Page 55 of Reaching Ryan

Sighing heavily, I lean against the counter, shoulders slumped.

Maybe this was a mistake.

Maybe my mother was right.

Maybe I can’t do this.

“Grace.”

Sighing again, I look up to find him looking at me. Watching me.

“I’m sorry.” Sitting back in his seat, he rubs a hand across his jaw like he’s trying to loosen its hinge. I think he’s going to apologize for over-stepping his bounds with Molly again. For the fact that, despite having a head injury for fuck’s and zero experience with kids, he’s still a better parent than I am. But that’s not what he’s sorry for. “Look—about last night… I shouldn’t have let Dec drag me up here. I was—”

“It’s okay,” I cut him off with a wave of my hand, making an effort to minimize what happened between us last night, even though I laid awake all night, replaying every filthy word he said. Every brush of his thumb against my wrist. “You were drunk. I get it.”

“I was going to say being selfish.” He frowns at me. “The only reason I let Tess drag me out in the first place was because I was hoping I’d see you. I needed to make sure you were okay after—” He suddenly looks uncomfortable. Unsure. “Hen told you what happened after you and Molly left yesterday—what I did.”

It’s not a question but I nod anyway. “She told me,” I say, leaning over the counter to pick up Molly’s cereal bowl to dump soggy Cheerios and warm milk into the disposal. “Was that because of me too?” I ask, remembering what he told me on Sunday. About why he and Conner were rolling around on the ground, trying to kill each other. When he doesn’t answer me, I risk a quick glance in his direction to find him looking at me. Watching me like he’s trying to figure out what I’m going to do next. “Did you put that guy in the hospital because of me?”

His jaw goes stiff, flattening his mouth in to a hard, thin line. “What happened wasn’t your fault.” He takes an angry swipe at his face and looks away. “I lose my shit sometimes. It had nothing to do with you.”

It’s a lie. What he did in that stairwell had everything to do with me. I’d bet my life on it.

“That should scare me.” It should. I know it should. I know if I had the sense God gave a potato, I’d snatch my daughter up and head for the preverbal hills. “I should be afraid of you, right?”

“I would never hurt you.” He looks at me again, pinning me with a pair of eyes so dark, they look almost black. “Never you and never Molly.”

I believe him. God help me, I believe him. “But you’ll hurt people because of me.”

He doesn’t say anything. He just stares at me, jaw flexing around the hard clench of his teeth.

I press the issue, not willing to let it go. “Are you going to tell me what happened in that stairwell?”

“No.” He looks away from me again and shakes his head, visibly forcing himself to relax. Working through a series of mental exercise meant to talk himself down.

When he’s through, he turns toward me and gives me one of his flat smiles. “Go get dressed.” Sliding out of his seat, he circles the bar to stand next to me. “Go on,” he says, when I don’t move an inch. “I’ll keep Molly occupied while you get ready.”

I want to tell him no. That I don’t need his help. I can do it on my own.

And I can.

Despite my recent pity party, I know I can.

But I suddenly don’t want to.

Am blindsided by the unfairness of it all, because I shouldn’t have to, should I?

Choices, Grace.

We all make them and this one is yours.

But I can pretend, right?

Just this once, that I have someone.

Someone who will stay. Someone steady and strong enough to take my weight when I lean on them.

Even if it isn’t real.

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