“Hey, Kris.”
“Oh thank god. What the fuck, Jake? It’s after nine!”
God, it was good to hear her voice. Even the swearing.
“Sorry.” He was sure spending a lot of time apologizing this morning. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back. “I’ve, um, had a rough morning, but—”
“Shit, please,pleasetell me you’re okay?”
“Well, I...” Jake swallowed hard. He opened his eyes partway and tilted his head until he could see the man, hunched in the corner, his arms hugging his kneesto his chest. Their gazes met, and Jake finally managed to give him a small smile. The man blinked and lowered his head to rest on his knees. And Jake closed his eyes again and tried his best to relax into the couch. “Yeah, Kris. Yeah, I’m okay.”
Chapter Fourteen
Rye
Jakewasnotokay.At least, not by any definition ofokayRye knew. So he wasn’t really sure why Jake was telling his sister everything would be fine.
From his spot in the corner, Rye lifted his chin just enough that he could see Jake. The older man had his eyes closed and his head resting back on one of the couch cushions, and even to Rye’s inexperienced eye, he looked completely exhausted. The slight wrinkles at the corners of his eyes—the ones Rye had noticed the day before that had made him think about his mom—were more pronounced now, and he was so tense—his jaw clenched, his shoulders tight. If Rye hadn’t known better, all of that tension might have scared him. But given the state Jake had been in when Rye had come out of the bedroom minutes ago, he knew it was only because of Jake’s pain.
God, he’d had to help Jake up off the floor. Him. Rye. Tiny, weak little Rye. He wasn’t sure how he’d managed. Jake was... huge, and Rye was not strong. At all. His heart was still racing from both the physical effort and his nerves. Being so close to Jake, standing right next to him, Rye’s arm around him... it had been scary. He’d been scared.
He was still shaking, in fact, and he still couldn’t make his heart slow back down.
Jake let out a long breath and grunted quietly as he shifted. That certainly didn’t help Rye’s unsteady heartbeat.
“Yeah. I’m... not sure,” Jake said to his sister. “If it gets worse, then yeah, I might need to do something. I-I don’t know what...” Jake trailed off but nodded slightly, obviously listening to whatever it was his sister was saying, and Rye finally lowered his eyes again.
He flexed his toes into the carpet, wishing he wasn’t wearing socks so he could feelits softness.
Jake said a few more words to his sister, mostly the same sort of “I’ll be okay, please don’t come,” and then, with a short sigh, he said, “It’s fine, really. No, I’ll... No, he helpedme, Kris.” Jake’s voice became quieter and softer, and Rye looked back up. Jake was watching him now, his eyes just partway open. His expression was strained but kind. So kind, somehow, despite the obvious pain he was in. Jake’s lips twitched up into a small half-smile. “He’s helping me. I’m glad he’s here.”
Blinking, Rye dropped his gaze back to his feet and tightened his fingers around his knees. Jake continued talking to his sister for a few more minutes, but Rye didn’t really hear anymore. His heart was still thudding too hard, and now there was a buzzing too—some distracting buzzing in his ears that almost hurt.
Jake was glad he was here. Here at Jake’s house in Rocky Cove.
But Rye didn’t want to be here, did he?
He wanted to be home. With his mom.
Or... He closed his eyes and inhaled a long, shaky breath. Hethoughthe wanted to be home with his mom. Heshouldwant to be home with his mom.
He did. He did want that. How could he not?
She doesn’t love you. She never loved you. She’s happy to be free from you. You were a burden. A fucking stupid child. And now that you’re gone, she’s happy and carefree.
He shook his head, fighting against the awful things the man had told him. Those ideas the man had planted in his head. They weren’t the truth. They couldn’t be the truth. And yet, they made him doubt. And he hated that.
“Sorry about that,” Jake said, his voice a little rough, some edge to it that Rye instantly recognized as pain.
Rye swallowed back the bit of fear flickering in his chest, gripped his knees harder, and lifted his chin. Jake had set his phone down on the coffee table, and he smiled at Rye weakly when their eyes met.
“My sister worries about me. A lot.” Jake shifted uncomfortably in his spot on the couch. “Our mom left when I was just a kid,” he started. “I think I was only five. And Dad worked all the time, so Kris sort of had to take care of me. I know she can be a bit too much sometimes, especially after my accident.” There was a short pause, and Rye saw Jake sort of flinch. “It was—uh, a boating accident, and I, um, almost died. She worried about me before, of course, but then afterward, when I finally recovered enough to be independent and I moved out here, she insisted on checking in on me every day. It’s sort of become her thing? And with everything going on the last few days—I mean, with you here and my leg acting up and... everything—she’s just a bit more intense. But I love her, and I know she’s just trying to look out for me.”
Jake let out a short huff and then shook his head. “Sorry, that was probably more than you wanted to know. I’m trying to talk to distract myself. My leg is really—uh, screwed up.” He grimaced. “Talking helps, at least for a few minutes. And I normally don’t have anyone to talk to, so...”
Itwasa lot, but it also answered a question Rye had almost wanted to ask—how Jake had hurt his leg. A boating accident.
Rye closed his eyes. Boating. He’d been on a boat before, hadn’t he?
