Page 57 of Reaching Ryan

Chapter Twenty-three

Ryan

I woke up flat on my back with dry bits of what felt like styrofoam pellets stuck to my tonsils and gunk-coated tongue.

Choking and sputtering, I sit bolt upright and spit whatever it is into my hand.

Cereal.

The fuck?

Looking over, I find a toe-headed terror standing on the bed next to me, an opened box of cereal almost as big as she is, clutched to her chest with one hand while the other is fishing around in its belly, looking for fresh ammunition.

“Are you trying to kill me?” I mutter at her, snatching the box from her grip before she can launch another attack.

“No.” She looks at the bunch of dry cereal still clenched in her fist. “I’m feeding you breakfast.” She says it like it’s the obvious answer to a stupid question. As if to prove it, she shoves the handful of cereal into her own mouth.

“My mistake.” Watching her chew, I feel laughter start to brew in my chest. “I guess I’m lucky I didn’t get waterboarded with a gallon of 2%, huh?”

“I don’t know what that means,” she tells me around her mouthful of half-chewed cereal. “But I’m not allowed to work the milk because I make a mess.”

I look down at the scatter of crushed, dry cereal between us and nod. “I can see that.”

“You look better.”

“Huh?” On my best day, I can barely keep up with a normal, linear conversation. Keeping up with Molly’s mental acrobats is proving to be impossible.

“Last night you looked really sick, but you look okay now,” she explains. “I checked the garbage and you didn’t throw up in it and you didn’t do it on my sheets so you must be feeling better.”

“Your mom told me not to.” I tell her, looking toward the open door. Tell the truth, I’m surprised Grace hasn’t barreled her way through it by now to whisk Molly away. “Where is your mom?”

“In the shower.”

A mental picture of a very wet, very naked Grace digs into my brain and refuses to budge and for the first time since I got hurt, I’m glad I can’t get it up because otherwise I’d have the mother of all hard-ons right now and that isn’t a conversation I’m prepared to have.

What the actual fuck, Ranger? What kind of deviant pervs out on a mom while her kid is standing less than a foot away?

Setting the cereal box on the nightstand next to my empty glass, I take an angry swipe at my face. “Fuck me.”

“You’re swearing again.”

I look up to find Molly still standing on the bed, staring down at me, her brown crumpled with disapproval.

“Won’t be the last time,” I tell her, giving her fair warning. “Still hungry?”

“Yeah.” Molly nods.

“Okay,” I push my legs over the edge of the bed, wincing a little when my left foot hits the floor. “So, how ‘bout I feed you breakfast?”

She gives the mattress a quick bounce. “Do you know how to make French Toast?”

“Nope.” I give her an unapologetic shrug. I couldn’t make French Toast, even before my brain got scrambled. Attempting it now would probably amount to a giant shit sandwich. “But I know how to make regular toast.”

I think.

Her mouth twitches in consideration and I suddenly feel like we’re negotiating terms for a hostile takeover. “With strawberry jam?”

“Why the hell not.” If I can stick bread in a toaster, chances are I can stick a butter knife in a jelly jar. “But you’re gonna have to show me where all this shit is, kid.”

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