Page 64 of Resist

“Oh, I still want that”—he chuckles—“but in time.”

I open my mouth to speak and then shut it as his words, his patience I don’t deserve, his kindness I don’t expect undoes something in me I can’t describe. The silence stretches across the connection as I try to process it all.

“Ryker?” It’s a plea, a question, a don’t hang up yet, all in one.

“Just be grateful you found a man patient enough to let you work through your issues.”

“But what’s in this for you?”

He’s silent until that soft chuckle fills the line again. It warms me. It turns me on. It confuses me because no one has ever been considerate of me before.

“Good night, Vaughn. I’ll be in touch.”

“There was no one in The Club tonight.” I can hear the sharp draw in of his breath. “I’ve never gone out with a client before. I’ve never slept with anyone for money.” The words stumble out in a flurry of explanation. “You’re the only one.”

More silence that eats at the tension.

“Good night, Vaughn.”

And when he hangs up, I sit and stare at the phone, wondering why I just confessed to a man I don’t really know.

Why I’ve opened up to him more than I have to anyone else since my sister died.

Why I want to see him . . .

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Vaughn

The park is beautiful. The sun is out, and people are playing around—tossing a Frisbee, having a picnic, lying on the grass and reading a book. There’s laughter and music and the rustle of the breeze through the trees overhead.

I’m content. How can I not be when I’m with the girl I love and outside on a gorgeous day?

“Look, Auntie Vee!”

I laugh when Lucy holds on to the handlebars for dear life but lifts her feet off the pedals of her bicycle. Then I warm from the pride that fills her face at being able to do something so simple, but something we worked on for a few weeks after she saw some other kids doing it.

She’s decked out in a princess shirt and brand-new light-up tennis shoes. Her silky brown hair is beneath a helmet that’s painted like a unicorn with the tassels on her handlebars matching its colors.

“You’re doing awesome! Look at you go!”

“I’m going to go around again!”

“Okay,” I say as she makes her way around a predetermined path that I can see the entirety of from where I sit but that makes her feel like a big kid doing it. Independence. It’s something I work on with her. No one knows yet if she’ll ever be able to live on her own someday, but you better be damn sure that I’m trying as hard as I can to let her live as normal a life as possible.

Just as she turns the first right on the path, I startle at the shade that falls as someone walks up and stands beside me. I look up, and thud goes my heart.

It’s the first time I’ve seen him since I got in the cab last week. No phone calls. No texts. No anything. But it’s definitely not the first time I’ve thought about him.

Nope. Because thinking about him? Yeah, that’s happened way more than I’d like to admit to myself.

Ryker’s standing before me. He’s shirtless, sweaty, and out of breath as he pulls his earbuds from his ears and flashes a smile that does funny things to my insides.

“Hi.”

“Hi,” I say, my eyes flickering between him and Lucy and back again, all while my pulse speeds up. “You’re jogging.”

Brilliant statement.