I turn back to my own work, thoughts wandering ahead to the weekend. To the time alone with Jake and Damian I haven’t had in a few weeks. How nice it will be to curl up with them for a night.
“Hey Wyatt!” Damian yells from under the car. “Tell me you ordered the brake pads and didn’t just think about ordering them really hard.”
Wyatt rolls his desk chair toward the office door and leans out. “What?”
But Luis answers without even looking up from the truck he’s leaning into. “Don’t worry, I ordered them.”
Damian slides out far enough that I can see his face, bright with satisfaction. “Luis, you’re the only adult here.”
I shake my head, smiling, and go back to work.
By the time we close up, the sky has gone dark. I’m pulling my jacket on when headlights sweep across the lot, and I look out the window to see Ryder’s truck.
My stomach flips the way it does every time I see him, even after almost a year. He climbs out and crosses the lot with his easy stride, and knocks on the locked glass door. I let him in, andhe reaches for me right away, pulling me close and kissing me full on the mouth.
“Hey,” he says, low.
“Hey.”
His gaze flicks up to Wyatt and Damian and he nods at them, a quick acknowledgment, then his attention comes right back to me.
“You ready?”
“Yeah.”
He leans in and kisses me again, and Damian makes a gagging sound behind us.
“Oh my god, get a room.”
Ryder smiles, but his eyes don’t leave mine. “We have one.”
Wyatt laughs under his breath. I bite my lip so I don’t smile too big.
Ryder’s hand stays at my back as he guides me out toward the truck.
“How was your day?” he asks, climbing in after me.
“Good,” I say. “We were busy, which is…weirdly nice.”
“Good.” He reaches over and takes my hand, lacing his fingers through mine, and smiles at me. “Missed you last night.”
“Yeah, missed you too,” I admit. And it’s true. Missing him doesn’t take anything away from the night I spent at Wyatt’s. It’s just that there’s more than one place I belong now. The price of having your heart split in four is that it’s rarely completely whole.
His thumb strokes once over my knuckles.
When we pull up to the house, the sight of it soothes and warms something in me as it always does.
This house. It was sanctuary before I’d even met its inhabitants. That cold night Billy had left me all alone in Hargrove’s car, spiked drink running through my veins, and I’d fled through the woods, running for hours…I still see the housesometimes the way it looked to me that night. Dark against the moonlit sky, imposing but welcome. A place to land.
And to think now, after all this time, it’s become home.
The kitchen light is on, casting a yellow square onto the gravel of the driveway, and inside it smells like garlic and rosemary.
“What’s for dinner?” I ask, as Ryder shrugs off his jacket and hangs it up.
“Roast chicken, potatoes, and green beans.”
I kick off my shoes and hang up my jacket beside his, following him to the kitchen. He opens the oven door and checks inside, releasing a waft of savory steam. Then he opens a cabinet, pulls down two glasses, and reaches for a bottle of wine.
