Resisting Ryder(8)

“Ryder, you’re family,” Stormy reminded him. She was starting to trust him, little by little. “Of course I’d let you stay here. Don’t feel like you have to pay me back or that you owe me or something.”

Ryder cocked his head and looked at her with a funny smile for a second.

“There aren’t a lot of people like you where I come from,” he said. “Everyone’s always out to get something, especially when you have the power that they don’t have. There are no favors. No free lunches. This is refreshing.”

Stormy didn’t know what to say. She was just trying to be herself. It was the way she was raised.

“I hate to be rude, but I’ve got to get a little bit of work done,” he said as he ran out of the room. He returned with his laptop, cracked it open, fired it up, and continued shoveling bites of food into his mouth as he clicked around and opened various websites and spreadsheets. “Hope you don’t mind if I multitask here.”

“I completely understand,” Stormy said. She tried not to stare at his computer screen, but she couldn’t help herself. She took great satisfaction knowing he wasn’t lying to her about his work being boring. Nothing on his screen jumped out at her or made her even remotely want to know more about what he did. She was just amazed at the fact that he was some sort of biker business man. She’d never heard of such a thing, and it impressed her more than she cared to admit.

Ryder didn’t try to hide his screen or turn it away, even though it was completely obvious that Stormy was looking on. She liked that about him. He wasn’t secretive.

She finished her meal and took her dish to the sink to rinse it off before heading out to the living room. The night was young, she was no longer tired, and she didn’t know what to do. She sat in the quiet, dark living room alone with her thoughts. She didn’t feel like hanging out with Brooklyn, she didn’t want to talk to her parents, and she didn’t feel it would be even remotely appropriate to contact Hayden.

She leaned back on the couch and crossed her legs as her foot twitched with wild vigor. She sat, lost in thought, until the light was suddenly switched on.

“You just going to sit here in the dark?” Ryder laughed. He plopped down on the couch right next to her with his laptop still open.

“Sorry,” she said. “Kind of in my own little world these days.”

“Don’t apologize, Stormy,” he scoffed. “You’ve got nothing to be sorry for. Nothing at all.”

His eyes were glued to his screen as he was still clicking around and pulling up various documents.

“Still working?” she asked.

“Almost done,” he said. “Okay. Done.”

He closed the lid to the laptop and sat it down on the coffee table before leaning back on the couch, both of his strong arms spread wide against the back.

“I like it here,” he said. “I feel like a part of Jett is here. It feels like home to me.”

“I can tell,” Stormy teased.

“I missed out on so much of his life,” he said. “And for what?”

“It’s not your fault,” Stormy said. “You can blame that on Misty.”

“Yeah,” he shrugged. “I can. But I also could’ve tried harder. Shit. He was just a kid when I walked out of here and never looked back. Brothers don’t do that to each other.”

“So back to how you found out that Jett was married,” Stormy said as she cut to the chase. “How did you find out exactly?”

Ryder bit his lip. “I have my sources.”

“Did he contact you?” she asked.

Ryder looked down and hesitated. “Yeah.”

“Really?”

“He actually asked me to be his best man,” he admitted. “I regret more than anything in the world that I turned him down.”

“That’s really shitty,” Stormy said as she crossed her arms. “Why’d you turn him down?”

“I had my reasons,” he said. “Too many reasons that seemed legit at the time. Now I know it was just my pride.”

Stormy shook her head in judgment.

“I guess I was also kind of jealous that he had found someone to love him,” he said. “My whole life I’ve been searching for the kind of love that Jett said he found.”

“What do you mean?”

“Think about his life before you,” he continued. “Running around with shady people, being controlled by Misty and having all his money go to her. He meets a nice young, pretty girl like you and everything changed. He was trying to turn his MC club legit so he could give you a nice, normal life and support the family he wanted to have with you. He wanted to have the family that we never had. He wanted you to be the mother of his kids. Where I’m from, that’s big. That means something.”