Resisting Ryder(16)

CHAPTER 6




Stormy awoke the next morning with a pulsing headache and a burning urge to throw up. She flung the covers off herself and ran down the hall forgetting, for a moment, why she was still in jeans. She wrapped her hands around her hair and pulled it behind her neck as she threw up the putrid remnants of the night before and watched them swirl down the toilet never to be seen again.

She rinsed her mouth out, splashed cool water on her face, and brushed her teeth before heading out to the living room. The house was eerily quiet, and as soon as she rounded the corner she saw nothing but an empty couch with perfectly folded blankets resting on a cushion. On top of the blankets was a note from Ryder.

She sunk down as she realized he had left early that morning. She didn’t even get to say goodbye, and she wasn’t sure if or when she’d ever see him again. She kicked herself for drinking the night before and passing out. Her fingers could hardly open the envelope fast enough.



Thanks for the hospitality. You’re a true gem, and my brother was lucky to have someone like you in his life. Please think about helping me. Take care, and I’ll be in touch soon.

-RJ



Stormy clutched the letter to her chest. That was all that was left of her short time with Ryder Jacks. Jett was gone forever, and Ryder may as well have been too. She enjoyed her time with him, probably a little too much, and it all came to an end in an instant. She was right back where she started; alone with her deepest, darkest thoughts.

She spent another week isolated and in mourning. The curtains drawn on every window in her house, bottles of sleeping pills to help her sleep all day when she wasn’t busy crying, and her phone turned off.

As if something came over her, she decided to call up Brooklyn to come over. She didn’t want to be alone with her thoughts another day. It had been almost two weeks now since Jett died. She didn’t want to spend another twenty-four hours holed up in her dark trailer, crying in her empty bed.

“Knock, knock,” Brooklyn called out as she walked in the door ten minutes later. “I’m glad you’re up for having company. I’ve been thinking about you all week, but I wanted to give you your space.”

The girls sat down on the couch across from one another. Brooklyn sipped on her energy drink as she tried to get a read on Stormy.

“You look like you have a lot on your mind right now,” Brooklyn observed. “Speak, girl.”

Stormy smiled as she appreciated Brooklyn’ candor in that awkward moment. “So Wednesday night, this guy showed up at my door.”

“What?” Brooklyn said as she sat up. “Keep going.”

“It was Jett’s brother,” she said with a squinting face as she waited for Brooklyn’ reaction.

“Are you kidding me? I didn’t know he had a brother,” she said as she slapped the back of the couch with her hand. “Was he for real? How do you know he was really his brother?”

“He was the spitting image of Jett,” she sighed. “Only a little bigger. He’s a little taller, a little more muscular, but yeah, same face, same hair, same eyes.”

“Weird,” Brooklyn said as she concentrated on Stormy’s face. “Was he nice to you?”

“Very,” she replied without hesitation. “Almost too nice. But he wasn’t weird or anything. We were just oddly comfortable around each other. It was nice having him around. Kind of felt like hanging out with an older, more outspoken Jett.”

“Yeah, Jett always was kind of reserved,” Brooklyn noted.

“Ryder is more of a cut-to-the-chase kind of guy,” Stormy continued. “Jett was more of a piece-the-puzzle-together and read-between-the-lines kind of guy. And that’s great. That’s who he was. But it was kind of nice how outgoing Ryder was.”

Brooklyn stared at Stormy again.

“Why are you looking at me that way,” she said.

“Just the way you talk about Ryder,” she said. “Do you have something for him?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Stormy snapped. “Jett’s been dead less than two weeks. I’m not falling for his brother.”

“I didn’t say you were,” she said. “There’s just something different about you when you talk about him. Your face kind of lights up.”

Stormy hadn’t realized it. She had felt a tiny bit of attraction towards him, but she chalked that up to his resemblance to her late husband. She tried to ignore it. It was too soon. She was still grieving, she told herself. No one moves on that fast.

“I guess he just felt like home to me,” she said with her head held low. “It was like Jett had come back to me, only healthier. It sounds so silly to say it out loud.”