"Understandably," he said with a nod that said he didn't judge me for pushing her out of my life. Hell, I still judged myself about it.
"Are you close with your family?" I asked, already knowing the answer to that since I had seen his family visit often, but wanting to keep the conversation going.
He smiled a little at that, one brow going up. "Maybe too close at times," he said in a way that suggested there was a deeper meaning that he wasn't going to let me in on. "I have four brothers," he went on, not seeming to want silence either. "We're all close because, well, our mother would never allow us to not be. She's a bit of a hardass."
"Well, she'd have to be to raise five sons, wouldn't she?" I paused at that, wondering what it would be like to have siblings, finding maybe I would have felt less alone in the world growing up. "It must be nice to have that many people care about you though," I said, not meaning to because it implied that not many people cared for me. And while that was true, it made me sound a little pathetic.
"Oh, they care alright. About what I wear, how I act, what I drive, who I date, my lack of a social life."
"Well, I can hardly judge you on that," I laughed.
"Were you always..." he started to ask, but I cut him off before he could get it out.
"No. This came on.... gradually at first and then all at once. Most of my life, I was you know... normal. I had friends and I went out and I had a job that I went to every day."
"Where'd you work?"
"I taught kindergarten," I supplied, feeling that little familiar pang inside at even the mention of it. Better times those were.
"You like kids, huh?" he asked, still giving me that soft smile that I found really disarming. "I got three nieces that are adorable hell beasts."
Surprised, a choked laugh escaped me, making a low, sexy rumble come from him as well.
"Adorable hell beasts is an interesting way to put it."
"You'd have to meet Hunt and Fee to understand it, I guess. Fee is a bit, ah, let's say strong and opinionated. That'd be a tame way of putting it. She owns the phone-sex business in town."
"Gotcha," I smiled, figuring that would definitely take a strong, opinionated, confident woman to do that job. "Any other nieces or nephews? With all those brothers, I mean..."
"Well some of us have been too busy with work and the others have been too busy chasing skirts to settle down. But my younger brother Shane just got himself shacked up with a woman named Lea and I expect them to start pumping them out sooner rather than later."
"Big family," I smiled, finding no small bit of longing inside.
I loved my uncle.
He was always my rock, my anchor, my safe place to land. His door was always open to me as a kid, no matter what time of night my mom showed up, no matter how much he had to rearrange his life to take care of me. He was, for a man who kept mostly to himself and therefore wasn't overly warm, the most giving, selfless person I had ever known. And while my childhood didn't involve warm hugs when my heart was broken or hair-braiding and romcom marathons, it did involve someone who always remembered my favorite foods and kept them stocked, who always told me I could do whatever I set my mind to, who never judged me for my shortcomings.
That being said, there were no crazy Thanksgiving dinners or huge unwrapping sessions on Christmas morning. There was no banter loud enough that you couldn't hear yourself think over it.
I had always wanted the kind of holidays I saw in movies.
Ryan had that.
I envied it.
Even if it meant they judged me on what I wore and drove and who I dated and how I spent my free time.
"Is your uncle coming to you for Christmas?" he asked when the silence stretched long enough to become uncomfortable.
Christmas was in just over a week.
"He usually does for a couple hours, yeah."
"You cook?"
"Mhmm," I said, shrugging a shoulder. "You kind of have to in my situation. Does your family do a big thing?"
"Christmas afternoon," he agreed, nodding. "Used to be morning until Fee had the girls. Now they have to have their Christmas morning at home so it got pushed later."
"Is it crazy?" I asked, hearing the neediness in my own voice.
"Fucking nuts," he supplied, willing to give me what it was clear I needed. "Everyone has to buy for everyone else so the gifts take up the entire living room. Unwrapping takes hours and then we have a huge dinner which, by then, everyone has had a drink or five so it's loud and over the top. It's..."
"Christmas," I supplied, smile a little sad.
"Yeah," he agreed, picking up on the melancholy because his smile went almost sympathetic. I watched then, almost in slow motion, as his hand started to raise, come toward me.
Only to fall when there was a loud rapping on the driver's side window that made us both jump.
"Fuck," he murmured, looking annoyed to be interrupted as he turned to find our super, Andrew, standing there. Ryan rolled down the window and let out an impatient, "What?"
"All is clear. You two can go back to your places now," he said, that little declaration shattering my small little fantasy world where I could sit in a car with a man and share stories and be normal for a while.
But I wasn't normal.
And I would likely never get the chance to have the little fantasy again.
As if sensing the same thing, Ryan's head turned to me, his mouth in a severe line, his eyes guarded. "Thanks, Andrew," he said, not sounding thankful at all. Then he rolled up the window and reached for the key, knowing as much as me that the moment was over and it was time to go back to our real lives.
Where he was a super sexy businessman with some kind of dark side and a wild, loving family.
And I was a neurotic, homebound freak with an uncle who loved her and a cat that scratched her and, well, nothing else going on for her.
I practically flew out of the car on that thought, going into the back to grab Rocky's carrier.
What was I even thinking entertaining a conversation with him, getting to know someone who I wanted to know more of, wanted to know all of, when I knew that wasn't something I could have?
Always setting myself up for disappointment.
The walk back up the stairs and down the hall was deafeningly silent.
"Thanks," I offered, giving him a small smile standing in my doorway that was still open because neither of us had bothered to close it.
"Anytime, honey," he said as he turned away.
I knew a platitude when I heard it.
I was expertly versed in them.
He didn't mean anytime and I wasn't going to let myself hope for anything more than just that one time.
Just that one time that someone pulled me out of my comfort zone and I hadn't felt like I was dying.
So on that, I went into my apartment, let Rocky out, and climbed into my tub, then proceeded to drive myself just a little crazier as I played, rewound, replayed, fast-forwarded, rewound, and played the night over and over again in my mind.
Amy would have had a lot to say about it too.
You know, if I told her.
Somehow that night, the first night of progress in years, I had also managed to give up on getting better.
That next morning was the first morning in years that I didn't get up and dressed and stand at my door, trying to convince myself to go out.
Because I had gone out.
And it didn't make anything better.
In fact, I actually felt a hell of a lot worse.
FIVE
Ryan
"Where is she?" my mother asked, craning her head past me as I stood in the doorway.
No Merry Christmas.
"Where is who?" I asked, struggling to hold onto the four bags and two giant boxes I was juggling.
"Where is who?" she scoffed, taking one of the boxes that was starting to topple and moving inward so I could pass. "I heard all about this neighbor woman."
Jesus Christ.
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The grapevine in my family put high school rumor mills to shame.
"Sorry you lost your twenty bucks, Ma," I said, shaking my head at her as I walked into the empty of people but full of presents living room and putting my stuff under the tree. Or, rather, in the middle of the room since the pile spread out from under the tree to almost the center of the room.
"Fifty actually," she said, giving me a smirk as she helped me arrange things. "You should know better than to bet on your sons settling down by now."
"Honey, Shane is in a serious relationship. There is hope for the rest of you yet." She stood, taking the bags I had brought the gifts in with and moving toward the kitchen. I knew from a lifetime of knowing her that I was meant to follow. And being met with a platter of fresh Christmas cookies wasn't a bad way to deal with the inevitable interrogation that would follow. "So, what happened?"
"What happened with what? She's my neighbor, Ma. That's it."
"Oh, please," she said, waving a mismatched woven oven mitt that I knew Fee had helped Becca make her for her last birthday at me. "I hear she's gorgeous."
"She is," I agreed. It was a simple fact. She was maybe the prettiest woman I had ever had the pleasure of laying eyes on. But that didn't mean anything.
"And I heard that you threw her over your shoulder all fireman-style and saved her and her cat's life."
God.
"Yep," I agreed, reaching for another cookie, wishing suddenly that she laced those with rum like she did her coffee cakes we would indulge in later.
"And you still couldn't close?" she asked, giving me what I could only call a disappointed smirk.
"Close?" I repeated, brow raising.
"Close. Seal the deal. Fuck he..."
"Alright then," I cut her off on an uncomfortable laugh. Didn't matter that I was a grown ass man and she was a grown ass woman. It would never be comfortable to hear your mother talk about you 'sealing the deal' with someone. Not even in my crazy as fuck family. "She's just my neighbor, Mom. She was fucking frozen in fear and I dragged her out of there and patched up her hand and..."
"Patched up her hand, huh?" she asked, lips twitching and knowing her as well as I did, I just knew there was going to be something about 'playing doctor' coming out of her lips next.
"And that's it," I added with finality. "She's agoraphobic, Mom. It's not like me saving her from carbon monoxide poisoning somehow cured her of that."
In fact, there was no cure for it.
I knew that because, stupid fuck I was, I had went online and searched it.
I found out a lot. I understood it better though I was pretty sure there was no way to truly get it unless you went through it, like any mental illness.
But because I searched it, I knew that the recovery was full of steps forward and back and frustration and disappointment.
And seeing as I hadn't seen her outside her apartment since that night in my car, I figured she wasn't making any kind of progress.
"Besides," I went on, going past her toward where a few decanters of liquor were sitting on the counter and pouring myself a drink, "she's a nice girl."
"So?" she asked, brows drawn together.
"So, the last time I brought a nice girl home, you scared her off by telling her that I was a fucking enforcer after, I might add, demanding I bring a date in the first place."
She rolled her eyes at that. "That doesn't mean that I don't like nice girls. It meant that one was boring and couldn't handle the truth."
"Dusty used to be a kindergarten teacher. Not a biker like Lea or a phone sex operator like Fee."
"Kindergarten teacher, huh? She must want kids. Your dad will love hearing that."
"Jesus Christ, don't start planning our wedding," I snorted, shaking my head.
"Look, she's agoraphobic and, from what I hear, involved with some unsavory guys. That's interesting enough for me."
"Well, for the record, it warms my fucking heart that you approve of a woman I am not currently and will not be dating."
"Who aren't you dating?" Lea's voice asked suddenly, making me jerk and look toward the doorway where I found her standing in skinny black jeans and a white sweater, her long dark hair pulled away from her striking face.
My brother had done well for himself. Better than he probably deserved. Luckily, the fuck knew that and treated her accordingly.
"The pretty shy neighbor girl," my mother supplied, winking at her.
"Oh her. I lost fifty on that. Thanks for not closing," Lea said, giving me a wicked smile.
"First, she's not shy. She's agoraphobic. Second, stop fucking betting on my romantic life and you won't lose money."
"Fee is still in," Shane said, walking up behind Lea and wrapping his arms around her middle, leaning down so his chin rested on her head. "Apparently, as she lectured me for about an hour when I told her about the bet, we were all idiots for betting so close. Guess 'cause of her old issues, she understands this Dusty girls' deal better than us."
My brother Hunter's (the only one of us who didn't still enforce) wife, Fiona, had a truly fucked up childhood that left her unable to be in her apartment alone at night when Hunt first met her. As such, she either went out and drank the pain away or stayed in and etched it into her skin. She slowly recovered and had Hunt tattoo over all her old self-harm scars, wanting to erase them, move on from them. But I could definitely see how she could understand Dusty better than the rest of us.
"Yet she still bet on it," I said, annoyed for no good reason. We bet on fucking everything.
"Maybe she thought two shut-ins like you and her would work out fucking perfectly," Shane laughed.
"Jesus Christ. I'm gonna need another of these to deal with you all tonight," I said, going back to the decanters and pouring myself another. I was going to need five of them to deal, to be honest.
My family, while they loved each other, really, really liked torturing one another when they got some kind of dirt on them.
I was the one they just so happened to have dirt on that month. I was praying like fuck Mark got his car keyed by some chick or Eli went batshit crazy again sometime soon so they would lay off me.
Until then, I had to grin and bear it.
That task was made infinitely better when Fee and Hunt came in with three ecstatic girls wanting to know what Santa brought them to Grandma and Grandpa's house.
That was until after dinner when the kids ran off to play with their new stuff, leaving all of us adults a little drunk around the table having coffee.
Then I was a prime target again.
"Seriously, you pull a save-her-life and still haven't gotten anywhere?" Mark asked, smirking.
"Wasn't saving her life to get into her pants, man," I said, reaching for my coffee and taking a long swig.
"No, but it might have been a good segue in that direction," he added with a chuckle.
"What's the problem, Mark, you're not getting enough tail so you have to live vicariously through me?"
"The tail I get is not under discussion right now. We're talking about your lack of tail. Quite frankly, we're..." he started, trying like hell to say it with a straight face and failing epically, "we're worried about you, bro."
I laughed a little humorlessly at that.
"Just resign yourselves to losing your fifty bucks and move on."
With that, the conversation at least did.
Everyone turned their attention to asking Shane and Lea about grand babies and nieces and nephews, saving me some sanity until at around ten that night, we all finally shuffled out and headed home.
As I walked down my hall toward my apartment, my focus was mostly on Dusty's door, thinking back to the sad, envious way she had looked at me when I had talked about my Christmas with my family. It was something that I was so used to that I didn't even think twice about anymore. All my family gatherings were loud, wild, hectic, overwhelming.
I genuinely couldn't imagine a quiet evening with just one other person.
A
s I came up to my door, my gaze finally drifted away from her quiet apartment and looked to my own. Good timing too, because otherwise, I might have plowed right into a big rectangular package right outside my door. I reached for it, already half-turning toward Dusty's door, sure it was one of hers, silly Santa-printed paper and all, when I noticed the little gift tag and saw my own name printed there in a delicate, feminine script. My brows drew together as I looked at the 'from', already knowing, but finding the same dainty font with Dusty's name. My eyes went to her door again for a moment before I unlocked my own and went inside.
I flicked on the light and dropped my bag of gifts from my family beside the door, moving to the kitchen island and putting down the gift from Dusty.
I reached for the gift tag again and flipped it open.
Thanks for not letting me die. Also, Merry Christmas! - Dusty.
I didn't even realize I was smiling until my cheeks started to hurt.
I pulled off the tag and put it to the side before I reached for the corner of the paper and pulled, finding that the roll must have been double-sided because inside staring back at me was more santas, just bigger. And when I pulled the paper away, I found red tissue paper carefully taped together in the center. Apparently, Dusty was of the perfectionist variety. Which, somehow, I found charming.
I ripped the tape and pulled the tissue paper away to reveal, of all things, a canvas print.
It was abstract, like most of my art, and like most of my art it was also of a mostly neutral color scheme. There were waves of different shades of tan and brown with the occasional streak of very bright, almost aqua blue.
Even though it wasn't something I would have picked for myself, I genuinely liked it. And it didn't even have anything to do with the fact that it was a gift from someone I, despite it being stupid and fanciful at such an early stage, gave a shit about.
Ryan (The Mallick Brothers #2) Page 4
