Dark Surrendering

  “What are you doing here?” I wasn’t expecting Ryder. He hadn’t called or texted or given any indication he was going to stop by. Yet here he was, wearing one of the outfits I’d made him with a pair of worn brown boots that somehow matched everything perfectly.

  The clothes fit as good as they did yesterday and were still pressed and looking nice.

  “I thought I’d come by and see if you maybe wanted to do dinner or something. Figured I’d start trying to pay you back for the clothes. What do you think?” He spun around on his heel and then proceeded to do a moonwalk.

  “I didn’t know you could moonwalk,” I said as he spun back around.

  “Yup. Used to do it in the kitchen when I was a kid. It drove my mom nuts. But my dad was a huge MJ fan and was always playing his music. I can do the crotch grab too, if you’d like to see that.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “I think I’ll have to pass,” I said. “Um, I’m kind of working on Rory’s dress. I just started cutting and I was going to pin it all together.” I didn’t want to be rude, but Rory was part of my life before Ryder.

  “No, that’s fine. I should have said something ahead of time instead of being all spontaneous. I’m not very good at the whole planning thing. But I’m trying to get better.”

  “I’m really sorry. That’s really sweet of you.” Ugh, I felt like a bitch.

  “How about this. I can hang out and keep you company while you work, and you’ll have incentive to work faster, and then I can maybe take you out to a later dinner?” He didn’t give up that easily. I had to admire that persistence.

  I tried not to agree too quickly.

  “That might be okay. Come on.” I stepped aside and let him in, wishing he was in front of me so I could watch him walk in those jeans. It had to be a beautiful thing. My jeans were so lucky.

  “That’s a nice color,” he said, brushing a scrap of material.

  “Thanks. It was Inari’s idea, actually. This is what it’s going to look like,” I said, showing him the final sketch. “It’s for their anniversary,” I added. “But don’t tell your brother or else I’ll use your eyeballs for pincushions.”

  He shuddered and stepped away from the table.

  “I wouldn’t dare.” He grabbed one of the intern’s stools and sat on it, folding his hands as if he was worried about touching anything.

  “How was work?” I asked, feeling weird about having him there sitting and waiting for me.

  “Shit. People are disgusting. I’m not meant to work in food service.” I looked at him over my shoulder. He was leaning back on the stool, defying the laws of gravity.

  “Well, then you can cross that one off your list. I’ve heard this saying that in order to find out what you do want to do, you start with what you don’t want to do,” I said, starting to cut the fabric. I loved the sound of cutting fabric. I was weird like that.

  “Well, I don’t want to work in a restaurant. And I don’t want to be a drug dealer. So that’s two things right there.”

  I looked up and smiled at him.

  “See? You’re making progress. Was being a drug dealer really even a possibility anyway?”

  He tipped forward in the chair.

  “Yeah, it was. Before.” He was probably talking about before he’d OD’d. Or at least I assumed. “I mean, I wasn’t a dealer or anything, but I sold things here and there. Most of my friends were dealers and were always trying to get me into it. Something always stopped me, though. Don’t know what.”

  I went back to cutting.

  “Common sense? Not wanting to go to jail?” I said, keeping my eyes on the fabric. I had to cut it precisely or else the dress wouldn’t look right. And I didn’t buy extra material in case I screwed up. I used to, but I didn’t anymore. Cut once.

  “You might have noticed that I don’t exactly have a whole lot of common sense. And that isn’t something you can just figure out. You either have it or you don’t.” He was being too hard on himself. He might not have common sense, but he had street smarts, and that wasn’t something you came by easily. You had to work for that.

  “Or maybe you don’t think you do, but you do. Maybe you’re underestimating yourself.” I finished the first piece and set it aside so I could cut the rest.

  “Maybe you think I’m much smarter than I actually am.”

  I looked up at him. “What? You’re so much more than you give yourself credit for,” I didn’t mean to be all hoorah-life-coach, but it made me mad when he was down on himself. “But if you want to throw yourself a fucking pity party, go ahead. The door is that way,” I said, pointing with my scissors.

  He held both his hands up in surrender. “Whoa. Be careful where you’re pointing those things. I yield, I yield.”

  That made me laugh. If I was ever going to get this done, I was going to have to focus, so I went back to cutting. Ryder got off his chair and started wandering around, looking at everything. It made me a little uncomfortable, but I wasn’t going to tell him to stop. That would prove I was uncomfortable and might make him want to do it more. Hell, it wasn’t like he was going through my underwear drawer. This was just my studio. Nothing shameful or weird here.

  “This is nice,” he said, drawing my attention to a dress that Inari was playing with. Every now and then I let her work on her own projects. She wanted to be a designer and was using me to work her way up. I was perfectly happy to let her use me, teach her the business, and how to manage. She’d probably be much better at it than I was and would someday kill it at fashion week. But then I could say I knew her way back when.

  “That’s Inari’s. She’s got some really interesting ideas about cuts and colors and patterns. She’s crazy talented.”

  He gave me a weird look and moved on to look at some more things.

  “You always see the best in people,” he said, reaching the end of the line and walking back toward me.

  I snorted. “What the hell are you talking about?” I was super critical of just about everyone, including myself.

  “Oh, don’t tell me to be down on myself and then turn around and do the same thing.” It was not the same thing, and I told him so. I set my scissors down and decided that I basically wasn’t going to get anything done while he was here. So I gave up.

  “Whatever, Ryder. You don’t know me.”

  “I know a lot of things, Sloane.” The way he said it made shivers go down my spine. The good kind of shivers. He was getting to me, and I both loved and hated it.

  When it came to relationships, I preferred to have the upper hand. Be the one in control. I tended to go for guys who liked me more than I liked them. It was easier to get out when I wanted out without too much heartbreak. But Ryder was a whole different story. He was the kind of guy I normally would have avoided. The kind of guy who had heartbreak written in his eyes. The kind of guy who would leave scars.

  I picked up my scissors again and pretended to go back to cutting the fabric, but I was really just trying to distract myself from how he made me feel.

  He paced around again and I cut a few more pieces. I was only halfway done, but I put the scissors back in their designated cup. In my studio there was a place for everything and everything had a place. I was known to go off into a rage if things weren’t put back in their proper spots.

  “I’m starving,” I said, even though I wasn’t. I needed a good excuse to stop and leave. I didn’t want him wandering around anymore.

  “You sure you don’t want to finish? Or maybe I could go out and pick something up and bring it back?” He was back to being totally sweet. Not many of the guys I’d dated had been into what I did. I mean, they were supportive but not a lot of them “got it.” Ryder did. He asked me about the ins and outs of how things worked. He’d even talked about wanting to learn to use a sewing machine.

  “No, that’s fine. My eyes are killing me.” Sometimes I forgot to slow down until my body made me. I was trying to be better about cutting myself off when I’d worked too muc
h.

  “Great, where do you want to go?” I walked around the studio, shutting off lights, putting things away, and cleaning up.

  Ryder waited by the door.

  “Need any help?” he asked.

  “No. I have my routine. I’m good.” Even if he did help me, I’d just have to go back and make sure he’d done it right, so that would take extra time anyway.

  I finally got everything done and opened the door so I could lock up. I turned on the alarm and then closed the door and turned the key.

  “Wow, it’s like securing a bank vault,” Ryder said. I hoped he hadn’t noticed that I’d stood in front of the keypad so he couldn’t see me punching in the numbers. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust him . . . okay, I didn’t trust him. But not because he was going to break in for nefarious means. It was only to prevent him from showing up when I was unprepared like he had in my apartment.

  “There are some very expensive fabrics in there. And I have this paranoia that some disgruntled ex-employee is going to try to break in and set the place on fire in retaliation, which is why I change the code every month.” I often got phone calls from interns saying that they’d forgotten the code. It was four fucking numbers. They weren’t that hard to remember.

  “Are you really that mean?” he asked.

  I gave him a look. He must be kidding.

  “Sorry I asked. I’m guessing you give them that exact look.” Probably. I wasn’t quite sure what my face did when I was pissed, but it got results. I had a really good bitch face.

  We walked downstairs and out into the cold. If fall was any indication, winter was going to be a bitch this year. Or maybe it was going to be really cold at the beginning and then it would taper off and get warm. Not likely in New England at all. Wishful thinking.

  “Sooo, where to? I’m not really familiar with this area,” he said.

  “Well, that depends on what you want to eat and how much you want to spend. If you want to eat cheap shit, there’s plenty of places, but if you want anything edible, we’re going to have to walk.” Just like with the tea the other day, decent food required a trek.

  “That’s fine. I don’t mind walking. Are you cold?” My face was, but I wasn’t going to walk around with a ski mask on. The rest of me was covered in a thick coat; I had leggings on under my dress, my boots were lined, and I had a scarf and mitten set. I took winter fashion very seriously.

  “I’m good. In case you couldn’t tell,” I said, holding up my mittened hands.

  “You’re smarter than I am,” he said, pulling his hands out of his pockets.

  “If you need some gloves or something, I can get you some.” I wasn’t a knitter, but I knew where to get some nice ones for a good price.

  “You don’t need to do that. I’m a big boy. I can take care of myself. Sort of.” He put his hands back in his pockets and hunched his shoulders. It was really fucking windy, and I was glad I’d put my hair back so it wasn’t flying around my face and getting stuck in my makeup.

  “What are you in the mood to eat?” I asked, and he raised his eyebrows at me. Oh, I didn’t mean it like that.

  “Food, Ryder. What kind of thing were you in the mood for?”

  “Um, I don’t know. Whatever’s dead or seriously slowed down,” he said.

  “Haha. You’re hilarious. There’s a cool sushi place just up the street.” More often than not, I sent Inari there to get lunch.

  “I know I’ll eat just about anything, but raw fish is not on the list.” That sounded like something someone who had never actually tried sushi would say. Because it was freaking delicious.

  “Why, Ryder, are you a sushi virgin?”

  He looked at me in shock. “No. I just don’t like it.”

  He was totally lying.

  “Ha, you’ve never had it. You shouldn’t have said anything because now I’m going to make you try it.”

  I skipped ahead of him, leading the way. Ryder reluctantly followed. Oh, this was going to be fun.

  “Well?” I asked as Ryder bit into his first piece of sushi. He put one finger up, asking me wait. He chewed and swallowed.

  “How is it that raw fish doesn’t taste disgusting?”

  I beamed and dipped my own sushi in sauce. I’d gotten a variety for him, including a vegetarian roll in case he did have a problem with the fish after all. He moved from the tuna roll to yellowtail. I grabbed a shrimp and then moved on to the spicy salmon. It was a challenge not to eat it too fast because it was so damn good.

  “Okay, I was wrong, you were right,” Ryder said when we’d consumed the entire assortment. I sat back in my chair and knew it was going to be a while before I was ready to move.

  “I always am,” I said, putting down my chopsticks. I’d given Ryder a lesson on using them and he’d taken to it with barely any effort.

  “So modest for one so beautiful,” he said, and the compliment wrapped in an insult made my face go red.

  Fortunately, our waitress appeared and asked if we needed anything else.

  “Just a coffee for me,” I said. I couldn’t stomach dessert tonight.

  “Same here,” Ryder said. I’d almost ordered sake, but changed my mind. It was no fun drinking if you couldn’t share it with someone else.

  Our coffee arrived, along with the check. Ryder grabbed it before I could even attempt to reach for it.

  “Don’t even think about it,” he said, waving it in front of my face and then snatching it away.

  “Good reflexes,” I said, pretending to be put out, but I wasn’t. I’d known he was going to pay; he’d already said he would.

  “How much training to you think it requires to be a professional ninja? I mean if I have the reflexes already, I might as well use them, right?”

  “Um, I’m not sure, but put that on the list of potential careers,” I said, trying not to laugh.

  “We should probably be writing these down,” he said, grabbing a napkin and making two columns. He wrote YES and NO on top of each column. Under NO he put drug dealer and restaurateur, and under YES he wrote ninja before folding the napkin up and putting it in his wallet.

  “You are a strange human being,” I said.

  “Thank you.” He pulled out his credit card and put it in with the check, leaving it on the edge of the table so the waitress would see it.

  “It’s much better to be strange than normal. My mother used to say something a little like that,” he said. My parents told me that I was a freak. I wished I’d had Ryder’s parents. Sometimes, though, I thought that maybe if my parents hadn’t been so negative, I wouldn’t have had so much to prove. So much of my drive to succeed came from wanting to show them that I could make something of myself, even if they told me I was nothing, over and over. Which they had.

  “Agreed. Normal people usually don’t have the balls to go for their dreams. They’re too scared that people won’t think they’re normal.”

  He nodded. “Exactly.”

  We sipped our coffee and pondered normality.

  “Do you want to come over?” I blurted out. I didn’t really mean to, but I was thinking that I didn’t want this to end. No matter how much time I spent with Ryder, I always wanted more.

  “I mean, do you want to come hang at my place? We could watch a movie or play . . . chess.” God save me from saying moronic things around Ryder Blythe. I didn’t even have a fucking chessboard. I had plenty of decks of cards, and I could probably borrow a board game from Rory. She’d gotten custody of them when she moved down the hall. But that might make Lucah suspicious. Shit.

  “Chess? You know how to play chess?” He didn’t seem skeptical, just surprised.

  “No, but I could learn.” Yeah, like chess was something you could just pick up in a few minutes. I wanted to smash my head into the table. Might rid my brain of the ridiculous things that were bouncing around in it.

  “Yeah, that sounds . . . great. I’ve, ah, always wanted to learn how to play chess.” He sounded like he’d rather have a colon
oscopy. Frankly, I’d rather have a colonoscopy too. Well, chess with Ryder probably wouldn’t be too bad in the long run.

  “We don’t have to play chess. It was just a suggestion. We could watch a movie instead.” A movie was a much safer option. I was sure I had something he’d want to watch. Or at least tolerate.

  “Yeah, if you can sneak me in without my brother finding out that I’m hanging out with you alone in your apartment at night.” It sounded bad when he put it that way.

  “We’re not doing anything wrong. He knows we’re friends now. So what if he finds out? I mean, what is he going to do, honestly? Ground you?” I pictured that in my head and could actually imagine Lucah doing that. Or at least trying to.

  “I don’t know, Sloane. Things have finally gotten good with him. I don’t want to push my luck.” I wanted to protest, but I didn’t want to push. If I pushed him to “choose,” he’d choose Lucah. And then things would get really awkward at dinner and with Rory and I didn’t want that.

  “No, no. That’s fine.” I tried not to be too put out. We’d just spent several hours together, and I saw him several nights a week for dinner. That should be more than enough time with Ryder.

  “But I’ll come with you to your apartment to make sure you get there safe.”

  I grabbed my coat, scarf, and mittens, and got myself all bundled up before I stood.

  “Thanks. That’s really nice.” He was always making sure I got home safe. I loved that.

  “It’s not nice. It’s just . . . I don’t know. I like to make sure you’re home safe. My father always told me that when I was with a woman I should make sure she gets home safe. I guess that piece of advice actually stuck. The times he told me not to do drugs, not so much.”

  He was talking more and more about his parents lately, and it was really good. Might be a side-effect of the therapy.

  “My parents just told me not to bother with school because I would never amount to anything,” I said. Yuck. I sounded like a negative Nancy. “Sorry. I don’t meant to be all bitter. My parents are kind of awful people, so the happy stories are few and far between.” In fact, I had to think really hard before I came up with something happy. They weren’t abusive, at least not physically. They just . . . were terrible parents. Never should have had kids. I hated it that there was so much pressure to procreate. I mean, what the hell was that? You shouldn’t have kids just to have them if you’re going to do a shit job raising them and then they’re just going to hate you and resent you and do the same to their kids. Vicious fucking cycle of life. Let Elton John write a song about that.