Page 73 of Wicked

If I thought what happened at the dinner and auction was bad, the rest of the week is a shitstorm, and I’m at the center of it.

On Monday, in my classes, the other students steer clear of me. Empty seats around me. I’m “quarantined” inside an invisible bubble, and everyone received the memo but me. Walking around campus, they either stare or avoid looking me in the eye.

I don’t see Ryker, and I’m not sure I want to in the dark mood I’m in. Sunday night, I received a call from a little bird in Chicago informing me a private investigator is snooping around, asking prodding questions about my past.

To think Ryker paid someone good money for information I’m willing to give him for free. All he has to do is ask. Then again, he gave me his word he wouldn’t pry, that my personal business is mine. Now I understand the reason. He’d gone behind my back to get it.

Why did he have to go digging? Why couldn’t he have left my past life in Chicago alone?

The next day is worse. I show up at Ryker’s place ready to pound the pavement and let off steam. The lawn in front of his new rental is empty.

“Where is everyone?” I close the driver’s side door and walk around to where he’s waiting by the front door.

“They have somewhere else to be.”

“They ditched us for breakfast out?” I smile. “Jocks and their appetites.” I go over my normal stretching routine.

“It’s not that, Harper.”

I pause mid-stretch. He’s looking straight at me, his gaze searching. He’s prepping for my reaction, and that’s when it hits me. His teammates didn’t ditch our run for food. They ditchedme.

“I see.” I kick at the grass, the sting of rejection eating at my core. This is the reason I allow few people into my life.

“Harper. Babe.”

Ryker reaches for me. I sidestep him and cross my arms.

“I don’t want to cause friction between you and your teammates.”

“You’re not.” His big shoulders rise and fall. “They . . . The shit Missy is spreading on campus makes the guys uncomfortable. Some of them have sisters. They all have mothers. They see their women in you, sweetheart, and they don’t know how to act when around you.”

“Same as before. They shouldn’t treat me any differently.”

“But you are different.”

“You mean not normal, don’t you?”

“I meant what I said. Different is you, and I want you for you. Don’t ever forget that. What kills me is the shit you went through to become the person you are now. If I could go back in time, I’d beat the shit out of Shephard’s brother and those punk friends of his. No one lays a hand on you. Ever.”

Ryker likes me for me. My abnormal is his different, and for someone other than Shephard to see me as more than the girl that went through a horrific and traumatic experience . . . His words give me hope that I can finally be whole and right again.

In Ryker’s eyes, I’ll never be anyone less than the girl he wants to protect with his whole being. But when the wicked comes for me, when the private investigator he’s hired digs up and exposes the proverbial skeletons in my closet, will Ryker feel the same?

Or will he choose to take the path of less resistance and follow it to his dreams to playing football in the NFL, free of the complications that would come from having me in his life.

No one lays a hand on you. Ever.

No one will, but if Sam and his friends get past Shephard’s and my defenses, I don’t ever want Ryker to see me helpless and on my knees. I’d rather die than face that humiliation in front of the guy I love.

Oh, God, I love him.

“Ryker?”

“Yes, babe?”

“There’s something I have to tell you. And you don’t have to say it just because I’m saying it.” I have to tell him. No regrets. No holding back. Not when there’s too much at stake with Sam getting out of prison in a week.

“Ryker, I . . .” My stomach knots. My heart beats a fast rhythm. “Ryker, I love you.”

---