Why Lie? (Love Riddles #2) (17 page)

Normally, designer jeans would not count as the works but since I can, in theory, wear skirts and or dresses right now, I crave my jeans.

“It is so nice of you to stop by,” I reply.

Pops nods in agreement before shuffling back over to his seat to resume watching his game.

Her eyes follow him, a wistful smile on her face. That’s when I remember all of her grandparents have passed, and her parents too. I may not have a sibling like she does but I cannot imagine my life without my parents or Gigi and Pops.

My maternal grandparents are still living as well. They’re great too, just not as cool as Gigi and Pops. Reilly has one living relative, Jake. And, for a long time he lived out on an oil rig.

All of this has me looking at her differently as she pulls a table chair out and spins it around to sit closer to me. She is so poised. Outside of that falling down on camera thing, I’ve never seen anything ruffle her feathers. She’s accomplished so much, and all of it almost all by herself.

“I’ve been thinking about you but didn’t want to be a pest while you were in rehab. Now that you’re back in Ferncliff, I figured you’d be well enough for visitors. I hope that’s all right.”

“It’s perfectly all right. Thank you so much for coming. You wouldn’t have been a pest if you came while I was in rehab either. God, there were days I was bored out of my mind there and would have loved extra company.”

She tilts her head and stares at me, seemingly surprised by my words.

“Reilly?” I ask, after she doesn’t say anything for a minute.

She shakes her head. “It’s just that I asked Gina how you were doing because I know you are tight with her and I wanted to know if you wanted visitors. She told me you needed time.”

What the hell?

“She said that?” I ask and Reilly nods.

Funny,
I think to myself. It’s interesting how she’d assume I needed time considering the fact that she’s hardly said two words to me since the mudslide. Maybe, she only thought I needed time, which is why both she and Molly weren’t talking to me.

It’s strange though. Throughout our entire friendship, I’ve never reacted to a situation by wanting not to talk to them. In fact, that’s the exact opposite of how I dealt with my problems, until Heath.

That call with Gina after he knocked on my door in the middle of the night had been the first time I hadn’t wanted to talk to her. But, I didn’t feel that way at first. It wasn’t until she put me off with the things she said.

I don’t get it.

I play it off for Reilly though. “There’s a good chance I said something I don’t remember back then considering all the pain killers I was on.”

She returns my smile; only hers is edged with sympathy. I bet she’s never had to question Kacey’s friendship. Geez, I’m almost thirty and I’ve never felt more like I was still in high school.

It’s not like I don’t already have enough on my plate, now I need to figure out if my friends are actually still my friends. I don’t believe in chasing people. That’s the main reason I made not one attempt to throw myself in Heath’s path the moment, or those after, I found out he was engaged.

It’s taken knocks and has had periods of being low but for the most part, I have a healthy self-esteem. I believe in treating people the way you want to be treated and that I deserve the same courtesy. I’m not a masochist and have zero desire to be anyone’s punching bag, physically or mentally.

When I’m with the people in my life, I don’t want to be second-guessing if they care about me.

“How soon do your casts come off?” she asks, thankfully moving the conversation forward and away from anything awkward.

“At my last appointment, my doctor said he thought the cast on my arm would be the last to come off. Hopefully, that means the ones on my ankle and leg might be able to come off at my next appointment.”

“That’s great news,” she replies, smiling.

“I’ll still have physical therapy and might need a cane at first.” I pat the arm of my wheelchair. “I can’t wait to get out of this thing. If my arm wasn’t broken, I probably could have used crutches but my doctor didn’t like the idea. He was nervous I’d fall and reinjure myself.”

Her gaze moves to my chair then back to my face. “It was so scary, hearing about the mudslide and how badly you were hurt.”

It’s a miracle no one died that day. There was a couple who were injured when the mudslide passed by their house and took a tree down. From what I was told, their injuries were minor even though the damage to their house was extensive.

“I had nightmares about it while I was still in the hospital. I’ve never felt so out of control. I was like a sneaker in a dryer. It was horrible. I remember my ankle breaking, and my leg. I think I remember my arm breaking but that could have been my jaw.”

I stop talking when I notice Reilly cringing, then I say, “Hey, you’re on the news. This can’t be the worst thing you’ve ever heard.”

She shakes her head. “Most of the things I cover are fluff. The few times I had to report serious pieces, I had to psych myself up first. It’s weird but with some things I need to mentally separate myself, almost pretend like it isn’t real so I don’t react on camera. You’re my friend, not a news piece. I’m going to react when I hear you talking about how hurt you were.”

I made up my mind right then and there to become better friends with Reilly. I’ve always liked her but now I’m going to make more of an effort to be her friend.

“I didn’t mean to upset you. Other than soreness, especially after PT, the worst of the pain is past me. As for the nightmares, I haven’t had one of those . . .” I mentally count back the days and am not surprised when I realize I haven’t had one since I’ve been in Heath’s bed. To Reilly, I say, “ . . . in a while.”

She glances around, looking at Heath’s place as if she could read my mind.

Then, she leans forward, crossing her wrists over her knees and says, “So you and Heath are together now, huh?”

“What?” I laugh out my question, my palms sweating. “No, do you think because I’m staying here we’re an item?”

She grins, “That’s exactly what I think.”

She’s quiet as I drive back to my apartment. “How was your therapy today?”

Glancing in my direction, Sydney then focuses forward again. “It was fine.”

Fine never means fine.

“Did your therapist push you too hard?” I ask, ready to turn around and give her therapist a piece of my mind.

She shakes her head. “No, it’s nothing to do with therapy. I just have a lot on my mind.”

My fingers itch to reach for her, to lay my hand reassuringly on her leg. “I’m here if you need someone to talk to.”

She looks out her window, which can’t be good. “It’s something I need to figure out on my own.”

Something is bothering her and without her telling me what it is I’m left to drift from one guess to another. She was quiet on the way to therapy too so I ask, “Did you have a good day before therapy?”

“Reilly Whitmore visited me.”

Is that what’s bothering her? “I saw her yesterday and she mentioned she had wanted to see you. I hope it’s okay that I told her she could.”

She looks back in my direction. “It was. I liked getting a chance to hang out with her. I’ve always liked her but we’ve never hung out outside of her coming to Lola’s.”

That all sounds good.

“Reilly’s a great girl. She’s like a little sister to me.”

“I like that. At one point while we spoke, I thought about how she and Jake have lost both their parents and their grandparents. I know my parents don’t live close but I still couldn’t imagine being without them or my grandparents on my mom’s side, and you know how tight I am with Gigi and Pops.”

“They’ve been lucky enough to have friends band around them. I get that we aren’t blood but my parents and I consider them family. Jake and Kacey have also become close with the family of his roommate from the rig. Did you ever meet Erik?”

Her eyes stay on me and she shakes her head. “Not really, only once or twice in passing.”

I sense her eyes but keep mine on the road. “It’s sad. He was an only child.”

“How awful,” she murmurs.

Neither of us say anything while I park. We remain silent while I pull her wheelchair from the trunk and position it by her door.

It’s not until we’re inside my apartment that I finally ask the question that’s been on the tip of my tongue. “Tomorrow, when I go to see my mom at lunch, will you come with me?”

She stares at me, before finally replying, “Go with you to see your mom?”

I slowly nod, wondering if my question was unclear. “Yes.”

She looks down at her lap, her good hand worrying at the graying bandaging material that peeks out around her thumb from under her purple cast.

“Sydney?”

Her hand continues to pinch and pull at it as she looks up at me. “I don’t know who you are.”

My brows knit together. “What?”

Her response is so bizarre I begin to wonder if she somehow knocked her head during her therapy.

“You are like three different people and I can’t figure you out at all,” she explains, which only serves to confuse me further.

“Three different people?”

She nods. “There was the Heath I was falling for. The charming, playful, sexy man who spent almost a week in my bed. Then there was the Heath who asked another girl to marry him like I didn’t even exist. Now there’s the Heath who kisses my forehead and takes care of me. I don’t know which one you are.”

I sink down into one of the chairs behind me and bend forward, dropping my head into my hands as her words swirl in the air around me like little buzzing gnats. Why hadn’t I seen this before, her confusion, her uncertainty around me? It’s amazing she hasn’t gotten whiplash from the way I’ve treated her.

I lift my head and settle my gaze on her eyes. “They’re all me. I’m human and make mistakes. I’m also an idiot for not understanding what we had at first. It wasn’t until later when I wasn’t so wrapped up in what other people thought that I finally got it. I’m all of those guys in varying degrees. One of those guys wasn’t thinking at all, the two that were, only thought of you.”

Her mouth tightens and she looks away from me and into my living room. The air around us is tense as I wait for her to say something.

When she does, it’s, “I’d like to go with you tomorrow.”

That’s it?

She still hasn’t looked at me, her gaze still focused on something, anything, other than me.

“What can I do to make you see I want you in my life?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “I don’t know.”

I move, crossing the room until I’m all she can see. “Please give me another chance. When she doesn’t say anything, I lean forward and press my lips to hers. “You’re all I want,” I murmur against them.

She sighs and I move, my hand reaching up to gently grip her neck as my tongue slides into her mouth. My hold is loose enough that she could easily pull away from me but she doesn’t. Her hand comes up and mirrors mine, holding me at my neck as her tongue touches mine.

I do not deepen the kiss, no matter how much I want to. She’s about as skittish as it gets and I’m not going to do anything that might make her pull away from me. No, I nip at her bottom lip, sliding my tongue over that spot before grinning against her lips.

When I feel wetness hit my cheek, my grin vanishes and I pull back to see her silently crying.

“Oh no, baby,” I murmur, cupping her face in my hands, and pressing my lips to her cheeks as I try to kiss her tears away. “Don’t cry. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

She blinks at me with wet eyes as I kiss her tears away.

“Please don’t cry.” I keep kissing her cheeks even though no more tears fall.

I hate this. I hate that I caused this. I hate that I don’t know how to fix it. I hate that she’s in pain.

“I want to trust you but I’m scared.”

I pinch my eyes shut and lower my head to her lap, my hands going to either side of her waist. She rests her hand on the top of my head.

“I do. I want to believe you. I’m trying to, I am,” she continues.

Her words, her shaking voice as she says them all, slice me inside. All this time I’ve pushed her and pushed her to forgive, with no clue of the battle she was fighting inside. No, I had to be an asshole and force my company on her, forcing my apologies as well. What I should have given her was space and time instead of using her confinement to a wheelchair as a way to keep her by my side.

I didn’t even give her the space to sleep alone. She had been clear the first night that she did not want to sleep in my bed and I forced it anyway.

“I’m such a selfish bastard.” I groan, lifting my head.

She shakes hers. “No, you’ve been so wonderful to me. You’ve taken care of me. I’m the one who is wrong because I’ve said the words but I don’t truly know how to forgive you.”

“I should have given you the space you wanted. I’m an asshole for pushing you the way I have.”

She reaches up to cup my face. “What do you want, Heath?”

I stare at her. Isn’t it obvious? “I want you.”

Her eyes soften. “You want me how? In your bed, to be your girlfriend, or something more?”