Surrendering Series Box Set

“Thank you so much. I completely forgot to buy paper. I was just going to use shitty notebook paper. This is so much better, Sloane.” It would be crazy to record his voice saying my name, right?

“You’re welcome,” I said as Lucah and Rory stared at me.

“I got you something too, but you’ll get it later,” Ryder said, leaning across the table and whispering. Wait, what?

He saw the look on my face and chuckled.

“It’s not what you’re thinking. You have such a dirty mind, S. Harris.”

I kicked him under the table.

“Only when I’m around you. You’re corrupt and it rubs off on me.”

“I’d like to rub off on you,” he said with a wink. I waited for Lucah to tell him that we were in public and he should tone it down, but he didn’t.

“Go on, get it out of your system. You’re going to have no one to talk to but the trees soon,” Lucah said, almost looking a little smug.

“Go ahead, get that out of your system,” Ryder countered. “I’m not going to be around for you to blame shit on and pretend to be all superior to. Whatever will you do with your time?” He meant it as a joke, but there was an edge of truth to it that cut just a little too deep. We were all silent.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to go dark on you. Forget what I said.”

Lucah was quiet for a minute and then he smiled.

“Forgotten,” he said.

They went back to ribbing each other as brothers are wont to do. I wished that I could have seen them with Tate and have the whole Blythe trifecta together, but April was still sick. She was doing better, but Tate needed to be home to give her a break from the girls.

“You know, when you finish, we should have a party,” Rory said.

“Yeah?” Ryder said. “You’d do that?”

“Sure, of course,” she said. “We need to celebrate this!” Rory was very fond of parties. So was I.

“This is totally happening,” I chimed in.

“Okay, sounds good. But no candles or formal shit,” he said.

“Got that? No candles or formal shit,” I said to Rory.

“Message received. I think we can come up with something casual and fun. Maybe you’d want to invite your friend Gil?” she said.

“You could have it at the gallery,” I suggested. That would be a super cool place to have a party. I didn’t know Gil, but I bet he’d be up to letting us use it for a few hours.

“I don’t know,” Ryder said. “Maybe. We’ll see.” He didn’t seem to want to talk about it. Perhaps because he was doubting that he’d make it through the program. He would. I knew he would this time. If he didn’t, he was going to lose everything. Ryder was stubborn. He wouldn’t let his inner demons take us away from him.

~*~*~

Ryder called me that night a few minutes after I got home.

“Hey,” I said, wondering why he was calling me since we’d just spent several hours together.

“Hang up and don’t answer when I call back. Let it go to voicemail. And don’t you dare listen to it until tomorrow,” he said.

“Okayyyy,” I said, wondering what he was up to. I was definitely going to listen to the message as soon as I could. I’d lie. He wouldn’t know. He was leaving.

He hung up on me then called back a moment later. I didn’t answer it per his request. A few minutes later my phone let me know I had a new voicemail. It was followed by a text message.

You’d better not listen to it. I’ll know if you do before I go. Don’t do it.