Why on earth had I dated him? I couldn’t see a single reason anymore.
But it was true. I’d been surrounded by enablers nearly my entire life.
I thought about enablers and worrying the rest of the day, and even when Lucah and I rode the T home. He probably sensed that I was thinking too much and let me for a while. It was almost magical how he could sense my needs.
“I love you,” I said, leaning against him as we walked back up to the street from the underground world of the subway tunnels.
“I know. And I love you, too. I will never ever get tired of saying it. So do you want to talk about what’s been occupying your thoughts? Or do you want me to bring up something else?”
That actually reminded me of the text I’d sent Marisol, which was a much happier subject, and one I wouldn’t mind discussing.
“Actually, I have something. I was thinking that we should invite Tate and April to Marisol’s benefit. It would be great if we could get all the Blythe men together. Since things are going well now and all.” I waited to see what his reaction would be.
“I think . . . ” he said, keeping me in suspense for a moment, “I think that’s a great idea and I wish I would have thought of it. The tickets are expensive though. And with them having a new baby—” I interrupted him.
“Already taken care of. I got their tickets when I got ours. I hope they don’t think that’s charity. Well, charity for charity.” I started giggling and couldn’t stop. The stress had really gotten to me and I was at the point where things that weren’t normally funny became funny.
Lucah chuckled with me, but it wasn’t as humorous to him.
“I’ll explain it to them. I don’t think they’ll mind.”
Good.
A grin spread on his face. “Look at you, trying to put my family back together. Where were you back when we were falling apart?”
I made a face like I was really thinking about it. “Sitting around and waiting for you to find me.” I’d been working. Working and hanging out with Sloane and Marisol and Chloe. Having dinners with my parents. Earlier, I’d been wasting my time with King Douchebag. Other than that, what did I do with myself? Not much of consequence.
“No, you’re not the kind of girl who sits around and waits. I wish I would have found you sooner. But you might not have liked me very much. Ryder is a prince compared to how I was. Remember how I said I’m an asshole on that first night? I was an asshole ALL the time. It was . . . it was a bad time for me.” It was so hard to imagine him any different than he was now. But it would probably be hard for him to imagine me the same way.
Not that I had changed much over the years. Or at least I didn’t think so. I was more of a bitch than I used to be, that was for sure. My attitude had been honed over several years of dealing with BS. I also hoped I’d grown wiser, and I knew for a fact that I had better fashion sense. Most of that was due to Sloane, though.
“Now you’re making me feel bad that I don’t have a time machine to go back and be with you,” I said.
“If I could make it happen for you, I would.” I spent the rest of the walk back to our place thinking about time machines, which was a nice change from worrying and stressing.
~*~*~
Tate and April agreed to the charity event, and were over the moon that they didn’t have to buy tickets. I chatted a bit with April on the phone, and she started talking about dresses and so on and how they’d have to get someone to watch the girls.
“You have no idea how long it has been since I had adult time. The only downside is the not drinking. I’d kill for a glass of wine. Literally. Would kill.”
She really wanted some wine.
“Well, I can’t do anything about the wine, but I can help you with the night out part.”
She sighed.
“That’s as good as it’s going to get, I suppose. Still, it will be nice, even if I can’t have wine.” We talked some more about dresses and shoes and everything was all set. We had two and a half weeks until the event, but there was one thing standing in the way of my enjoyment of getting to go.
Friday. The Board meeting. Dad had said he wanted to warn me, but really all he’d done was set me into panic mode. I did a lot better than I would have before a few months ago, but I still wasn’t able to put it out of my mind completely. Sex was really the only time when my thoughts were consumed by something else. As a result, I couldn’t keep my hands off Lucah.
Ryder had turned a corner and could often be found borrowing one of our laptops to fill out job applications, and he was always off for interviews and so forth. Lucah and I both helped him with his résumé. As a result of having to leave off so much of his work experience because he’d gotten fired from so many jobs, we padded it a little with his other skills.
“Is saying ‘fuck’ a skill? Because I’m fucking good at that,” he said one afternoon as I was checking it, yet again. I was typing and he kept hovering over my shoulder and making comments. It was beyond irritating.
“Sorry, but no. You must have some skills from all the jobs you’ve had.” He thought about that for a moment before answering.
“I gave my friend a tattoo once. It came out pretty good.”