Page 14 of Monsters of Midlife

“It seemed safe.” I muttered. It just made sense at the time.

“Says the delusional man who stepped in front of an oncoming truck.” Ratchet shook his head.

“It’s not that bad,” I growled.

“No, it wouldn’t seem so through rose-colored glasses.” Ratchet took three strides across the room, standing right in front of me. He was one of the few beings who could look me straight in the eye.

“I don’t like any of this one bit,” he said. “I told you she was trouble from the minute you met her. And there’s been nothing in the last years to change my mind.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to ever change your mind,” I said with a snort. “That’s why everyone likes having you around, because you cut through the bullshit. I don’t think you know how to lie to anyone even if they asked you to.”

“Then believe me when I tell you that being here is a bad idea,” Ratchet said, he opened the front door showing me the way out.

Maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea. I had been away from Caroline so long, I forgot what it was like to engage with the human world. Instead, I was dropping in and out like she was a supernatural and used to monsters teleporting into her home.

I raised my shoulders to my ears and let them drop in a solid shrug. I hadn’t asked for his opinion, and he knew it, but this time I was going to acquiesce. Slightly. We could go somewhere for a while and return when Caroline was home.

I walked to the door, stepping across the threshold. I needed that ring back and I had to get it from Caroline herself, apparently.

Still there was a feeling of dread deep in my stomach knowing that if Ratchet was having a bad feeling about this, there was no way in hell it was going to end well.

Chapter 10

CAROLINE

He wasn’t there when I got home, but I could sense him in every part of my body; he had been in my house. And not just from the night before; he’d been in during the day. His scent clung heavy in the air.

I glanced at my watch. It was fifteen minutes before Laney would show up. It would be way too neurotic for me to call her now; like I was afraid to be alone. I hadn’t faced Ryder in three long years, but that space hadn’t prepared me to see him. It just made it harder when he had suddenly shown up standing in the shadows of my bedroom, dangerous and dark. He could’ve easily taken me if he wanted to, but he hadn’t and I didn’t want him to. At least if I kept telling myself that, maybe then it would be true.

The doorbell rang and I ran to get it.

“Thank God you’re here!” I said, flinging the door open.

My breath caught in my throat. The wrong person. Very much the wrong person.

“Ryder.” My words caught in my throat, almost revealing the thoughts I just had. He stood in front of me, his broad features and shoulder length black hair a frame for his large almond eyes which were staring at me, searching me, as if he was going to uncover something he was looking for right here in the doorway of my house. I just couldn’t quite tell what he wanted.

“Caroline,” he said, his voice abrupt and clipped. Fine. I knew this Ryder. This was the Ryder I had divorced. This was the Ryder who’d broken my heart. The cold, distant Ryder who wanted nothing to do with me. I swallowed hard.

“What do you want?” I asked, not daring to show him an ounce of feeling.

“May I come in?” he asked.

I tilted my head to the side and laughed drily, opening the door wide and sweeping my arm to the side to welcome him into the house. “Would it matter if I said no?”

He moved past me and into the living room. “Well, it would matter.”

“But you’d still do it,” I said to his back.

“Do what?” he countered.

“Come into the house,” I said, choosing my words carefully.

“There’s been a problem in my family’s business,” Ryder said.

“Your family’s business has never been any business of mine,” I said, trying to ignore the stabs of pain that knowledge caused. Ryder had a family I’d never met. Some siblings, twelve, maybe more, I don’t know and their mother. He’d always managed to keep that part of his life incredibly separate from me, so now when he came to me with a “family problem” it was hard for me to take him seriously.

“I’m looking for something I left with you,” he said.

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