Kiss of Fire (11 page)

“Your father doesn’t seem to be very hard on you; a week for crashing a car. I wish I was so lucky. My brother is ruthless.”

“Oh, he punishes me, just not in the regular sense. He always expects me to be perfect, and accomplished, and make no mistakes.” Ryland sounded so bitter and hurt. His father had always put him under so much pressure; I was constantly amazed he handled it so well.

“I guess it makes sense, seeing as he is raising you to run an empire.” Wyn’s logic made sense, but it was something we had talked through many times before. As much as Ryland wished to live up to his father’s expectations, as much as he wished to meet his father approval, Ryland still struggled.

“I don’t want to run his company,” Ryland said dejectedly.

“What?” I flipped around to look at him, but he took another bite of pie, keeping his gaze down. He had never made mention of this to me before; it was always how he looked forward to becoming like his father. I looked up at Wyn who had a strange look of shock and surprise plastered on her face.

“I don’t want to run his empire. I don’t want to go to Oxford. I don’t want to take his lessons. I don’t want to be anything like him.” He had turned to me, speaking only to me. I am sure Wyn heard him, but he didn’t seem to notice or care.

“Ryland?” I asked.

“But I don’t have a choice; I have to be everything he wants, and nothing that I wish.” He looked so sad, so dejected; my heart broke in half for him.

I lunged into him, wrapping my arms around his neck, burying my face into the sweet smell of his skin. He held me against him, his large hands spreading their warmth throughout my back where they pressed against me. I tangled my hands through his curls as he held me tighter.

Right at that moment, I was grateful to have Wyn there, her eyes boring into us. Because, right then, I would have been the one to kiss him first.

I stood about fifteen feet away from the fire. Wyn had assured me it was enough space to give me a running start. That was part of the problem. After Wyn had displayed her running feat and heroic jump over the fire, she and Ryland had spent the next twenty minutes taking turns leaping over the flames with decreasing running distances. They now insisted it was my turn, but my stomach flipped and my hands were sweating. I was not interested in this weird jump-to-my-death.

“You’re making this out to be much more difficult than it is,” Wyn whined. I had been stalling for the last few minutes, and although most of it had been spent giggling about my lack of nerves, Wyn had run out of patience.

“I’ve never done this before,” I spouted back. “It’s kind of scary.”

Ryland gave me a small, sympathetic smile, but Wyn jumped off her rock and walked over to me, a mischievous grin on her face.

“Okay,” she started, about eight feet from me. “You climb trees like you were born in one and fall thirty feet to your death without even—”

“It was about five, Wyn. Stop exaggerating,” I interrupted her.

“Fine. But, you still could have died,” Wyn said.

Ryland sighed behind her, which seemed to only fuel her fire.

“Either way, you’re a tree-climbing genius! This should be a piece of cake.”

“A tree can’t burn me,” I countered.

“But it can cut you and scrape you, and rip your clothes and break your bones,” Wyn countered, motioning to the large rip in my jeans.

“But those heal.” She had backed me into a hole and I didn’t like it.

“Burns heal.”

She was right, but it didn’t mean that I wanted to jump over the fire anyway. I plunged my hands into the pockets of Ry’s hoodie and hunched my shoulders.

“Not without scars,” I add.

Wyn leaned in close and lowered her voice, “You don’t want Ryland to think you’re a chicken, do you?” she asked, her eyebrows wagging.

I just sighed at her. It almost wasn’t even worth it to try to convince her I didn’t care what Ry thought—because I did.

We both jumped when Ryland himself placed one of his large hands on Wyn’s shoulder to get her attention.

“I think I can take it from here,” Ryland said softly, dismissing Wyn with his sly smile.

Wyn seemed caught in headlights for a minute; I could tell when her brain clicked back into action and she slinked back to her rock without a word.

Ryland turned his gorgeous stare on me, and I felt my blood melt into my toes. It must have shown on my face because he smiled at my reaction, his straight white teeth glimmering in the firelight.

Just a friend, just a friend…

“Do you want to do this?” Ryland asked me, his voice soft.

“No,” I said, “but, Wyn will never let me live it down if I don’t.”

“You know we have done some crazy things, and you choose to get scared over jumping over a fire?”

“Yep.”

“Breaking into an abandoned hospital?”

“Not terrifying,” I said. We had done that last year; even got chased out of the building by a decrepit security officer.

“Cliff diving?”

“Not terrifying.” It didn’t miss my notice that he was moving closer with each question.

“Driving a car at ten?”

“Nope.”

“But jumping over a fire?” He reached out and grabbed both my hands, intertwining our fingers. Even with the size difference in our hands, holding onto him like this was still comfortable.

“I’m going to get burned.” That sounded way whinier than I intended.

“I’ll do it with you then.” Ryland dropped one of my hands and turned me toward the flames; they swirled and flickered only about three feet above the wood and sticks.

I was being a baby.

“Do you remember the first time we raced up the trees?” Ryland asked me, his thumb tracing comfortable circles onto the back of my hand.

“The time you beat me?”

“Yeah. You were so scared. I had to prompt you to climb all the way up and then coax you all the way down while you cried.”

“I didn’t cry,” I said. Well, maybe one tear had leaked out at the time, but it still didn’t count as crying.

“The point is, after you got your feet back down on the ground, you realized how much you loved it. I haven’t been able to beat you since.”

I looked into his face for much longer than necessary. The firelight flickered in his dark hair and against his tanned skin, casting the light into weird mesmerizing shadows. He reached up to trace his fingertip along the chain of his necklace that hung around my neck, sending a pleasant shiver over me that caused him to smile.

“I’ll jump with you,” he whispered down to me.

I turned from him to look at the fire and tried to convince myself I was being stupid. Ryland’s thumb continued to caress wide circles on my hand. His hand began to radiate the gentle heat that I was so familiar with; it filled me, traveling up my arm and through my body until I was filled with warmth that made me feel both comfortable and confident. Ryland’s smiling eyes met mine as I looked up at him.

“One,” his silky voice smooth and even, “two, three.”

Our feet took off running in succession, his pace slower so as not to surpass me. As we reached the fire pit, we both took off in a flying leap and I closed my eyes. My heart fluttered as the air moved past me. For a fleeting moment, I felt like I was flying. I wanted the feeling to last forever.

My feet made contact with the hard-packed dirt and I stumbled a bit on the landing. Ryland righted me, placing his hands on my arms to steady me.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” I responded in a hyper voice.

“See? It’s easier than you thought it was.” He smiled at me before planting a swift kiss on my forehead and walking away toward Wyn. “And, that’s how it’s done.”

I had a momentary flash of frustration at being used as a pawn between them, but the irritation dwindled as the warmth from Ryland’s kiss spread over me.

We left soon after that, leaving large amounts of dirt on the fire to extinguish it. We tromped through the forest in anything but silence. Wyn and Ryland jumped and pranced through the forest, singing various Styx songs I had never heard before. Their loud, out-of-key voices echoed off the trees, making it sound like the forest was filled with a cheap Styx cover band. They kept rushing up to me at different times, grabbing my hands in a desperate attempt to get me to sing along. Their bad singing had me in stitches, and it was all I could do to tromp through the underbrush without falling on my face.

We broke through the tree line to the side of the highway where Ryland had parked his Lotus. The alarm twittered in welcome as Ry approached it and inspected every inch for scratches or a break-in. I smiled as he caressed the hood in grateful appreciation at finding nothing. His affection for his car was a fine, debatable line between uncomfortable obsession and a deep love. Ryland seemed to read my mind and glared at me, his falsely affronted look deepening my chuckle into a laugh.

We all piled in, Wyn stretching herself horizontally on the storage shelf that Ryland liked to pretend was a seat. Ryland sped down the mountain doing at least ten over the speed limit. He put on an oldies station, in obvious tribute to their romp in the woods, and Wyn lay back to text on her cell phone again. I still wasn’t sure what to say to Ryland yet, so I turned my head to look out the window, letting the song about some horse in the desert wash over me.

Ryland drummed his fingers to the music as he whispered the lyrics to the song. I fought the temptation to look at him; any conversation we could have would be forced with Wyn in the back seat anyway. Ryland had been acting out of the ordinary all night, and I don’t think it was just because Wyn was here either.

He had always wanted to grow up and be just like his father; no matter how much the man had hurt him or dictated to him. It was always his greatest ambition to grow up and make his father proud. They butted heads and fought, but Ry had always sought his approval, except when it came to me. To have him say that he wanted no part of it made me wonder what had happened between them. I desperately hoped I didn’t have anything to do with it; I didn’t know if I wanted to be responsible for his throwing his life away, and severing his relationship with his father.

Of course, the first odd comment he had made had been back at the school. I still wasn’t quite sure what he had meant, saying that I was more important than his father’s rules. I could take a wild guess and make the assumption my heart wanted me to, but that was foolish. I had a sinking sensation that all of his revelations tonight were connected somehow. Part of me couldn’t wait until Saturday night to find out what was going on with him. I needed to make sure everything was okay.

Before I knew it, we were winding down the canyon into the suburb where Wyn and I lived. I glanced up from the blackness of the window to look at the lights, their twinkling and shining dots looking like a million stars that had fallen from the sky.

Ryland reached out, grabbed my hand and squeezed, the action pulling me away from the lights. His eyes had a million questions behind them, a million thoughts, and a million words. I was lost in them, trying to figure out what he wanted to say to me.

He turned back to the road, his hand staying around mine, keeping them both in my lap. I knew why he was doing this; I couldn’t say anything to him with Wyn here. I couldn’t get my questions answered. I couldn’t tell him what I wanted to say.

Before I could stop myself, my fingertips had moved forward to trace the lines of our intertwined hands. My touch shocked him and he shivered, giving me a knowing glance. I looked away from him and down to continue running my fingertips over his skin.

“So, Wyn, where to?”

I looked up to Ryland as his loud voice boomed through the quiet car. My mind froze in place. I hadn’t thought about the time between Wyn’s house and my own. I was doomed. Luckily, Wyn came to my rescue.

“My brother is picking me up at Joclyn’s place,” she said, her eyes never leaving her phone.

I saw Ryland’s shoulders drop, while my heart eased just a bit. I wasn’t ready to talk yet.

Ryland squeezed my hand, conveying some form of sorrow that I wasn’t sure I reciprocated. In just a few minutes, he pulled into one of the few empty stalls at my apartment building. I looked up to the third floor where the obvious flicker of a television lit up the windows to my apartment. Ryland reluctantly let go of my hand as I exited so Wyn could climb out behind me.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” Ryland asked. Suddenly, I was relieved I had already made plans.

“Actually, I’ll be at Wyn’s house all night.” My heart almost broke as his face fell.

I took off his hoodie and handed it back to him.

“What’s this for?” he asked.

“My mom won’t let me come over Saturday night if I walk in wearing a hoodie.”

Ryland smiled in understanding as he took the jacket from my hands.

“Then, I will see you tomorrow morning.” He smiled before bidding Wyn goodbye and sped off, leaving us staring after him.

Moments after he drove away, Wyn’s brother pulled up in a sleek black Mazda, his body stiff and tough, as if willing himself to only look straight ahead and not toward us.

“I changed my mind,” Wyn said as she climbed into the car.

“What?” I asked.

“He’s not your boyfriend; he’s your true love.” She smiled before Ilyan drove off, her door not even closed all the way.

All I could do was look after her, knowing full well my heart was beating erratically in my chest.