larger pieces of iceberg lettuce on her still over-flowing plate, Rhonda shot me a not-to-worry look. “Sure you can.”

  “No, Rhonda,” I stressed on a hiss. “I can’t.”

  Her hand stilled and I forced my gaze up until our eyes met. “And you ain’t keeping secrets from him, little girl?”

  What?

  “I know you might not get this,” she started, her fork drifting toward her plate as her beautiful, almond-shaped eyes hit mine. “But everyone knows you’re carrying a suitcase full of secrets of your own.”

  I stiffened until I sat ram-rod straight in the plastic chair the hospital’s cafeteria provided.

  How did she know? My brain scrambled. Or, more importantly, what did she know?

  “You’ve got a new guy who is totally taken with you. One who is hot, alpha and who finds your brand of innocence interesting and sexy.” She chewed on a red piece of watermelon, masticating it until she swallowed and began speaking again. “He’s got secrets. You’ve got secrets. Do I have it right so far?”

  I aimed for a nod but my body performed a chin-jut instead. It was all I could muster.

  “Then either trade tit-for-tat,” she advised without a glance my way, her jaws working he food in her mouth before swallowing. “Or walk away.”

  Wait? What!

  My fork tines scraped against the bottom of my plate a second time and I felt more than saw her reaction to the sound.

  “Lawd, you really don’t get it, do you?” I didn’t have a clue what Rhonda meant with her last question, but ducked my head from the barrage of incredulousness zinging through my insides at the thought of letting Ryker go. Her voice dropped to a whisper and the deepness of her tone hit my heart so hard I squinched my eyes closed at just the first word. “Baby girl, were you a virgin before you met him?”

  Fucking hell.

  She’d got it in one.

  “No need to answer ‘cause I can see it in your face.” Rhonda’s tone had gone from harsh to tender in the space of only two sentences, although I’d never replied.

  Would never reply if left to my own devices.

  “I know you, Pheebs,” she said, her fork zeroing in on a piece of honeydew melon, but her eyes were still on me, holding me captive. “For you it’s all planned out, with butterflies, flowers and hummingbirds drawn in the m
argins of your journal. But you didn’t count on the interruption of a hot Latino man immersing himself into your life, disrupting all the calm you surround yourself with, clutching it to you like some sort of protective cape.”

  I swallowed, unable to look away as my heart began to throb in hard, sharp beats. “Protection against what?”

  “Life, honey,” she immediately replied with a head shake that held the tone of a ‘tsk’ even though the sound never passed her lips. “I know you’ve gone through some of the worst life has to offer from the way you envelope yourself, guarding your insides from whatever you think is gonna hurt you again.”

  My eyes sank to my plate, thoughts scrambling as I tried to find a lie that could possibly refute her claim. But I came up with a whole lot of nothing in my frantic mind-search.

  “Please don’t insult me by denying it,” she whispered, her fork still wielding the light green slice of melon, waved my way. “This is why I said you gotta give your Ryker tit-for-tat.”

  I knew what that meant.

  I had to give up my secrets in order to learn his.

  The thought of doing so, sitting down and having a heart-to-heart discussion with the man of my dreams, confessing the past that colored my present in broad strokes of black, caused my thighs to tense to the point my knees jittered underneath the table. “And if I don’t?”

  Rhonda didn’t answer straight away, and the tight silence between us found me looking up only to discover she was doing a slow roam around the cavernous cafeteria. After a while (a long while, it must be said), she brought her eyes to mine. “Then…”

  I waited, watching as she popped the slice of melon into her mouth, the one still holding the edges of her garnet-brown lipstick, her lips covering her movements as she chewed the wedge of succulent sweetness to hell and beyond. “Then you either get on board or you cut and run. Your choice.”

  What the eff?

  I blinked again my chin pointed down even as my eyebrows shot together, my frustration at her lack-luster response so large I couldn’t contain it! “What the hell does that mean, anyway? On board? Cut and run?”

  She continued chewing as I poked and prodded at my food, not even interested in bringing a single mouthful of it to my lips. To tell the truth, I hated this. Not only did I loathe asking, I hated she’d figured things out without me even knowing. Then there was the fact I rarely, if ever, went to other people for advice. And if pressed to do so, Rhonda wouldn’t have been my first choice since she wasn’t in my golden circle of friends—people who’d known me, lived with me and loved me despite all the white-water rapids of my fears.

  When her voice came again, it was soft and mellow. “On board just means you start the convo, admitting to whatever shit-storm motivates the Phoebe he’s getting to know and obviously likes. Then asking him to the expose his own demons as well.”

  She held up a beautifully painted mauve fingernail as she took in another bite of lettuce in a wait-a-minute gesture. “You do that, though, then you gotta be prepared for whatever it is he needs to confess.”

  Oh shit.

  I hadn’t thought of that.

  What if I couldn’t handle whatever it was Ryker was hiding?

  “And, based on how he reacts to your confession, you respond in kind.”

  Shit, shit, SHIT!

  Her fork stopped moving and I found my panicked eyes drifting back to her face. “You gonna be able to do that, girl? Give that man the same acceptance for the crap he has in his past, just as much as you hope he gives yours?”

  I didn’t know. As the God’s honest truth, I didn’t freaking know if I could accept all the secrets I thought Ryker was hiding, especially if they included things like dead bodies or attempts at suicide. Death, it seemed, or the cause of it crossed a certain line with me.

  “I…uh…” I replied on a deep, involuntary swallow.

  She shrugged and went back to the remaining portions of her salad. “You can’t then you just gotta come up with a reason to cut his fine ass loose. One that won’t have you taking out a restraining order so’s I can keep the ER rid of him and whatever kind of hot, alpha, es-pan-yol theatrics are gonna happen because you shut him down.”

  Seriously?

  I don’t know what I did, but I must have made some move or something because, even though I didn’t say an effing word, Rhonda still followed the trail of my thoughts.

  “Yeah, honey,” she stated firmly, and if I had any question about her sincerity she nodded to underscore her words. “A white girl, ‘especially one like you, so soft and sweet, innocently full of tits and ass is a temptation for a lot of the brothers. But to those of the Latin persuasion? Shoo, you’re more than just a temptation, and more along the lines of a dare. Your Ryker strikes me as a strong one of those hombres, so goddamn full of testosterone he’ll hear the word ‘go away’ and take it as a red flag, a challenge.”

  I pushed my uneaten plate away, feeling my tense shoulders slump in defeat. Because I didn’t know how to contain Ryker at all—but especially not if he was full of testosterone and I offered up my ‘leave me alone’ as an I-dare-you red flag.

  She pushed her chair back without looking at me, and the sound of the chair legs on the linoleum floor created a screech that it echoed in the now emptying huge room. “You just gotta decide how you’re gonna play it.”

  I struggled to find my legs, my mind whirling with all she’d said, all the wisdom she’d given me. But Rhonda, my best, at-work friend wasn’t finished.

  “You gotta choose, pretty girl,” she started. “Pick what you’re gonna do. Either share your secrets in order to get his, or cut him loose.”

  My eyes stared at the red plastic tray for a couple of beats until I managed to make my feet move, trailing after Rhonda, my heart heavy and mind full of the consequences to whatever road I chose.

  As we walked silently through the halls, Rhonda bumped me with her shoulder to gain my attention. “So did you ever get a hold of your uncle?”

  “M-my uncle?”

  “Yeah, the guy who’s been calling but who never wants to leave a message.”

  My poor beleaguered heart took up a new pace as my mind struggled to make sense of her words. I didn’t have any family and I knew this because my mom had been an only child. My dad once had a sister but from the records CPS had on file, she’d died of meningitis when she was in high school. “I don’t have any uncle, Rhonda.”

  Her eyes widened and brows shot up at my shakily given disclosure. “You sure? Because he seemed pretty determined to contact you. Said he’d try and stop by soon if he couldn’t get you on the phone.”

  At the mention of the word ‘phone’, I suddenly remembered the hang-up calls I’d received over the last few weeks. Ones displayed as ‘number withheld’ and which never resulted in a voicemail.

  The ones I’d chalked up to telemarketers ignoring the no-call list.

  My thoughts hit on name and as soon as it did, I stopped walking, even stopped breathing.

  Because I knew, absolutely knew to the bottom of my soul who was looking for me. Who warned me over and over again of what would happen when he was released from prison.

  And I kicked myself to realize I still hadn’t filed for that goddamn restraining order.

  Chapter Fourteen

  It had been six days, five hours and twenty-three minutes since I’d read and responded to the note Ryker left for me. Texting him as he’d asked me to, but without the courtesy of a reply. Not in the six days, five hours and twenty-four minutes I’d been waiting to hear from him.

  I didn’t know what to think about the sudden and abrupt cessation of contact between us. We’d gone out on more than a few dates, shared amazing sex on several occasions and, I thought we’d grown closer as we’d taken the time to get to know one another (despite certain conversational boundaries on both sides), but now?

  Nothing.

  And it wasn’t as if I hadn’t tried to contact him. But each call and text I sent came back a
s ‘no available signal’.

  What did that even mean, for god’s sake?

  Was he dead?

  Surely I would’ve heard something if the worst of my imaginings had happened.

  But maybe Ryker dying wasn’t the worst of what my brain conjured up. What if he’d finally gotten tired of trying to date around my crazy work schedule?

  Had I done or said something he found too awful to deal with?

  Maybe I really had behaved badly the other night after all those drinks. Or perhaps seeing me that drunk had turned him off, so far off he couldn’t stand to be around me, much less call to explain how ill-suited we were.

  Or perhaps, horror of horrors, he didn’t find our time between the sheets to be amazing at all!

  I didn’t have any experience with dating, but surely he would’ve phoned to say we were over. Common courtesy demanded certain rules, right? At least a phone call or heaven forbid a text was required in the arena of breakups.

  All I knew Ryker was gone.

  And I was bereft at no longer having him in my life.

  A bereavement which had gone on exactly six days, five hours and forty-three minutes.

  *.*.*.*.*

  Ryker lifted up his phone and swung it around the car, his eyes trained on its display.

  “Still no bars?” Cruz asked the question just as he’d done each time Ryker performed the move. Since they were only an hour away from the Colorado border, he hoped to find service soon.

  Because he needed to contact Phoebe. Seven days was too long to go without seeing her, hearing her voice or barring that, to swap texts.

  “Nope.” Ryker turned his face to the passenger side window and frowned at the scenery.