Page 92 of Duke
But I like this too. No wonder I’ve had such a hard time pinning down what I want exactly. I like…everything.
Correction: maybe I like toexperienceeverything. New shit and familiar shit too. A combination of the two. Is that my definition of freedom? The ability to see and feel and do it all? Well, maybe not the ability to do it all, but the ability to live fullyin the moment wherever I am. The ability to put myself in the way of feelingthisalive.
“So how’re you feeling?” Ryder asks, voice low. “You were pretty upset when you left the other day.”
I lift a shoulder. “I’m scared. Really scared. Ain’t like me to be reckless, and I hate—” My voice catches. “I’ve been worried that I made a mistake that could derail my life, as terrible as that sounds.”
“Not terrible. It’s totally understandable why you’d feel that way.”
He pauses. I realize he’s waiting for me to say something.
“But I like her, Ryder.” I pull my horse to the left to avoid what appears to be a small sinkhole. We’ll have to fill that in later. “The more time I spend with her, the more I like her. Weird thing is I can see us together. Like,togethertogether.”
Ryder’s eyebrows pop up. “Like, get married and have a family together type shit?”
“Yeah. She’s smart and she’s cute and she’s just so interested in the world. Life with her would never be boring.” I shake my head. “But life with a baby? That might be.”
Ryder tilts his head to one side, then the other. “Yes and no. I’m no expert, but seeing what Sawyer went through—yeah, there’s gonna be a period where you’re homebound and you’re not sleeping and it’s just a ton of work. But now he’s kind of living his best life, and that wouldn’t be the case if Ella hadn’t come along. Life doesn’t end when you have a kid.”
Sawyer and Ava kept running into each other because their kids go to the same preschool. One thing led to another, and now they’re living together, happy as clams.
I cut him a look. “Do you want a kid?”
“One day, I do, yeah. I just haven’t found my person. Sounds like you have.”
My pulse skips several beats as his words sink in. “Wheeler’s not interested in anything serious.”
“Not even now?”
“Especially not now. Her parents got married because her mom got pregnant. Now they’re going through this really shitty divorce. Sounds like they were never really happy together. And I know Wheeler is connecting the dots.”
“Right. She thinks if y’all go down the same path, you’ll end up unhappy too.”
“Yup.”
Ryder shakes his head. “That’s tough. But she does know y’all are different people, right? Obviously, I’ve never met her parents, but somehow I doubt they had the connection you and Wheeler do.”
“You’ve seen Wheeler and me together all of, what, a handful of times?”
“Dude.” He cuts me a look.
“What?”
“It’s obvious to everyone that you and Wheeler got somethin’ special. Hell, y’all eye fuck nonstop when you’re in the same room.”
My stomach dips. “No, we don’t.”
“Then how’d she end up pregnant?”
Laughter bursts through my middle. “You do know a different kind of fucking needs to happen for that to, er, happen.”
“I know. And that kind of fucking starts with the eyes.” He uses his first two fingers to point to his. “You also ain’t ever talked about a girl this much. Ever. You get bored so easily…”
I chafe at that. “So do you.”
“It’s not a dig. Just a fact. But being with Wheeler seems to do the opposite. She energizes you. Like, she gets you excited about things.”
Bull’s-eye.
