by Amy Marie
I know my dad has made his life a living hell. I’ve overheard him talking with his numerous contacts about keeping his ex-best friend, Hadley’s dad, from promotions at work, promotions he deserved. At least that’s one good thing about feeling nonexistent in your home. No one hears you coming or going and you listen to things that weren’t meant for your ears.
“I’m looking for Hadley,” I manage to get out. My voice cracks, sounding like a prepubescent boy going through the change.
I feel as though I can see smoke coming from his ears. He snarls, his face morphing into what I can imagine a murderer looking like just before stabbing his victim. “So, YOU’RE the reason, huh?”
My chest vibrates at his booming voice. I think the entire neighborhood heard him.
“I’m sorry, sir. The reason for what?” My eyebrows scrunch together in confusion.
“AVA!” he screams behind him and Hadley’s mother almost instantaneously appears next to him. She looks outside the door, finding me, and her face drops. She’s pissed too.
“Go home, Ryder,” she tells me after her husband walks away. Slowly, she proceeds to close the door on me.
I put my hand up to keep it from shutting. “Where is Hadley?” I ask pleading. This doesn’t seem right. Something is very wrong.
Why do my lungs feel constricted?
“She’s gone. She won’t be coming back to that school. You need to leave now and don’t you dare step foot on this property again.”
Taking advantage of her hit to my gut, this time she is able to fully shut the door.
I sink to the ground and shake my head side to side in disbelief.
She can’t be gone.
But she was. That was the first of many failed attempts at finding Hadley. She left me and found some douche and now she has given all her love and trust to him.
I head back inside stopping at the bar to order three shots of tequila. Downing one of them I sit back at the table with AJ. He just stares at me as I numbly push the shot over to him. Our small glasses clink and we poor the liquid down our throats. He still says nothing as we sit but points his beer bottle in the direction behind me.
I look across the bar and my eyes are met with a hot blonde. She’s dressed fucking sexy in a tight blue tank top and jean skirt with a long black shirt over her outfit that has holes everywhere. She tops the look off with tall black boots that say “screw my brains out.”
She catches me staring at her and gives a little finger wave. I drunkenly wave back and raise my eyebrows. Her plump lips curve up into a smile and she nods towards the door.
Hadley’s words repeat over and over again in my head in her soft delicate voice.
I love Braden.
I trust him.
I love Braden.
“Sorry, AJ. I’m out of here.” I stand up and walk towards the hot goddess and realize how drunk I am when I trip a little bit.
She giggles and I shake my head in embarrassment.
“Hey!” she says when I reach her.
“Hey yourself.”
“You look sad.” She pouts and takes her index finger and glides it over my frown.
“I’m not sad. Just looking to forget,” I say sticking my tongue out and licking her finger.
She gets a little closer and kisses me lightly on my lips. “I could help you with that.”
I haven’t taken a girl home I’ve just met in quite some time but tonight I couldn’t give a shit. The alcohol is making sure of that.
“Wanna get out of here?” I ask nipping at her bottom lip.
“Sure. But I’m driving. Give me your keys,” she demands and I hand them over. I have no problem letting her drive my car as long as I lose myself while I’m inside her.
We leave the bar and jump in the car. The ride over to my house is silent but I have my hands on her thigh inching my way up. I show her which house is mine. She’s a terrible driver but a hell of a lot better than I would be right now.
As she walks into my house, she immediately turns back to me and doesn’t hesitate before taking off her holey black top. Her boobs are practically falling out so I decide to help them the rest of the way. Pulling one side of her strap down and then the other I see she’s braless and my dick becomes rock hard.
She moans when I lean down, taking her peak between my lips. My free hand grips the other pinching it hard.
I’m a rough kind of guy. If you don’t like a little bit of pain with your pleasure than you’re not for me...and she seems raring to go.
The next few minutes are a rush of us getting our clothes off and barely making it to the couch that just a few hours ago AJ occupied. She pushes me down and straddles me, her hair whipping me in the face.
“Condom?” she asks, her brown eyes boring into mine, and I bring my hand up showing the one I grabbed. “Ah! Prepared huh?”
I nod and she takes the package from me opening it with her teeth. She rolls it on my dick slowly.
A vision of Hadley doing that the last time we made love so long ago fills my thoughts. Her innocent green eyes look into mine to see how it affects me and her hair falls into her face just before I swept it away.
“Shit! I can’t do this,” I say dragging my hands down my face.
She is hovering above me, her wet entrance to my tip. “Are you kidding me? You expect me to stop right now? All I have to do is slam down right now and give you a fucking ride.”
Damn this girl is hot.
My hands grip her waist debating on if I should just push myself into her. She is my usual fuck and run type–the girl who I will screw and then send her on her way without a second glance. But she isn’t what I crave right now. I crave Hadley.
“I can’t. I’m sorry. I’m in love with someone.”
The words stun me further. Seven years later and I can’t help but still be helplessly in love with her. I thought it was neatly tucked away but there it is right in the forefront.
“What the fuck? Am I a homewrecker?” she shrieks jumping up off me scrambling for her clothes.
“Huh? NO! Oh, shit. I’m sorry.” I stand up taking the condom off and looking for my own clothes. “I feel like an asshole. I’m sorry.”
“Wife? Girlfriend? What?” Her hands find her hips looking murderous.
“No. Just a girl who has me twisted up.” I pull my jeans up, zipping and then buttoning them. “Again I am so sorry.”
She saunters over to me, her body swaying as she drops the clothes from her grasp. “I told you I could help you forget.” Her delicate finger runs along my jaw line but instead of being turned on I flinch.
“I’ll just call a cab back to the bar,” she huffs reaching down again to retrieve her clothes. “Since you are obviously too drunk to drive me back.”
After she makes the call the awkward silence is stifling.
“I’m Wendy,” she says looking my way, extending her hand.
I grab it feeling like a jerk. “Wow! I really am an asshole. I didn’t even ask your name. I’m Ryder.”
She smiles. “I like that name. Well, Ryder, do you just want to talk?”
I start to open up to her and when the cab arrives, I give him twenty dollars for his trouble and send him along his way...without Wendy.
I wish I could be like the heavily falling snow that I’m currently watching fall to the ground across a sun rising sky. It’s pure, true to form and seems to wash away everything. Sort of like a rebirth. Growing up I learned that each snowflake was unique. No two were the same, and I wished to be one, floating through the air and to be my own true individual self.
I soon realized that maybe being a snowflake isn’t what I want. That I’m unique, but just like the rest, once I fall among the other flakes we form together into one giant mold losing our individuality.
Braden’s voice is pulling me out of my snow driven hypnotic state but I have no idea what he is saying. With my hands wrapped around my mug of warm hot chocolate, I inhale the scent before I turn my attention to him an
d my cheeks rise from my smile. It’s amazing how much of a difference a few months made for us.
Since my run in with Ryder, I have shifted my focus back towards my relationship with Braden and things have been incredible.
The sex? Amazing.
The romance? Better.
The communication? Could use more work. Despite the effort we’ve been putting in I still feel as though something is off.
I haven’t felt so loved and protected in so long that I sometimes wonder if it’s all real...or that maybe it will all fade away at the drop of a hat.
He’s half smiling at me, waiting for some sort of response to a question I didn’t pay attention to.
“I didn’t hear you,” I tell him giving him a smirk back.
He laughs, used to my daydreams, and it makes the twinkle in his green eyes shine brighter. He seems happier too. A bit more overprotective than he used to be but sometimes it’s comforting.
“I said...what are you thinking? You look so peaceful staring out the window.”
I glide my fingers through the locks of hair that have fallen over my shoulder. It’s the longest it has been since we have met. “Nothing really. Just watching the snow fall.”
The couch dips and his warm arms embrace me carefully not to spill the drink in my hand. His lips brush my temple and my eyes flutter closed. “What do you want to do on this lazy Sunday?” he asks as I open them back up.
Taking another quick glance outside I think of the perfect idea, though I’m unsure how he will respond. Braden isn’t usually up for things he might consider childish.
I bite my lip at the thought of what my heart really wants to do.
“I think it would be fun to go sledding,” I tell him.
When I was a kid there was a hill down the street from my house. My friends and I would go there anytime it would snow to feel the rush of sledding down the freshly fallen pathway. It was exhilarating. My life has been a bit boring lately despite the incline of my relationship with Braden but I’d just love nothing more right now than to feel like a kid again and take a risk...even though back then it didn’t seem that way.
“That’s silly,” he admonishes. “We’re not ten years old and you’d probably get hurt.”
Him blowing off my idea instantly hurts my feelings and as we watch the news for the next hour I inwardly boil. It’s not healthy for a woman to simmer inside but I don’t want to start a fight over something as “silly” as going sledding. Do I?
As the news on the TV is starting to come to an end, I think of all the times I’ve done things for him. I’ve gone to movies that I didn’t want to see. I went bar hopping with his friends when I wasn’t feeling well. Missing my friend’s wedding because he was sick, and I felt I needed to take care of him. I’ve been dragged to his work party when I was sick because I didn’t want him to go alone...because he was going to.
Which reminds me.
“Is there a Christmas Party this year?” I ask excitedly, almost forgetting about how annoyed I am with him. Every woman, no matter what she says, loves a good formal Christmas party so she can get a pretty dress and do her hair and makeup.
His body stiffens and he clicks the television off, standing up. He doesn’t look at me when he answers. “Yea, but we’re not going.”
My jaw drops when he abruptly walks to the door taking his coat off the back of it and puts it on not bothering to look my way again.
I follow after him, concerned about the sudden change of mood and how a little bit ago he was asking what I wanted to do today. “You always want to go.”
“Well,” he starts, and finally looks my way. “This year I don’t. Plus, they haven’t even started to plan it out. I just couldn’t care less.”
“I’d like to go,” I say attempting to stick up for what I want. It doesn’t happen often and he isn’t used to it.
His eyes flash to mine with a hint of anger behind them. “No.”
“Are you leaving?”
He takes a deep breath. “Yes. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Before I could push anymore he kisses me chastely on the lips and walks out.
I spin around trying to find the reason he up and left without explanation, coming up empty.
What the hell just happened?
I swear I will never understand Braden. That’s one of the things that haven’t changed. His mood shifts.
I grab the blanket off the back of my couch to cozy up and take one more gaze outside. I throw it back down and race to my room.
“Fuck it.”
~~
Forty minutes later, I’m staring down the same hill that just a decade ago looked like Mt. Everest to me but now seems like nothing more than an ant hill. Dressed in every warm material imaginable I set my newly purchased red circular sled down and place my padded bottom on top of it. I look around finding nothing but kids and parents. I almost stand back up, embarrassed, but determination sets in and for just one moment in my adult life I want to feel the rush. Just a small, very small, taste of what my life used to be like.
Risks. Taking chances. Not being afraid.
I mean, really, who is scared of a little sledding?
Pulling up my scarf over my mouth, I push off the cold ground and shoot down the hill. The slickness of the sled and my ten years of added weight propel me down faster than I expected. I pull my legs in to crisscross them and hold on tighter to the edge of the disc. The frigid wind whips past me and my eyes involuntarily close.
All tension releases from my body as it loosens up. I feel free like a snowflake. In my own world, not caring about bills, work, or my boyfriend. Not caring about what others think about me or what choices I’ve made in my life. I open my eyes not caring if I crash...until I see someone standing at the bottom in my direct path.
Then I care.
I try to scream but the scarf muffles my voice and I refuse to let go of my sled.
What the hell was I thinking? This was childish. This was stupid.
I brace myself for impact hoping it doesn’t hurt too much and all the while thinking of how I’m going to explain to Braden why he has to pick me up from the hospital. He’ll never let me live this down. Calling this childish and stupid. I just wanted one minute of release. Of freedom.
The instant I hit my unsuspecting victim’s legs the sled stops and we both propel forward. I hear mutterings of curse words as I land on top of a body that, despite the coat, is rock hard. We land with a thud and my head hits their chest. Not immediately wanting to look at the one I assaulted, I take inventory of my body. Only a slight pinch in my knees and right cheek. Maybe a trip to the ER isn’t necessary.
“You okay there, sweetheart?” the hard bodied man asks.
I can’t respond because that voice, it’s familiar. Too familiar.
It’s one I haven’t heard in months and one that instantly sets my body on fire despite our past.
Ryder fucking Blake.
My toes curl and my heart rate picks up faster. I can smell his musky scent even in the harsh cold and his heavy breathing is sending shockwaves throughout my body at every single small movement.
I’m scared to look up now. I don’t want him to know it’s me but there is no way to get out of this one. I can feel his chest bob up and down with his chuckles. “Come on,” he starts, pushing my shoulders up as my scarf falls. “Let me see if you’re hurt.”
I allow him to lift me up off of him, and I prepare to run for it until his grip tightens in realization. People crowd around us but as I struggle to get away, and he holds firm, our eyes meet and I can’t help but be powerless.
His mouth opens, his glorious tongue moves across his lips, sending shivers down my spine. “Hadley?”
“Ryder?” I try to say but another female beats me to it.
She runs up alongside of us and looks down, hands on her skinny hips. “You okay, babe?” she asks and a sinking feeling consumes my stomach.
I feel sick.
His eyes never
leave mine. I don’t know what he is waiting for so I make the move. I break the hold he has on me and stand up.
“I’m sorry,” I say under my breath, picking up my sled and walking away, my feet kicking up snow in the process.
I hear louder voices behind me but I don’t look back. I keep walking wishing I had parked closer so the embarrassment wouldn’t last as long.
Out of all places why here do I literally run into him? And who was that beautiful blonde woman he was with?
I tug the keys out of my pocket and open the door. Before I can swing it around a gloved hand pushes it closed and my front gets pressed into the cold steel of the car.
My hat is pulled over my ears but I can hear his whispered growl loud and clear. “Haaadley,” he says, elongating my name, taunting me.
I should push him back...but I don’t.
“Leave me, Ryder,” I tell him, hoping I don’t sound weak but knowing that I do. “I told you a while ago not to touch me.”
He laughs, the vibrations shaking me. “I’m not touching you, Hadley. No part of my flesh is touching your flesh. It’s all material that’s making you tremble, Spark.”
Anger surges through me. I shove off the car, whipping around to face him. “How dare you call me that! You are not allowed to call me that ever again.”
He steps forward, his hand reaching out to me. “Looks like your feistiness hasn’t changed.”
I look past him, seeing the blonde making her way over. My body temperature rises with what, I don’t know.
I cross my arms over my chest after pointing towards her. “Go back to your girlfriend.”
Glancing back he shakes his head and then steps dangerously close to me again.
He tilts his head to the side, showcasing his crystal blue eyes. “You’re not jealous are you?”
I let out a loud “ugh” as I shove off him. He backs off and I jump into my car turning the ignition.
Nothing.
Shit. I try again.
Nothing again.
Dammit!
I throw my hands down on the steering wheel just as someone taps on the window. I don’t have to look up to know it’s Ryder.
His Cheshire cat smile irks me.
I roll down my window, the cold air infiltrating my car. The pretty blonde is now standing just behind him. “What?” I ask.
