Off Limits (Secrets Kept 1)

For the second time, Grant walked away from his son.

“Sorry about that. You were saying?” Hutch continued on as if nothing was wrong, but from the looks on my family’s faces, he wasn’t fooling anyone. Least of all me.

23

Hutch

“Are you okay?” Ryder asked when we got home.

“I said I was fine the other three times you asked me, and I’m fine now too,” I snapped, immediately wishing I could take the words back.

“Hey, I get that you’re upset, and you have every right to be, but don’t take it out on me. I’m doing my best, Hutch. I’m trying to be there for you the only way I know how.”

He was right. I knew that, and the last person I wanted to be a jerk to was him, but he was there, and I was so damn angry…so hurt. It was easy to lash out at him, but the one I was upset with was myself.

Ryder opened the fridge and pulled a beer out. I closed my eyes and dropped my head back against the wall, gently knocked it against the surface a few times. “I’m sorry. It’s just…a lot right now.” It felt like everything was coming to a head inside me—being with Ryder’s family tonight, seeing Maddy, who’d left without speaking to me, the run-in with my father. “I’m gonna take a shower before bed.”

“Do you want me to go home? It’s okay if you do. I won’t take it personally.”

I shrugged as the word no echoed through my head, getting softer and softer but not completely going away.

“Hutch…you gotta help me out here. I know you’re hurting, and fuck, baby, I’m so sorry about that, but shutting me out isn’t the answer either.”

I was screwing this up. I wasn’t good at this. I hadn’t really let myself open up to anyone other than Ryder, and…no matter how upset I was, I didn’t want him to leave. I didn’t want to hurt him or lose him.

I pushed off the wall, walked over, and rested my forehead against his shoulder. “Stay.”

“Okay, whatever you want. Go shower. I’ll finish this beer, feed Raph, and then I’ll be in.”

“Thank you.”

Ryder nodded and looked at me, his eyes filled with sadness. He felt like this was his fault; I could see that, but it wasn’t. In reality, he didn’t owe my sister anything. Not the way I did. But when I opened my mouth to say so, nothing would come out.

Raph ran over to him and began to rub against his leg.

“Still a traitor, I see,” I joked, because it was all I could manage. It earned me a small grin from Ryder.

I went to my room, got the shower going, and stripped out of my clothes. I was in there a long time, washing up and then lingering until my fingers and toes were pruned, as if the hot water could wash away the hurt.

Then I got out, dried off, and went into the room in a towel. Ryder was already in bed, looking at his phone, the blankets pulled up to his waist. Raphael slept at the foot of the mattress.

I tugged a pair of boxer briefs on, then lay down beside him.

“It’s early, but I’m beat,” Ryder said. I could tell he was trying to work through what he should say, if anything at all. It was shitty of me to put him in that situation.

“Me too,” I replied.

“I’ll get the light.”

The lamp on his side of the bed was on, so he turned it off. When the room was dark, we settled in, nothing but the sound of our breathing around us. The silence stretched on until it felt like it was sucking me in, taking me over, and I just wanted…him. So I scooted closer. Ryder opened his arms for me, and I let him hold me. My head rested on his shoulder, his fingers in my hair.

“What am I going to do with you?” he asked.

“Spoil me and tell me I’m pretty? Also, for the rest of our relationship, keep in mind that I’m always right.” It was the laugh we both needed, before falling quiet again.

Ryder’s breathing evened out before mine. I just lay there, hand on his pec, touching, drawing, feeling. Unable to sleep. I counted every time his chest rose, then when I got bored of that, each of his heartbeats. It went from early to late, and my eyes were grainy but wouldn’t close. Eventually, Ryder had rolled away from me, his back to my chest, lost in sleep I couldn’t manage to catch.

I could make sense of why I was upset about losing Maddy. And on the surface, my pain over my dad made sense too, but in other ways…it wasn’t as if we’d ever been close. I’d always tried, and whatever I did was never enough for him. There had never been a time in my life when he was satisfied with me or wasn’t hard on me, so why was this breaking me so damn much?