Ryder waits patiently, giving me the space to decide.
That patience shatters my last paper-thin barrier, and an unexpected clarity sweeps over me.
23
RYDER
I dangle my feet over the lake, projecting calm while Faye sits beside me with the power to either make me the happiest man on the planet or destroy me. Her eyes go to the water as she wrestles with her answer.
The silence stretches. My heart is doing its best impression of a jackhammer, but I keep my expression open. I won’t rush her, even though every second she leaves me hanging is agony.
Finally, she meets my eyes. “Now that Rhys isn’t my student anymore, I’m free to be with you.” She pauses, and I hold my breath. “And I want to.”
Relief crashes through me so forcefully that I nearly pull her into my lap right then. Instead, I squeeze her hand, letting myself hope, wish, dream, and want for the first time in years.
“But relationships haven’t always been easy for me,” she continues, “and you haven’t told me what else the therapist said.”
Right, now comes the tough part. The one she might not enjoy hearing. But for myself, for my son, I have to lay it all out from the start. Faye has to come into this with her eyes wide open or not at all.
“Dr. Agard pointed out that I know very little about you, your past, and why you ended up in Blue Crescent Harbor. If you’re even staying.”
She winces. “I’m not moving back to Los Angeles, ever.”
I smile despite the tension. “See? Until now, I only knew you came from California, not LA specifically. You shield up whenever I bring up your past,” I say gently. “But I need us to be real with each other. To go deep, not just skim the surface.”
“I am being real. I don’t talk about that chapter of my life only because it’s over.”
“If it’s over, why not talk about it?”
Faye looks down at our joined fingers. “Because it’s messy and complicated, and sometimes it still hurts.”
“Okay.” I nod. “But I’m going to need more. I’ve established with Dr. Agard that my biggest holdup in a relationship is trust. I need to know that I can trust you, and that you trust me back. That we can be honest even when it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard.” I pause, making sure she’s hearing me. “The thing that broke me with Abby wasn’t that she left, it was that I never saw it coming. That she was carrying something heavy and never let me in. I can’t do that again. I need to know what’s going on, good or bad.”
“So what do you want to know?”
“Everything, anything. Why did you leave LA?”
She sighs, a heavy sound that carries a lot of weight. “A few years back, I got involved with a coworker. Things didn’t work out, and after I broke it off, he made things unbearable at work and even out of the office. So much in fact that I had to leave.”
Anger flares in my chest at the thought of someone making her life hell, but I reel that rage in. Fury is not what we need now. “Was it with a teacher at a different school?”
“I wasn’t teaching back then. I got my certification when I graduated, but then went down a different path. Rhys’s class was actually my first.”
My smile turns bittersweet. She’s given me another piece of the puzzle, but she’s still holding back. “What were you doing then?” I ask. And since I can sense her retreating, I add, “You’re being cagey again. Not giving anything away.”
“I know. But it’s hard for me to talk about that time.” She traces a fingertip along the seam of her leggings. “In LA, I was a video game developer. And I was really good at it.”
Ah, now the triple monitor setup at her house makes sense.
I take in her Super Mario T-shirt and can’t help but tease her. “How much of a nerd are we talking?”
She smiles back, some of the tension easing from her shoulders. “You’re not into nerds?”
I tap her nose. “Just the one.”
Her eyes spark at the admission, but her expression returns serious quickly. “I promise my past will not come back for us. And I won’t flee somewhere else. I moved to Blue Crescent Harbor to start over. To disappear. And I told myself I was done with men. That I’d never let anyone close enough to hurt me.”
A protective instinct rises in me, sharp and immediate. I want to know who this man is. Want his name, his address, and five minutes alone with him in a dark alley.
