Ryder's Redemption (Badboy Rockers #2) (3 page)

THREE

Ange

The second we pull out of Deklan’s driveway, I glance at the older home where Kenzie’s boyfriend is waving goodbye to us. Beside him is Ryder. He is obviously too cool to wave, of course. Hands in pockets, he watches with a brooding stare.

I’ve little doubt he’s talking mad shit about me. It’s been a taxing few hours having to hang out with the four of us together. I had a pretty good intuition when it came to people, and it was easy to tell that Ryder hated being the third wheel in the Deklan/Kenzie relationship. A few times, I saw his gaze linger a little too long on my best friend. I don’t think Deklan realized just how much his friend still liked Kenzie, or if he did, he wasn’t acting like it bothered him too much.

Despite the fact that Deklan looked like a dangerous guy, he was just a really nice guy wrapped in ink. The hair and the piercings just added to his edge.

“You really love him, don’t you?”

Kenzie smiles and laughs under her breath. “Oh Ange, you have no idea.”

“Oh, I think I do. I’ve known your every crush since you were eight, and you’ve never been so head-over-heels.”

“What do you think of him?”

I knew my opinion mattered to her. “He’s amazing, and oh my God, crazy gorgeous.”

“I know, right!”

She beams and squeezes my hand. “He makes me feel…protected. Like when I’m with him I can do anything, or face anything. And it’s nice to have a guy in my life that I can depend upon.” The grin slowly fades from her lips, and I immediately feel her pain.

“Have you talked to your dad at all?” Kenzie had shared every detail about her parents’ divorce with me, and I had ached for her and her mom. I’d been furious with Kenzie’s dad, and I had watched the divorce’s effect on my own parents. My mom, who was one to nag when she didn’t get her way, had nagged a little less and kept a shorter leash on my dad.

She shakes her head. “No. Honestly, I just don’t have anything to say to him. He’s a selfish prick who thinks only of himself.”

“But you must miss him.”

“I do, but I missed him more when I first moved here, and it’s not as hard as it used to be. That old saying about time healing wounds is true…as cliché as that sounds.”

“I bet.”

“I just hate that he reached out to Cole and not to me. That was like a kick in the gut. Almost like another betrayal, you know?”

I nod.

Kenzie and her father had always been close. In fact, she’d been a self-professed daddy’s girl. The whole situation was bizarre. “Maybe he just didn’t know how you’d respond. You’re the one living with your mom, so he probably feels that your loyalty lies with her.”

“And my loyalty does lie with her.” She released a heavy sigh. “I just don’t see the need to talk to him right now.”

“I’m sure he misses you just as much as you miss him, Kenz. He’s your dad. You need him in your life.”

“He’s going to be a dad again. He’ll have a do-over with his new family. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t need him in my life.”

I could tell she was over it, and I wouldn’t push it…even if I hoped she’d change her mind in the future.

“I respect that.”

“You don’t know what it’s like.” I barely heard the statement, but it was there. “I mean all of it. After he left us, it’s like everything I knew no longer existed. I had to start over completely and learn a new normal.”

“And you did it…with grace. I tell you, even Sister Frieda would be proud.”

The corners of her mouth twitched.

Sister Frieda had been our etiquette coach. Her catchphrase had been, ‘Go forth with grace and dignity.’

I drop any mention of Kenzie’s father and make a mental note to put the topic on the back burner, or until such a time she wanted to talk about it. She takes a left onto a city block, past businesses, and then takes a few more turns before pulling over in front of a bunch of older brick homes that appeared to have been converted into apartments.

“We have arrived at our final destination,” she says, pushing the car door open.

I follow her line of vision to one of the identical apartments on the block.

“Don’t look so stunned, Ange. I warned you to lower your expectations before you came here.”

I do everything I can to school my features. When Kenzie told me she and her mom had moved into a downtown apartment in Vancouver, a cute little bedroom community of Portland, I had thought more high-rise looking out over the Portland lights apartment and less…well, no view, and a city bus stop outside the front door. How was this even possible after the lifestyle they’d had in San Diego?

I could only hope the inside was an improvement.

It wasn’t.

Setting my suitcase in the hallway/landing/dining room of the apartment, I couldn’t help recalling the mansion on the beach that Kenzie had, until recently, called home for the majority of her life. They’d even had servants.

I’m not going to lie—I was shocked.

There was a living room off to the left, with an old brick fireplace with no gas insert. The light fixtures were all standard old-school brass. The place hadn’t had a facelift since before I was born.

As usual, Kenzie’s mom Melissa had decorated the tiny, depressing space to perfection, giving it her own stamp. The tiny kitchen had a host of issues, most of all ancient appliances, but again she’d worked her magic and did a great job at making it homey. Those small touches were familiar and put me slightly more at ease.

I eye the door. There was just a standard lock and a deadbolt.

“You’re judging me, aren’t you?” Kenzie asks, grabbing a plastic container out of the fridge and prying the lid off. She smells whatever it is, puts the lid back on, and places it back in the fridge untouched. I can’t tell if she’s upset by my reaction. She picks a grape off a cluster and pops it into her mouth.

“No, of course not.” I take a deep breath and wish now that I’d kept my mouth shut about her clearly irresponsible father. I mean, what a complete asshole. I am sooooo tempted to snap a picture and send it to my mother. She’d change her tune about wanting Kenzie to reconcile with her father immediately upon seeing how my best friend and her mom were living. My mom wouldn’t last five seconds in the apartment. In fact, she’d once spent a week at a luxury resort when one of her eight bathrooms was being renovated because she ‘didn’t want to deal with the noise’.

Speaking of noise—was that a window air-conditioner making that sound?

Oh my God…it was. I was astounded just how far they had fallen in such a short amount of time.

It was all I could do not to get on the phone and call my mom to tell her to wire funds immediately. How dare that douchebag of a dad leave them living in such conditions? It was completely unfair, especially given the fact he’d just returned from a private island getaway with his new trophy wife.

No wonder Kenzie was so pissed at her dad. He’d left his wife and youngest child living in what I could only guess was the armpit of Vancouver. As if to validate my point, an old lady in a dirty trench coat with a raggedy-looking dog walked past the apartment just as a city bus pulled up.

I am beyond appalled.

I straighten my shoulders, determined to help the two of them out of this mess they found themselves in. “Where is your mom?”

“At work. She should be home anytime. Do you want to see the rest of the apartment?”

It takes less than thirty seconds to see the bathroom and two bedrooms.

I stood in the doorway of Kenzie’s room, relieved to see she had the friendship collage we’d made our freshman year hanging on the wall, along with pictures of her Vancouver friends. “If there are just two rooms, then where does Cole sleep when he visits?”

“When he’s here, he crashes on the hide-a-bed.”

“When he’s here? I thought he was home for the summer.” I hope my disappointment isn’t completely obvious. I’ve been in love with Cole for years. Ever since he walked into Kenzie’s room with low riding jeans on and no shirt. I was only thirteen at the time, but holy crap did I want him after that. Every single time he walked into a room, my heart would start to hammer like it would pound right out of my chest. I’d never told Kenzie about my obsession with her brother. I guess I’d just assumed one day she would catch on.

She never had. Or if she had, she had never said a word.

So I’d suffered on in silence, saying nothing to anyone.

“He’ll be here in a few days. Lucky for me, he spends a lot of time running back and forth to Seattle.”

My heart rate speeds up. He’ll be home in a few days. Yes! “How come he’s running back and forth?”

“Football stuff, I guess,” she says, sounding bored.

I look at the collage and smile. “We were such dorks, weren’t we?” I missed those days. Little did we realize how much life would change in a matter of years, with a happy family shattered and one of us plucked from the other’s life so abruptly.

Kenzie put her arm around my shoulder. “So, are you ready for me to take you back to the airport so you can escape this nightmare?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I say with a smile, looking around the room that would be my home for the next five weeks. “We’re going to have the summer of our lives.”

FOUR

Ryder

“For the record, this is not a double-date,” Ange says the second I opened the car door for her.

We are at the movies—a chick-flick that I have been dragged along to. Deklan said he wanted me along because he wants me to keep Ange company, but I know it’s more because he doesn’t trust me when it comes to using drugs.

It had been ten days since I’d last used and I thought I would be feeling better by now. I would wake up feeling on top of the world, and within an hour or two I was ready to rip someone’s throat out. Sensing my agitation, Deklan had suggested we go for a run this morning and we had. I’ll admit the run had helped until we got back home.

When we stopped by
Branded
to put the supply shipment away, Bags, an old friend of mine nicknamed for the bags of drugs he sold, had walked in. He’d lingered, looking at one of about twenty photo albums stuffed full of tattoo designs sitting on the bookshelves.

He must have gotten the idea that I wasn’t interested, because he’d eventually left.

Deklan kept an eye on him the entire time, so now every single time I turn around, there’s Dek—up my ass, looking over my shoulder and asking me what I’m doing.

I swear life at my parents’ house would be less invasive.

“Where do you want to sit?” Deklan asks Kenzie.

There were only four other people in the theater.

“Let’s go a few rows down at least.” Kenzie and Deklan sit down. Ange plops beside Kenzie, and I sit beside her.

She sighs heavily and for a second I can tell she is considering moving to Deklan’s other side. Instead, she leans back and settles in, but only for a second. For the next few minutes she adjusts everything around her—taking a water bottle from her purse, setting it in the holder, meticulously unfolding four napkins and placing them over her lap so that not one square inch of her white capri jeans will be soiled by the buttery popcorn on her lap.

Three middle-school age girls take their seats directly in front of us.

“Seriously?” Ange says underneath her breath, her irritation obvious.

A cute Oriental girl with braces glances back at me, her gaze sweeping from me to Deklan, then back to me. I give her a wink and she turns to her friends and they break into giggles.

Ange shakes her head in disgust.

“I vote for moving right now, because I don’t want to deal with giggling throughout the entire movie.” Ange makes no effort to lower her voice and the girls hear her. They send her nasty glances over their shoulders.

I smile at them and three sets of eyes widen as they grin back at me.

It’s like taking candy from a baby, and I like how the attention, even if it is from young girls, just pisses Ange off even more.

Ange leans against me, her lips next to my ear. “They’re children, you know.”

“I’m well aware of that. I have a brother who is twelve.” Just talking about my brother makes my heart squeeze. I hate that I can’t see him. My mom won’t allow it. If I ever ‘get my shit together’, then I can have the pleasure of my family’s company, but until then…I’m destined to live life without them.

That information that I have a little brother seems to surprise her.

“You were once that age, you know.”

“Yes, and not that long ago. I know guys like you, Ryder. You’re dangerous to little girls.”

Like I would go for a thirteen year-old, and I almost say the words out loud but I stop. Instead, I turn my head the slightest bit, and she’s forced to ease away, but we’re still very close. “Are you a little girl, Ange? Am I
dangerous
to you?”

I look for any ounce of arousal or interest in those green eyes but there’s none. Just the same irritation I’ve seen since I met her.

Have I lost my touch?

“Dude, you are so barking up the wrong tree.”

I frown, seriously wondering what I did to her. “Batting for the other team, are you? Hmm, I wouldn’t have ever guessed that, but I do like a challenge.”

The sides of her mouth lift, but the false smile doesn’t begin to touch her eyes. “For the record, no, I’m not batting for the other team, not that there’s anything wrong with that. Love is love.”

Oh shit. Here we go. “Calm down. I agree with you. I have a cousin who is gay and he’s the nicest guy on the planet. His boyfriend is a dick, but what do you do? He’s in love.”

She bites her lip, and I know she’s refraining from throwing my own words back at me. Does she really think I’m such a prick?

As the minutes tick by and I remain silent, she seems to settle down a bit. My gaze shifts to that mouth and those lips that are straight-up amazing.

She mouths the word
asshole
and I can’t help myself—I laugh.

Her brows furrow as I reach over and take a handful of her popcorn.

A piece falls from the bag onto the napkin, conveniently on the V of her inner thighs. I reach for it, but she blocks me. “Don’t…even…think…about…it.”

“Can’t blame a guy for trying.”

“Ewwww.” She takes the popcorn, tosses it on the floor, then proceeds to pull out a bottle of sanitizer from her purse and squirt some in her hand.

I slouch down in my seat. This chick is unbelievable.

The movie starts and I spread my legs wide.

Ange immediately stiffens and straightens, shoulders like a board.

“Have you heard of personal space?”

“As in your personal,” I say, looking specifically at her boobs then shifting my gaze lower. “Space.”

She lifts her chin. “Wow, you are just really something else.”

“That’s what they say. You want to give me a try?”

Closing her eyes, she takes a deep breath and releases it slowly.

“Practicing yoga?”

“Actually, I’m practicing patience, and I need a butt-load of it with you.”

“I love it when you talk dirty.”

The movie starts and she lifts a hand. “I’d like to enjoy the movie rather than debate with you.”

I lean toward her. “You smell amazing, by the way.”

Ange

Seriously. I’ve never met anyone who is so irritating. I can’t even enjoy the movie because Ryder keeps watching me from the corner of his eye. I try to act nonchalant, to relax and enjoy the film, but with Ryder’s own personal fan club sitting in front of us, it’s impossible to get into the movie. It’s all I can do to not move to another seat, far away from him, and yet if I move, then he wins…and I will never let Ryder win.

Thank God the movie is halfway decent, although the parts where the main couple are having sex has me shifting in my seat and feeling all kinds of uncomfortable.

Strangely, I remember when Kenzie told me about the first night she and Ryder had made out after watching her dirty dance with Sadie, the slut who had slept with Ryder when Kenzie had been dating him.

Kenzie had done a complete play-by-play about what happened in Deklan’s bedroom. The image had been imprinted in my mind, and we had giggled like the middle-school girls who are currently sitting in front of us.

For a split second, I imagine making out with Ryder.

What the hell is wrong with me?

It was just the movie making me wish I had a boyfriend.

The scene was smoking hot and had the girls in front of us laughing and sneaking glances over their shoulder at Ryder and Deklan.

I catch Kenzie’s gaze and she grins.

I’m glad it doesn’t bother her.

Kenzie and Deklan hold hands through the entire movie, and every once in a while he would lean over and kiss her. I feel a strange stab of envy. During the few days I’d been in Vancouver, I’d reconnected with Kenz and I loved it—loved having my best friend back, and yet it was bizarre to have Deklan around. And when he worked or had practice, she constantly checked her phone and smiled every time she received a message or a call.

He was the center of her universe and it was tough to compete with that.

I had yet to meet Brooke. Tonight the family would get together when Cole arrived.

My stomach had been tied in knots all day. I was both excited and nervous to meet the band that had become such a part of my best friend’s life.

When the movie finally ends, I’m relieved. I just want to get back to the apartment, put on my sweats, and get away from Mr. Overconfident.

“So Kenzie’s brother is coming home tonight, huh?”

My stomach tightens. “Yes.”

***

Five hours later, I’m standing in the living room of Kenzie’s apartment.

My heart is pounding so loud I’m sure everyone in the room can hear it.

Cole will be arriving any second.

Ryder sits sprawled in a chair, inhaling the tortilla chips and salsa like it’s his last meal. Of all people to be present tonight…

I’m so sick of his face, and of all nights for him to be here—it has to be the night I’m reunited with Cole.

I feel someone staring at me from across the room.

Kenzie’s cousin Brooke. She’s territorial about her friendship with Kenzie, letting me know at every opportunity that they’re family, so therefore they have a special bond. Not that she said it, but she didn’t need to. Her fuck you attitude speaks volumes. You’d think with them being family and all she’d be less that way, but I can tell by the short conversation we had that she wasn’t thrilled that I had shown up.

Every time I start a sentence with “remember the time…,” Brooke follows it up with her own story about something she and Kenzie had done, and it would always trump whatever Kenzie and I had done.

So annoying.

My attention is diverted when Kenzie leans back against Deklan and his arms slide around her. He places a kiss on the top of her head and she smiles up at him. Her mom gives me a wink and I’m surprised that the woman I had known in San Diego has become so open and accepting of her daughter and her tattooed, pierced boyfriend. Months ago, Melissa would have locked Kenzie in her room and forbade her to see someone who looked like Deklan. Granted, the boyfriend treats her like a princess. Still, I know how rough it must be to let go of the little girl who she used to keep on such a tight leash.

Proof that they had both changed a lot since the time they had left San Diego.

Melissa’s phone rings and she tells everyone to be quiet. “Hello.” She nods. “Okay, we’ll see you shortly.” She hangs up the phone, her excitement obvious. “That was Shelly. They’re just blocks away.” She crosses the room and checks the blinds.

There are only nine of us here, but already the room feels crowded.

I slide trembling hands over my skirt, wondering if I should have maybe worn jeans instead. The length isn’t too short, so it’s not like I’m showing too much thigh. I did get a brow arch from Ryder when I walked out of Kenzie’s room though. Then again, any girl with a pulse no doubt excites him.

I kicked my wedges off at the last minute and gone with flat sandals. I didn’t want to look like I was working too hard at it.

Now I kind of wish I had the wedges back on. A girl always looked better in heels, my mom had told me the first time I shopped in Rodeo Drive with her. I had been in kindergarten.

I stop myself from going back and putting the wedges on. No one else would notice, but Ryder definitely would. He’ll give me that smirky smile that makes me think he can read my every thought.

Ryder removes his hand from the now-empty chip bowl, wipes his fingers on his leg, and stands slowly. He’s watching me as I watch the front door expectantly.

Damn him. He is such a thorn in my side.

I slide a hand through my perfectly curled hair and I swear I hear him snicker. I glance at him and sure enough, he’s looking right at me…or rather at what bit of leg I am showing.

Asshole.

I hear Cole’s footsteps as he comes up the steps. His voice is music to my ears. He’s laughing at something his aunt is saying, and then the door opens.

“Surprise!” everyone yells, except for me. The word sticks in my throat and it comes out as a strange, strangled sound instead.

Cole drops his duffel bag on the floor and is beaming at his mom, who runs into his arms.

I’ve seen pictures of him online but I’m not prepared for what seeing him in person does to me, or how it makes me feel.

His blonde hair is a bit more so, and he has a nice tan. His body is as chiseled as I remember.

When he sets his mom back on her feet, he greets each person warmly. My heart is pounding out of my chest as he greets his sister and Deklan. He’s clearly already seen pictures of Deklan because there is no surprise on his face. They shake hands and he gives Kenz a nice hug. He turns to me. “Ange, look at you. I like the hair.”

“Hey,” I manage to choke out, and then his arms are sliding around me and I’m in his embrace.

It’s heaven, being smothered against his broad chest. The hug was unexpected and I’m horrified when I see that my lip gloss is on the collar of his shirt.

“Sorry,” I say while trying to wipe the stain off with my thumb.

“No worries,” he replies with a grin that makes me feel like my insides are made of warm butter.

Suddenly all my thoughts and cares fade away and all is right with the world again.