by Keya Jay
***
Skylar slammed her front door and wasn’t at all surprised to see that Ryder was still there.
“Is it 5 already?” he asked as he sat lounged on her couch with his feet on the coffee table she told him once before not to put his feet on.
“Get your feet off of my mother’s favorite coffee table,” she growled through clenched teeth. Ryder hesitated defiantly before slowly lowering his feet to the ground.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” he asked.
“When the hell were you going to tell me that not only did you, Nate, Sidney, Hank, and Sidney’s mother take a trip down to D.E.A.N Inc. but that yall also signed a witness sheet stating that yall knew a Richard Masterson? When were you also going to tell me that you knew—and still know apparently—Aaron’s daughter?”
“I didn’t think telling you about the statement sheet was important and I knew that if I told you that Brooke was Aaron’s daughter that you wouldn’t believe me.” All of Skylar’s anger left her at that moment.
“Brooke is Aaron’s daughter?” she asked confused.
“Shit you didn’t even know?”
“Hell no I didn’t fuckin know, no one told me including you,” she said feeling that all too familiar itch in her bones and it wasn’t even night fall yet.
“You need to calm down,” Ryder said standing up as he noticed the change in her as well.
“I can’t fuckin calm down! You lied to me; ALL of you lied to me!”
“We weren’t trying to lie to you—”
“Don’t tell me you were trying to protect me, do NOT feed me that bull shit!” she said as she began to back up slowly, heading for the door.
“Skylar,” he called as he walked toward her noticing where she was trying to take it. “I didn’t lie to you, I just didn’t tell you. I know you Skylar and you would have denied it until your lungs turned blue if I would have told you that Brooke was Aaron’s daughter. You grew up with her, you knew everything there was to know about her, you would have known if Aaron was her father correct?” he asked but not waiting for her to answer as he continued, “Just like I spent my life with Sidney and I thought I would have known if Aaron wasn’t her father a part of me still denies it,” he said as he took that last step that brought him directly in front of her. “Hurting you wasn’t what I had in mind when I didn’t tell you,” he said slowly. Skylar sank against the front door. She didn’t honestly care that she was lied to she was just pissed that she had worked so got damn hard on this case just to get it snatched away from her.
“Well because of you all being a witness and me knowing every single last one of you with the exception of Nate I have been kicked off of the case, no longer aloud to work on it,” she announced.
“You do realize that you’ve been working on this case without them right and that you can just continue to work on it without them. They didn’t notice before and they won’t notice now,” he said. Skylar couldn’t help but smile he was right and at this point working with Ethan had gotten her nowhere. “But this time…instead of having Hank help you I will, if you don’t mind that is,” he finished.
“No I don’t mind,” she assured.
“Good,” he said simply as he began to back away slowly.
“But first,” she said before he could get away completely, “I need to know everything you know.”
“It’s a done deal,” he said as he turned around and began to walk away.
“Where are you going?” she asked confused.
“Well if you’re going to know everything that I know you’re going to have a helluva lot more to write on that wall.”
