Aideen (Slater Brothers)(51)
“Damn it, Branna,” Ryder complained when he got into the driver’s seat. “Don’t take your bad mood out on my car.”
Fuck you and your stupid car.
“I wouldn’t be in a bad mood had you not said somethin’ so …”
“So what?”
“Insensitive!” I finished.
“Insensitive,” Ryder repeated and turned his body to face me. “How is me saying you’re jealous of Bronagh having a girl insensitive?”
I couldn’t even look at him.
“You aren’t stupid. Think about it and I’m sure you’ll realise why.”
Ryder didn’t move a muscle as he continued to stare at me.
“You are jealous,” he murmured then gasped. “You want a baby?”
I looked out the window, not answering him.
“Branna,” he pressed. “You want a baby?”
Without looking at him I said, “I’ve wanted a baby for years, I just never said anythin’ to you to push the issue because so much bullshit has happened to our families, and being the oldest pair we had to push everythin’ aside and make sure everyone was okay. We’re the parental figures. We make sure everyone else is doin’ good before we even consider lookin’ at our own needs.”
Ryder was silent as I spoke so I pressed on.
“You know I love kids and I probably would have had a few before I met you, but havin’ a life was put on hold when me parents died. I had to focus on Bronagh, not me, her. Bein’ a midwife was me dream, it’s the one thing I allowed meself to want. It’s why I worked me arse off to become one in me late twenties whilst raisin’ a bratty teenager.”
I glanced at him as he continued to remain silent.
“Do you think we’re at a point where we should have a kid?” he asked, and I heard the doubt laced throughout his voice.
It killed me, but I agreed with him.
“No, we aren’t in the position to raise a dog, let alone a child.”
Ryder faced forward and jammed his key into the ignition and started up his car.
“Besides,” he quipped, “we’d actually have to fuck in order to get you pregnant.”
His anger was expected.
I flattened my hands out on my thighs and resisted the urge to ball them into fists.
“We probably would if you didn’t go off every single night to do God knows what.”
The silent ‘or who’ was implied, but the words never left my lips because I was terrified if it turned out to be a ‘who’ that was the reason for him leaving every night.
I didn’t think I would be able to handle that, and decided I was better off not knowing. My sister, and the other girls, would smack me around for resorting to this way of thinking, but they didn’t know what my home life or relationship with Ryder was like.
They thought they knew, but they didn’t.
“Don’t feed me that bullshit,” Ryder growled as he pulled out of the space. “I’m home a lot and you still never put out. You left our bed to sleep up in Dominic’s old room, the furthest away from me that you can be in our house.”
I felt disgusted.
“Me purpose on this Earth isn’t to fuck you whenever you see fit.”
“No,” Ryder agreed, “but it’d be nice if I could hit it at least once a fucking week. I haven’t touched you in months. I’d settle for fucking spooning at this point.”
He spoke of me like I was nothing more than a sexual object.
“And whose fault is that?” I bellowed, throwing my hands in the air. “You’ve pulled away from me. We don’t talk, we don’t laugh, we don’t do anythin’ but fight with one another and it’s your bloody fault. You have landed us in this rut, and the sad thing is I don’t even know why! I don’t know what you do when you leave the house every night, or why you’re always on your phone, and it’s pathetic that I’ve just accepted it, but I’m too tired. I fight with you all the time, I’m too exhausted to do anythin’ else.”
I turned my head and looked out the window of the car, willing the tears in my eyes not to fall. I didn’t want to cry, I was sick of crying.
“I’ve told you I’m takin’ care of some things. That’s all you need to know.”
I closed my eyes, gutted he still wouldn’t share his secrets with me.
“I don’t believe you, Ryder.”
“Then I don’t know what to tell you, Branna.”