He hadn’t been happy in LA.
I didn’t want him to go.
“Dunno,” I said again, sipping my ginger ale. Considering the way my stomach was starting to hurt, I probably needed it.
Ryder had been miserable in LA. Not as miserable as I’d been, but in a different way. A defeated way. Like he’d just accepted that it’d stolen some of his happiness and that was the price he had to pay for being there.
Thinking about him going back to that made my guts hurt. I wanted him to keep this happiness, I wanted the Ryder I’d always known back. I wanted himhere.
I loved him.
“I love him,” I said aloud.
“I know,” Liz responded, sipping her own drink.
“No, I mean…” I looked at Ryder again—captured by Maisie’s dinosaur impression, begging for his life—and then met Liz’s eyes. “I love him.”
Liz’s expression softened. “I know, Ward,” she said. “It’s written all over your face when you look at him.”
That obvious, huh?
I took a breath to say that I didn’t want him to go, that I hated how selfish that made me sound, how selfish it made mefeel. How I’d always wanted Ryder’s career to come first, how I’d wanted him to live his dream, but I didn’t think the dream was a dream anymore and I wished he could see it and that I was afraid of saying it and hurting him.
Before I could get any of that out, Ryder came swooping up onto the deck, twirling Maisie around once and then setting her down gently, reaching out to adjust the plastic tiara she was wearing.
“My lady,” he said, bowing deeply with a flourish that made Maisie giggle. “As your most trusted adviser, I think I should tell you that it’s time to wash up for dinner.”
“You’re not my ad… adv…,” Maisie scrunched up her nose as she gave up on trying to getadviserout. “You’re a princess too.”
“I am?” Ryder asked, smiling fondly at her. Already. After maybe an hour.
Maisie had that effect on people. The first time I’d held her she had to be pried back out of my arms.
“Duh. You’re Ward’s princess,” she said, pointing at me. “He needs one. He’s all alone.”
Ryder looked over at me, and for just a second, his expression changed. The smile was back a heartbeat later, and his attention was back on Maisie.
“He’s got you, doesn’t he? And mama and mommy, and Charlie. And his dad. Even Seth.”
“It’s not the same,” Maisie said. “You’re different.”
Ryder smiled wryly. “Well, you’re not wrong about that,” he said. “But it’s still time for you to wash up.”
“You too,” Maisie said.
Ryder looked at me, and I shrugged. “She’s right. You’ve been playing in the dirt too.”
“No, you’re right. Where’s the bathroom?” Ryder asked Liz.
“Second door on the left at the top of the stairs. There’s a sign on the door, you can’t miss it.”
“Okay then,” Ryder said, turning back to Maisie. “Piggyback?”
Her eyes lit up like all her Christmases had come at once. Ryder had a knack with kids, tiny to teenage. The two of them laughed the whole way inside and up the stairs, and I listened until the bathroom door squealed open and closed, making a mental note to grease the hinges before I left.
“I would’ve said you were his charming prince,” Liz said.
I snorted, breathing a sigh of relief as Sandy called us inside to help set the table.
