Page 29 of The Fault Next Door

The woman, who Nolan guessed was Ryder's mother, snorted and then stepped out of the way. "You need to leave soon. He needs his rest."

“Give it a rest, Mom.” Ryder stood and moved to shake his hand but winced when he tried to move his right arm. “Hey, thanks for fixing my arm.”

“I came over to do the chores.”

Ryder shrugged and then winced. "You don't have to. I can do them later."

“No you can’t,” Nolan said. “Doctor’s orders. You can’t be playing in the barn until those stitches come out. If some foreign body gets in there and it gets infected, it will take months and not weeks to heal.”

Ryder frowned. “Dammit.”

“Language,” Ryder’s mother snapped.

Ryder rolled his eyes. “This is my mother, Sherrie, who was just leaving.”

“I’m not leaving.” Sherrie’s frown seemed even deeper now. She looked like she could spit nails.

Ryder frowned back at her. “You are leaving. I’m perfectly fine.”

"If you had a wife, you would be fine. This is a punishment for you skipping church."

Nolan swore he saw Ryder roll his eyes, but he wasn’t one hundred percent sure. The tension between them could be cut with a knife.

“It was an accident, Mom.”

“You need to get a wife and get back into church. Who knows what kind of sin you’re getting into.”

“I’m not getting into anything,” Ryder said. “I’m fine.”

“I’m just going to have to move back in with you.”

“No!”

Nolan flinched at the volume of Ryder’s voice. Sherrie jumped. She almost looked like she’d been slapped. An awkward feeling slid through Nolan. Maybe he shouldn’t have come over, but he hadn’t known that Ryder’s mother was here. Besides, it was perfectly normal for neighbors to check-in. At least, he thought it was. Maybe Ryder would be pissed. He wished everything was easier, but this was the world they lived in.

“I am fine. Leave now,” Ryder said, his tone unforgiving.

Sherrie snorted again and grabbed her bag. “You are an ungrateful son. I hope your arm rots and falls off. You need to find a wife.”

Ryder’s face looked pained until his mother slammed the door after striding out. He groaned and wiped his good hand over his face.

"Shit, I'm sorry you had to hear her bullshit, and I'm sorry for what I said at the clinic. I know you're professional, and I know you'd never do anything to put either of us in a bad position."

Nolan took a step closer to Ryder and then paused, worried that his mother would come back. "It's already forgotten."

"Not by me. I felt terrible suggesting that you'd do something like kiss me or touch me in that situation. I know you're not like that."

"Hey, I get it. The first time I kissed a guy—well, we did more than kiss—but I freaked out when I saw him at church the next week. I thought for sure he was going to push me to the pew and kiss me like he had that night. Of course, he played it cool. But I get the worry."

The sound of tires spinning on pavement made Ryder roll his eyes again. "She's so mad that I won't even consider meeting some eighteen-year-old girl she wants to set me up with. They want the kid to drop out of high school to become my wife. I don't want a child bride. It's like she's desperate for me to get married."

Nolan cocked his head to the side as an idea hit. “Is she suffering from Alzheimer’s?”

Ryder narrowed his eyes and shook his head. “What?”

“If her personality has changed recently, she could be having the first changes that come with memory loss.”

“Huh, I hadn’t even thought about it. I’ve just been annoyed.”

---