I shouldn't have been able to sleep.
With my usual cycle of anxiety, any minor little hiccup in life left me tossing and turning and obsessing about it for hours on end until my body was too tired to let my brain keep it awake anymore.
But there I was after a day, actually a week, from hell and I was floating off as happy as a swaddled baby.
It was many of the things I would need to think on. Eventually.
The slam of Ryan's door had me mostly awake and I sent him a sleepy smile as his hand went to my thigh and squeezed.
Then we were driving.
And everything was fine.
Until we passed our apartment building and I remembered.
"Stop," I hissed, shooting upward in my seat.
"Honey, what's the..."
"Oh, God. Okay. Alright. Um... phone. I need your phone."
"Okay," he said, pulling the car over and handing it to me from his pocket. "Here. But what's going on?"
"How could I forget?" I cursed myself, stabbing the number into the phone and hitting dial. "He probably has a freaking police report filed already," I added.
"Your uncle," Ryan concluded as I just listened to the ring.
"Answer your phone," I growled at it as it went to voicemail. I hung up and hit dial again. Nothing.
"Dusty, what's his address?" Ryan asked calmly, making my mouth part slightly and a weird, hysterical little laugh to escape me.
Address.
Right.
Because we could just... drive there.
It had been so long since that was my reality I had actually forgotten there was another way to contact him than by phone.
So I gave Ryan the address, just three streets over, and we pulled up out front a house that had literally not changed a bit since I had been there. The brick was red and power-washed as it always was. The shutters, molding, and doors were all a crisp white because my uncle believed in keeping up his place.
I felt a surge of nostalgia as we each reached for our handles in unison, as Ryan took my hand as we walked up the path, as I raised my hand to knock. A weird little giddiness bubbled in my belly, excited at the idea of him being able to see me functioning again, out of my apartment again.
The outdoor light flicked on and the door pulled open.
And there was my Uncle Danny.
There was a similarity looks wise.
He was tall and somewhat thin with his blond hair cut somewhat fashionably with a sharp undercut and brushed back on the top. He had green eyes like mine, but a little darker. Always the casual sort, he was in jeans and a white tee.
"Jesus Christ!" he exploded as soon as his eyes landed on me. There wasn't even a hesitation before he reached out and dragged me against his body, wrapping me up tight. It was the kind of affection he didn't often offer me and was therefore evidence of how worried he had been. "Your apartment was destroyed," he said into my hair.
"I was robbed a couple days ago," I admitted, feeling guilt well up strong. While he had been all I had in the world for a long time, it also went to follow that I was all he really had either. At least when it came to close relationships.
"You're out," he said, as if realizing the significance of that for the first time, pulling backward, looking me over. His face went hard and I realized I still had scratches and bruising and a bit of swelling. "Your face."
"I was obviously home when they broke in," I supplied, hating myself for not giving the whole truth but understanding there would be a time and place for that and that this was not it. "They weren't shy in the hitting women department. Luckily for me, Ryan stepped in," I said, pulling back and gesturing toward him, making my uncle's eyes go there for the first time. "Ryan, this is my uncle, Danny. Uncle Danny, Ryan."
They shook hands and did that manly assessing each other thing for a minute. "I owe you one," my uncle said, giving him a nod.
"Think I owe you more," Ryan said, making both mine and my uncle's brows draw together in confusion. But then Ryan's arm moved out and went around my lower back, pulling me to his side.
"I see," Uncle Danny said, giving him a nod. "Well, come on in. I need to hear where the hell you were when I stopped by."
He invited us in and I almost laughed when I realized the similarities between Ryan and Danny's places. They both said 'bachelor' with their dark tones and resistance to all things knick-knack.
"Any chance you'd be the Ryan who lives across the hall from Dusty?" he asked, moving across the floor and going into the fridge, grabbing three beers and passing them out.
"That'd be me."
"I'd apologize for all the 'Sorry We Missed You' slips, but you never clear out your fucking mailbox."
"Fair enough," Ryan agreed, chuckling slightly when he took the beer from my hands that I couldn't twist the cap off of and did it himself.
"This new?" Uncle Danny asked, waving between us as he sat back in his chair.
One thing I had always appreciated about my uncle as I aged up and started dating was... he never went all 'dad' on me or my boyfriends. In fact, when I was about sixteen, he had tossed a box of condoms on my bed and informed me, "I know you're gonna date. Do yourself and your old uncle a favor and make sure it's always safe."
That was it.
He never tried to scare away boys who came to pick me up or even question them. He just went with it, understanding it was just a part of life. I wasn't a little girl anymore and I would do what I wanted regardless of his opinions. So he kept them to himself.
"Yeah," I admitted, nodding.
"Since Christmas," Ryan added with a nod.
Danny nodded, taking a pull from his bottle. "Alright, how long have you been leaving your apartment without me knowing and why haven't you told me?"
I felt myself smile at the abrupt change in conversation. The 'getting to know the boyfriend' phase was over.
"I guess since the day before New Years Eve," I supplied, figuring it was as close to the truth as possible. "But then it was just... across the hall because my apartment was, well, trashed."
Danny nodded, accepting that. "What about today?"
Ryan looked to me, one brow raised the slightest bit like he was wondering what I was going to come up with that wouldn't worry him. "I was meeting Ryan's sisters-in law and then he and Bry and I went out for a... drive. Then I remembered I never called you and we stopped here. I'm so sorry I made you worry."
"Ace, whatever worry I went through was fucking worth it to see you standing at my door."
I felt my heart squeeze hard in my chest at that and, not able to stop myself, I flew at him, landing in his lap like the little girl I used to be always did. And his arms went around me like they always had- a bit tentative at first but then tight and reassuring.
"I don't think I have ever thanked you for always being there for me," I told him, my voice low. I knew I would probably tell Ryan about it at some point, but the moment right then was for me and my uncle.
"You got nothing to thank me for, kid."
"I don't just mean when I was little, though there is that too. I mean the past few years. I know it wasn't easy for you to watch me struggle. And you and Bry... you were the only ones who stuck by me. I really appreciated it more than I ever told you."
"Stop," he said, always the type to be uncomfortable with overtly emotional displays. Maybe that was something I had picked up from him. "That's family," he added, shrugging it off. "Now, up," he demanded, patting me, obviously having had enough affection to last the day or month or year.
We talked for a couple more minutes, finished our beers, then said our goodbyes. It was late and my uncle had to be up at the crack of dawn.
"He likes you," I told Ryan as we got in the car and pulled away.
"We barely talked, honey," he said, shaking his head.
"I know. But he's not all that talkative anyway. Besides, you are who got me out of my apartment."
"Because of a gas leak and an assault and then a kidnapping," he said, looking over for a second with a wry smile.
"Yes well, he doesn't know that, does he?" I added with my own smirk as we pulled up into the lot of the hotel.
Ryan parked and came around the car to me. There was a brief, nauseating stab of discomfort as we walked past the spot where I had been taken. As if sensing it, his hand reached for mine and squeezed it tight. He didn't let go until we were safely behind the penthouse door.
"Bath?" he asked, already knowing my rhythms.
"God, yes," I admitted, wanting to wash a day full of fear and worry and other mens' hands off of me.
"Company?" he asked, cocking his head to the side. "Can't promise I will keep my hands to myself," he added, eyes going a little heated.
"Can't promise I won't enjoy that," I added, smiling.
I'd never bathed with a man before. Showered, sure. But usually it was a rushed 'we are both late and need to get to work and stop hogging all the freaking hot water' unsexy kind of thing. I had never been much for baths in my old life. I had too much going on, not enough time to laze about in a tub. Plus, my tub sucked.
I had a feeling though as I moved in and filled the tub, dropping bombs in and watching as flower petals drifted out across the water, smiling a little wistfully, that I would really enjoy it.