Page 50 of Bound by Vengeance
“Thank you, Leah.” I sit next to her. “It is hard, and I appreciate you saying those words.”
She looks up at me, her eyes haunted.
“Seems you need to follow your own advice.” I give her a soft smile in hopes she’ll be able to relax a bit.
“I’m working on it. Every day is a challenge, but it’s coming.”
After that conversation, fatigue from everything settled deeply inside my bones.
Ryker ended up sleeping on the couch. I told him I needed space, which wasn’t a lie. I used that time to try to build my walls back up and use concrete to keep them in place. It didn’t work. Leah’s words continually ran through my head like alarm bells, not shutting off throughout the night.
This morning when Ryker drove me to work, he grabbed my hand and kissed the top of it, saying nothing, but his touch was everything. Comforting and honest.
Now he sits in the salon’s waiting area, playing on his phone, moving his thumbs quickly across the screen.
Two women, a couple of chairs down, ogle him, their eyes filled with lust and want. Not that they can be blamed for that.
Ryker is hot; there’s no question about that.
Life must go on, and there is work to be done.
My mom always said that the true measure of a woman is how they deal with problems. Now that task lays directly in my lap.
“There you go, Althea. All curled and colored.” I turn her so she faces the mirror, and her face lights up.
Her hand goes up to her hair. “Oh, I love it! Thank you, dear!”
That is the one thing all clients do. As soon as I get their hair done, they have to run their hands through it like they have some magical touch that will make the hair just perfect. To each their own. You get used to it.
Althea hands me a tip then moves to the front of the building to the cashier counter. After cleaning up, I walk up to Ryker, purse in hand, and his head comes up from the phone.
“Time to go.”
He moves quickly. So quickly I try to hold in a laugh. He doesn’t like it here, and I can’t blame him one bit. Being around women all day is hard, and I’m one who he doesn’t get a break from.
Sometimes women are catty or talk behind each other’s back. They’ll make plans with two of them and leave a third out.
Women, at least here at the salon, are so different than men.
Men, they’ll fight it out and be down with whatever is bothering them. Women can hold a mean grudge. Something that happened years ago, they can hold it over your head forever. My mother, though, is a fighter. Put up or shut up. I go with her way of thinking.
“Let’s go to dinner.”
My stomach takes that moment to rumble. That’s the thing about Ryker—it doesn’t embarrass me one bit.
“Dinner it is.”
Nerves light off like firecrackers as we sit in a booth at the local mom and pop shop. Him on one side, me on the other.
There are so many things to talk about, yet I don’t want to talk about any of them. I wish I could just disappear sometimes and not be an adult. Forget having to make decisions and thinking. Just be free again to think the world is perfect and the bad stuff will never touch me.
That’ll never happen again. Adulting sucks.
After we order, the waitress brings us our drinks. I twirl my straw in my cup, knocking the ice around, not sure what to say or what to do at this point.
Ryker breaks the silence. “Talk to me, Austyn. I know you’re pissed at me, but talk to me.”
I’m not even sure what to say, so I just open my mouth and let it roll. “Never again, Ryker. Swear to me that as long as we know each other, you will never ever repeat my business to others.”
