Phoebe: Book One of Broken Girls Series

by J. A. Hornbuckle

  Slowly pulling the stack of papers out, Ryker felt his heart begin to beat against his ribs deep and loud. But it only got worse as he read through them, realizing what all the forms, the list of rules and regulations meant as well as what the packing list signified.

  “I got accepted in the University of Colorado-Aurora’s Masters program!” she trilled, almost clapping in her enthusiasm. “Which means I’ll get to study for my master’s degree online while I work there. And they’ll pay for my tuition as well as my housing for the two years it’ll take me to complete the course, and sit my certification exams. Isn’t that wonderful?”

  He dragged his eyes from the papers in his hand to Phoebe’s face, disbelieving what he was hearing.

  “In a month and two years I’ll be a nurse practitioner, Ryker!” she squealed, bouncing up and down in her seat. “Another dream come true, right?”

  Sliding his look between the laptop and the papers in his hand, he saw one thing, one very important entry was missing.

  Ryker didn’t blink as he turned his eyes to his girl, the one he’d wooed and captured. The one he’d taken to bed and made his own. Had grown to fucking love and continued to love when she’d been so hurt, so broken she’d…

  “Why aren’t I on the list, Phoebe?” His lips felt as frozen as his heart. “Why aren’t we on your motherfucking plan?”

  “Honey, I didn’t—”.

  “Says here you applied for this back in February. Which means you knew we never had a future, that we were just some sort of goddamn hook-up!” The ice turned to fire and burned him from the inside out. Unable to sit still, Ryker shot to his feet. “So was it fun? Slumming with a guy from the barrio with only a GED education? Rolling around in the sheets with an ex-con?”

  “Please tell me you didn’t say that, Ryker.” His ears might’ve heard her wounded whisper, but his racing mind didn’t. “You know that’s not true.”

  But he wasn’t sure because the only thing he did know was she was gonna leave him and never intended on having him as a part of her forever.

  And at that thought, something inside Ryker died.

  The death of his dream of a life with her.

  Dropping the now crumbled, sweaty papers to the table, he snapped up his coat and strode to the door. Opening it, but without turning around to take even one more look at the woman who he’d thought held both his heart and his future, he spoke his final words to her.

  “I wish you all the best, Phoebe Marquette. May all your dreams come true, mi cariña.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  I reached for the fluttering papers drifting toward the floor as Ryker made his abrupt exit, my insides dropping as he left.

  Shit, shit, SHIT!

  What had I said?

  Had I’d been too truthful?

  Although I’d carefully watched my words as I detected his expressions again and again from the corner of my eyes as I’d talked.

  What the freak did I say or do to make him leave that way?

  I’d only tried to tell him of my past and the steps I’d made in order to heal my littler self, culminating in the letter of acceptance into the Masters program allowing me to recognize my dream of dreams of becoming a nurse practitioner.

  At least my confession ended on a high note, one filled with the possibility of success. But as I listlessly shoved the paperwork back into its cardboard container, I knew I was wrong.

  Ryker hadn’t slammed the door behind him because of the confessions of my hurtful youth or the new news of the next level I’d achieved. I just couldn’t figure out why—and it became an irritating question, like a thought on the edge of my thinking, a word on the tip of my tongue that wouldn’t let go.

  My gaze drifted again and again toward the door, waiting for his knock.

  But it never came.

  Not that night.

  Nor the next.

  Or the next.

  And after so many nights of no contact, of no calls or texts (none of which I initiated) I somehow knew he was done with me. More than done with our relationship and what we’d built between us and with such finality, I couldn’t take a deep breath without hurting.

  “Girl,” Rhonda drawled leaning her elbows on the upper tier of ER’s reception desk, both our eyes stuck on all the pink and orange-streaked beauty beyond the west-facing windows. “What’s done crawled up your ass and taken over?”

  “Ryker and I are through,” I replied, my voice flat and as unemotional as it had been in the two weeks since he’d slammed out of my apartment after I’d confessed all.

  “Ooh, that’s bad,” she moaned as both of our eyes remained stuck on another glorious Colorado sunset. “And since he was your first, am thinking it’s even harder.”

  “Mmm-hmm,” I replied, not letting my head or heart meander down that memory-road again. I’d spent too much time trying to figure out how Ryker could just walk away from me, thinking I’d just been playing with him after I’d given him my soul.

  I knew I just needed to stop rehashing it and just let him go. “I’ll get over it. I’ll be fine.”

  “Uh-uh,” Rhonda harrumphed, straightening her back as well as her arms although her face remained trained to the windows beyond our empty waiting room. “That’s not true, so I’m calling ‘bullshit’ on your curvaceous ass. Cough it up, baby girl.”

  I took in a deep breath, which is hella hard to do when your throat demands a swallow in order to hold all the pain inside. “I did what you said. Gave him tit-for-tat. Although in my head, it was tat-for-tit since he went first. A ‘tit’ denotes more of the female gender than a guy’s, don’t you think?”

  Rhonda mumbled under her breath but I caught the words ‘smart-ass’ and ‘dumb bunny’ in the whole of her lowered voice. As her speech got both more earthy and louder, I decided enough was enough.

  “The fact is, I followed your advice and he walked out after I told him,” my mouth exploded even as my heart didn’t give a shit I was practically yelling into the empty waiting room at my ‘at-work bestie’ because I’d done as she’d suggested and told my…former boyfriend (no, I was not gonna even think his name) the secrets I’d been keeping.

  The ones that’d made him leave.

  “Ah Lawd,” she moaned and I sensed her head turning my way even though I refused to look at her. “What exactly did you do, Pheebs?”

  Lifting my shoulders, my eyes on the sunset that was fading, creeping into darker, more striking colors, I let her know what had gone down. “I told him about my past, showed him my spreadsheet and then let him see my acceptance papers into UoC-Aurora program.”

  Rhonda scrubbed a light hand over her face, avoiding all the colors she chose to employ in her extensive make-up pallet. “Ah sweet Jesús.”

  A few beat’s of silence, or a hospital’s silence, if you will (which is never truly quiet), helped to calm me.

  “When he saw Phoebe’s ‘Master Plan of Life’, did he have a line, pretty girl? A slot in your grand scheme of things?”

  “No, but what the hell does that have to do with—”.

  “Ah, sweet merciful Lawd,” she moaned, cutting me off due to the sheer loudness of said moan.

  “What, Rhonda? If you’ve got something to say, then say it!”

  I turned my head and got snagged in a brown-eyed gaze so sorrowful, my over-worked heart gave another clench. “Sweet girl, you with all your lists and stories and delight in what’s to come, basically you told your man you didn’t need him in your life.” The inhale she took was so deep I worried for her safety. “That you don’t need him no’ mo’. Not after getting accepted into the master’s program.”

  My eyes staring into Rhonda’s widened eyes, I shook my head before my mind caught up with my head movement. “He said since I submitted my application for the program before we met, I always knew we didn’t have a future. That he was just a hook-up to me. But he’s wrong!”

  “Mmm-hmm,” she hummed, crossing her arms over her fulsome chest. “A
nd what did he say after you told him the truth, about how you really feel about him?”

  “I, ah, didn’t get a chance to,” I hedged. “He stormed out too fast for me to explain.”

  Rhonda blinked hard and leaned in, laying a hand on my shoulder. “Tell me you chased his fine ass down the driveway or called him later to let him know how much he means to you!”

  I swallowed and shook my head, looking down at the counter.

  “You know, for someone so flipping smart, you’re not that bright,” she announced with a squeeze of her fingers. “If I were you, I’d find some damn excuse to see him again so’s I could tell him all that was in my heart.”

  “I can’t,” I whispered, closing my eyes against the hope her words brought.

  “Sure you can, little girl,” she crooned. “Just think up a reason to get in Ryker’s presence and then let him have it. ‘Cause you’ll regret it if you don’t.”

  Shit, I already regretted it!

  And then she said the words that really lit me up from inside.

  “What do you have to lose, Pheebs?”

  And that tiny flare of hope I pushed down earlier immediately burst into a steady flame.

  *.*.*.*.*

  Ah Dios, Maggie thought swinging her legs over the edge of her double bed and reaching for her robe. It was hell getting older, what with the night sweats and not being able to sleep without waking for a full eight hours. At best, she’d go to bed and sleep for four, maybe five hours then get up for one or two before she could force herself back to bed.

  Sliding her feet into her fluffy slippers, she eased open her bedroom door and made her way to the kitchen, her feet making a shush-shush noise against the tiles of the hall floor. Out of habit, she lit the votive candles beneath her Victor’s picture and crossing herself, she brought her fingers to her mouth before pressing them to a corner of the frame. “Te amo, mi amor.”

  Turning to the dining room, she was surprised to see the light on the stove-vent lit and as she got closer to the arch that separated the kitchen from the rest of the house, the silhouette of her youngest came into view. Sitting by himself at the small table she’d tucked underneath the large window overlooking the backyard, he was upending a shot glass with a bottle of Tequila and another of water waiting on the tabletop.

  “Como estas, bebe?” she murmured softly, moving to the refrigerator to grab her own water. Although Maggie’s mind was running a mile a minute. He’d come home every night for the last two weeks, sleeping in his own bed and she was worried. Concerned because every time she’d tried to ask him about Phoebe, about their relationship he’d deftly turned the conversation a different direction.

  And that just wasn’t right.

  “Bueno, mamacita,” he replied, refilling the shot glass before turning his eyes to the cold, dark windows.

  But Maggie knew better.

  Knew he was hurting, but didn’t yet have the whole story. But she’d had enough of not knowing and took the toro by the horns. “Y como es nuestra, Phoebe?”

  Her words ended and he raised the filled shot-glass to his lips, upending the liquor. “I don’t know, Ma. I don’t know how she is.” Taking a swig of water, Ryker carefully avoided her gaze. “We broke up.”

  “Por que?” Why.

  “She wants to be a Nurse Practitioner and has to go to Aurora for two years,” he stated on a voice, she was sure, he didn’t realize sounded tortured. “She applied for it before we met and just got accepted.”

  “Esto es malo, como?” Maggie didn’t hesitate to ask how it would be bad.

  For the first time since she’d entered the kitchen, her son’s eyes finally sought her out.

  “Because she’s gonna leave, Ma. Gonna go away for a fucking long time and knew she was gonna goddamn do it before we even got together!”

  For the moment, she ignored the wetness streaming down her youngest boy’s cheeks. Ryker, as she’d come to see in the few months he’d been home was very much a man and wouldn’t like his mother pointing out his tears.

  “You don’t want to go with her?” To Maggie’s mind, it seemed a valid question but startled him into taking in a breath. “Do you not want to follow our Phoebe to Denver so she can obtain her dream?”

  He opened his mouth but closed it quickly as his eyes shifted to the windows and the blackness beyond again.

  “Have you talked to tu hermanos and asked if you could work remotely while tu amor also works her suenos?”

  Ryker’s eyes drifted back to the bottles in front of him, as if seeing them for the first time. “No, I haven’t asked Max or Cruz if I could move to Denver and do my work there.”

  Maggie was far from finished. “And if they said ‘no’, would you still consider it?”

  “The paperwork said they’d pay her tuition and her housing, as well as provide her with a job while she studied!”

  Maggie cocked her head. “Together the two of you make a lot of dinero, mi hijo. Is there a reason you cannot afford the tuition on top of your living expenses?”

  He just stared at her although Maggie was sure she saw a light of hope in his eyes.

  “But she didn’t tell me, Ma,” he chuffed, and Maggie could tell her son, her beautiful yet headstrong son was afraid to believe, to allow himself to wish for what he’d already thought couldn’t be possible. “She knew about this long before we ever started dating!”

  “And yet you didn’t take the time to think it through, to work it all out before deciding you and she couldn’t be together?” Maggie shook her head, yet again exasperated at the short-sightedness of the younger generation. True love, the kind like she’d shared with her Victor, like the kind she’d witnessed between Ryker and his Phoebe, couldn’t and shouldn’t be thrown aside for something so petty and so small. “What does she have say about all of this?”

  “Haven’t talked to her,” he replied as he refilled the shot glass again. Slamming it on the table while reaching for the water bottle, Ryker shrugged. “And before you ask, she hasn’t called me either.”

  Dios, how she hated the pain in his admission and struggled to come up with something to ease his suffering. “Your laundry is not a full as before, and I know you still have clothes at her house. Why don’t you call to arrange a time to pick them up?”

  He raised his head and stared at her before his eyes became unfocused and drifted to a place behind her.

  “Then when you’re there, talk with her, mi Ryker. Tell tu amor how you feel about her and plan your future together, mi hijo.”

  As his now drunken, wayward eyes drifted back to her face, Maggie smiled. “What have you got to lose, bebe? Huh?”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  I was ass-over-tea-kettle, head in a box as I packed my kitchen when my phone went off. Not being the savvy kind who assigned all of my contacts a designated ring-tone, I upended myself and reached for square cellular device on the countertop next to me without checking the screen first.

  “Yeah?” I yelled, eyeing the box that was giving me fits as I tried to pack my infrequently used blender and crock-pot within.

  “Phoebe?” came the voice down the line. A warm, chocolaty, velvety-deep, growling voice which made my insides quiver with only the sound of my name. “Are you there?”

  “Yeah, Ryker,” I managed to retort although my words contained a thread of liquid delight I wished it didn’t. “I’m here.”

  “Listen, I realize I still have a lot of stuff at your place and was wondering when I could come get it.”

  I should’ve known. Should’ve planned the whole Ryker-retrieving-his-shit better.

  But I hadn’t.

  Because I was still working through what Rhonda said. What Diana said. And how I felt about both of their words as I prepared to break my lease and move to Denver. “Ahh…”

  That was all I could manage to allow to escape my lips.

  “Are you still working Monday through Thursday, mi…I mean, erm.” Ryker’s dark thundering voice dropped away a
nd I stood there, my heart willing him to complete his endearment.

  But he never did.

  Which caused the lie to erupt from my mouth, without any prior approval from my brain. “I don’t know my schedule since I put in my notice. How about I call your mom and drop your clothes and toiletries off later? You know, like, before I leave?”

  There was a beat of silence that came down the line holding more than a few thoughts between the two of us, words which would probably remain unspoken for the rest of our lives.

  “Okay, yeah,” he finally responded on a tone that went from optimistic to flat with every syllable. “That’ll work.”

  “So…”. I didn’t know how to end our awkward, uncomfortable conversation, what to say to ease us into the phase of lovers-who-were-trying-to-remain-friends. “Take care, Ryker.”

  “Back at ‘cha, babe,” he replied with forced cheerfulness, one that when combined with his words, made me mad. Angry enough I disconnected without another word before stomping into the bedroom where I pulled out the drawer in my dresser that held his clothes, upending it on my bed.

  Dropping the drawer to the floor I flew to the bathroom, snatching up his shower soap and shampoo, his shaving gel and razor, deodorant and cologne only thinking to grab his blue toothbrush hanging next to my pink one on the way out. Going back to the bed, I threw it all onto the pile of his t-shirts and briefs before turning to the closet.

  Without missing a beat, but panting in my fury, I threw open the curtain I used to cover my closet and seized the hangers of the handful of dress shirts he’d left behind. Adding them to the growing mound, I stormed back to the closet reaching for his trousers and jeans and flung them on the bed as well. But when I whipped out his suit coat and hoodie, that goddamn zippered sweatshirt which defied any attempts to be folded, my nose caught a whiff of the scent of his skin.

  And the smell, the pure unadulterated aroma of Ryker, brought me to my knees. In a flash I was no longer furious but heartbroken and found myself sobbing into the fabric in my arms, rocking back and forth, keening softly as I held the material in a tight, tight hug.