The Problem with Forever (26 page)

Chapter 24

Rider escorted Jayden to a break room that was at the back of the garage. It was a small, harshly bright room with a scratched table and a refrigerator that hummed and clanged around like it was on its last leg. He’d gathered ice from the freezer and wrapped it in the cleanest rag he could find.

“Man, I’m sorry.” Jayden mumbled the words as he pressed the ice to his eye. “I didn’t know you had her here. I just thought you’d be here and I could clean up.” Pausing, he slowly turned his head toward me, and I forced myself not to show a reaction to how messed up he looked. I called on the many years of experience with Rider after Mr. Henry got ahold of him. “Serious,
bebé
. I wouldn’t bring this shit to you on purpose.”

“I know,” I whispered.

“But you did,” Rider fired back, surprising me. “You brought this shit to me—to her. That’s not cool, man.”

My wide gaze shot to Rider.

The muscle in Rider’s jaw was spasming as he lowered his phone. “Hector’s on his way. Heads-up. He’s pissed.”

I sat beside Jayden, unsure of how to help other than sitting there and staying out of their way.

“You didn’t need to call him.” Jayden lowered the ice. “This has nothing to do with him.
No te preocupes
.”

“No need to worry? Are you out of your fucking mind? Have you seen yourself? And put the damn ice back on your eye.” Rider shook his head. “This was Braden, wasn’t it?”

I recognized that name from the guy I’d seen in school.

Jayden said nothing.

“I told you to stay the hell away from him. So did Hector. You’ve disappeared the last couple of days, doing God knows what for that piece of shit and now look at you.”

The younger boy lowered his chin as he placed the cloth back to his eye. “I thought I could recoup what I lost.”

I lifted my gaze to Rider and he read the question in my stare. I expected him not to answer, but he did.

“Jayden here, being extraordinarily bright—”

“Man,” Jayden muttered under his breath.

“Thought he could run shit for Braden. Front the stuff,” Rider continued, and it didn’t take a wild leap of logic to guess what
shit
meant. “Except he sold the junk and didn’t exactly return the money in the amounts he was supposed to.”

“People do it all the time,” Jayden argued. “You’ve done it!”

You’ve done it.

I stilled and might’ve stopped breathing. My gaze swung to Rider. I knew what fronting was. Selling stuff that was given to you under the promise of whatever it was being sold and the money being paid back. I also knew they weren’t talking about fronting sunglasses.

They were talking about fronting drugs.

Nausea rose.

His eyes remained on Jayden. “I used to.
Used
to, Jayden. Then I decided to rub two brain cells together and realized I didn’t want to end up dead in a damn alley just to make a hundred bucks.”

Rider used to deal drugs. Used to. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to feel relief or not as I stared at them. All I could feel was rising horror.

“I’m not going to end up dead.”

Rider looked like he wanted to add to Jayden’s bruises. “Really? What happened to your cousin? Last time I checked, he’d parted ways with his pulse.”

“Man,” Jayden said again, dropping his chin.

Rider folded his arms. “Why are you doing this? Hector said he can get you a job—”

“At McDonald’s? Making minimum wage just to smell like yesterday’s grease?” Jayden winced as he shook his head. “You know I help our
abuelita
with that money so she don’t have to work so many damn hours.” He held up the bag of ice. “She can’t keep up. You know that, and the state’s going to stop payin’ for you.”

“I know that, Jayden.”

“I don’t want her to have to keep takin’ in kids just to pay the damn electric bill. Not all of them have been like you,” he said.

Rider closed his eyes. “And I know that, too, but dammit, you’re...going to get yourself killed.”

The twisting increased as my breath caught. A cold rush of air swept down my spine as I listened to them. This...this was serious. Like way more serious than anything going on in my life.

“Nah, man. You stressing,” Jayden replied as he started to lower the ice again, but one look from Rider stopped him. “I got this taken care of.”

Rider snorted. “Looks like it.”

Jayden looked away, focusing on the fridge.

A moment passed and then Rider spoke again, voice low. “You’re like a brother to me, Jayden. You and Hector have been there for me. Opened your home to me. I don’t want to see this happening to you.”

“Nothin’ happening,” he muttered.

Rider kept going. “Do you think your grandma needs to see you like this? What do you think that’ll do to her? Do you think she wants money you bled for?”

Things started to click into place as I listened to them, and I didn’t like the pieces my mind was putting together. I thought about the day Rider and Hector had followed the older guys out of the school parking lot. The night he showed up with his forehead cut open. The hushed conversations between him and Hector. Rider was involved in whatever Jayden had going on.

“I’m cool,” Jayden said, voice hard. “Ain’t nothin’ gonna happen to me. I’m cool.”

* * *

When Hector showed up, for a moment I worried that this Braden wouldn’t be the most immediate problem for Jayden. Hector looked like he wanted to murder Jayden. He yelled at his brother, alternating between Puerto Rican and English at a rapid clip. Hector didn’t even look in my direction, not once, which I was okay with as he hauled his younger brother out of the garage, leaving Rider and me alone once more.

Rider closed the door behind them, and for a moment, he didn’t turn around. His shoulders rose with a deep breath and then he slowly faced me. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s...not your fault,” I told him.

Jaw clenched, he lowered his chin. “Yeah, but this...”

“This what?” I asked when he didn’t finish.

He lifted his hand and scrubbed it along his jaw. “This kind of shit doesn’t need to touch you. You shouldn’t be around any of that.”

“It’s not like...you knew this was going to happen,” I reasoned. Part of me wanted to approach him, to touch him, but I held back. “I hope...Jayden will be okay.”

He didn’t respond immediately. “He will be if he gets his head out of his ass.”

“How...bad is it?”

There was another pause. “It’s bad. It’s always bad, Mouse. He’s mixed up with some seriously bad people, and once you fall down that rabbit hole, it’s not easy to get back out.”

I folded my arms over my chest. “And you...used to do what he’s doing?”

He stiffened as he lifted his head. “I didn’t want you to know that.”

Pressure clamped down on my chest. “I know it now,” I said quietly.

“I was stupid. So stupid. Seemed easy, you know? Make a few runs. Make a few dollars.” Rider leaned against the closed door and shut his eyes. Suddenly a vulnerability seeped into his expression, and he looked his age instead of someone who’d lived triple that. “I didn’t get in too deep, not like Jayden. I got out.”

I felt like I needed to sit down. “How...did you get out?”

“Their cousin ended up dead, shot in the back of the head,” he said flatly, and I flinched. “When that happened, I was done. And I was lucky. I am lucky. I didn’t get mixed up with anyone else who cared what I was doing or not doing. That’s all.”

“What about...Hector?”

“He’s actually smarter. He never got messed up in any of that. That’s why he works. Saves every damn penny, too. He wants to go to the technical college. Get a job that isn’t him flipping burgers. Jayden’s just a kid,” he added as if he were ancient in years compared to him.

“It sounds like he wants to help Mrs. Luna.”

“He does, and that’s what makes it worse. Don’t get me wrong. He spends some of the money on himself. That’s how he got in trouble this time, but he buys groceries and sneaks money into Mrs. Luna’s purse.” Rider sighed again. “We all do.”

In that moment, I knew I couldn’t hold what he used to do against him. Rider...Jayden...so many other people were a product of their environment. Some got out. Others didn’t. Rider was right. A lot of it was luck. Sometimes it was determination. But mostly it was luck, and I was the luckiest of them all.

Forcing myself toward him, I unfolded my arms. “You’re involved...in this, though.” When he opened his mouth, I kept going. “The day you and Hector left school after Jayden did. You...showed up with your head busted open. Why?”

Rider pushed off the door and lifted his hand. He brushed the hair back from my face, tucking the strands behind my ear. “Jayden had a problem.”

I waited.

His fingers traveled down the side of my face, over my jaw. He curved his hand around the nape of my neck. “He was going to meet Braden. We stopped him.”

When his thumb smoothed over the space where my pulse fluttered, I felt the touch throughout. I wasn’t going to be distracted, though. “You stopped him with your face?”

His lips twitched. “Braden’s boys didn’t appreciate us retrieving Jayden.”

My heart flopped over heavily. “Who is Braden?”

“No one you ever have to worry about,” he responded immediately, and I pinned him with a look. “Seriously. There is no reason why you’d ever come across him.”

“But you will?”

He raised a brow. “Not if I can help it. Hopefully Jayden will learn from what happened tonight.”

“And if not?” My stomach kept flipping around. “I want to know who he is.”

For a moment I didn’t think he was going to answer and then he sighed. “Braden is in school with us. He runs shit for Jerome, who is way older. When Jayden didn’t have the money, Braden and his crew were going to have to answer to Jerome for that since Braden was the one to bring Jayden in. Of course, they were pissed at Jayden, and when they get pissed, they aren’t about talking.”

They were about fighting. “And you and Hector took Jayden’s place or something? Is that how you got hurt?”

“No. We persuaded them to give Jayden more time,” he explained. “It took a while to persuade them and some of the persuasion wasn’t talking.”

Oh, God. I couldn’t even fathom what it would be like to be in
that
situation. “Are you going to get involved...again? These people sound scary. I don’t...” I took a deep breath and said possibly the most selfish thing ever. “I don’t want you involved in any of that.”

“Because you care about me?”

“Of course.” I narrowed my eyes. “I don’t want to worry about you getting hurt.”

He stepped in and his other hand settled just above my hip. “Because you want to be with me?”

“Yes.” That word was easy to speak.

Rider smiled then and the right dimple appeared. “You want to be my girlfriend.”

I opened my mouth and then I laughed. It sounded strange after the seriousness of our conversation, but the statement was sweet and silly.

His cheeks pinked. “Not sure how I feel about that laugh,” he teased. “But I do love the sound of it.”

My breath caught at the word.
Love.
Oh, gosh, was that what was happening here?

“So do you? Want to be my girlfriend?” he asked, and then chuckled. “Probably should’ve brought this up before I kissed you, but I want...I want to see where this goes, Mallory. I feel like we got a second chance, you know? I’ve been thinking that since I sat down in speech and saw you sitting there. We have a second chance. And who gets second chances?”

I searched his gaze, feeling a rightness deep in my chest. I had thought the same thing before, about second chances.

“I don’t want to pass that up.”

“I don’t, either.” Slowly, I placed my hand on his chest again. Carl and Rosa wouldn’t be happy with it. Neither would Paige. And maybe this all was a little crazy, but I wanted this—wanted him. “Yes.”

The smile broke out across his face and he started to speak, but seemed to change his mind. Without saying a word, he lowered his head and he kissed me—my
third
ever kiss—and it felt just as right and perfect and complete as the first and second one.

And when he lifted his mouth from mine, he pulled me to his chest, wrapping his arms around me, and I went, holding him just as tightly as he was holding me. I pressed my cheek to his heart, and pushed everything with Jayden aside for the moment. I focused on Rider and me, and what was happening here and what it meant.

Because this...this was a beginning.

Chapter 25

Ainsley clutched the bowl of popcorn to her chest as she stared at me from the foot of my bed. Only the kernels were left, but Ainsley liked to root around for the half-popped ones. I had no idea how she didn’t crack her teeth gnawing on those things.

It was Sunday evening, less than twenty-four hours after Rider and I kissed, after Jayden showed up and after we went from friends reunited to definitely not just friends.

Boyfriend.

Girlfriend.

Even though I’d been present for all of that, I had no idea how it all happened. A hyena-like squeal built in my throat and I resisted the urge to bury my face in the pillow that lay in my lap.

“Back up,” Ainsley said, blue eyes glimmering. “You told me a lot. Everything. But I have to go back to something. He drew a heart between your names?”

I nodded.

“For real? Oh my God, Mal. That’s so corny, but so cute, so it strikes out the corniness and just makes me swoon.”

It made me swoon, too.

“I told you it seemed like he really liked you. And he didn’t even do what other guys do, like pretend that he wasn’t into you. He put it all out there,” she continued as she fished out a half-popped kernel and chomped down on it. “It’s like a fairy tale.”

My brows rose.

“It is!” she insisted, pausing to crack down on the kernel. “You guys grew up together, and he was like your white knight. Then you were separated and then brought back together. It doesn’t even seem real.”

“It doesn’t.” I pulled the pillow to my chest. “I almost don’t know...what to think of it.”

“Just think it’s amazing. Because it is.” She tucked her hair back behind her ear. “That’s all you have to think about.”

A little bit of reality seeped in. “But Paige...”

“They were broken up, apparently for a week, so it’s not like you broke them up.” She paused, scrunching her nose. “Actually, you kind of did break them up, but not on purpose. I doubt this Paige girl will see it that way, but whatever. Not your problem.”

I so dreaded the moment Paige realized that Rider and I were, well, a thing. “I told Rosa this morning that Rider and I...that we were seeing each other. The whole boyfriend-girlfriend thing.” I flushed. “I don’t think she was upset about it or really happy about it. Carl hasn’t said anything, but...”

“But he probably will and it will probably be super awkward. You’ve just got to give them time,” she replied rather sagely. “It’s your first real relationship.”

“I just... I don’t know. It just feels like there is more...to it,” I said.

Ainsley studied me for a moment. “Don’t stress over Carl and Rosa.”

“I’m—”

“And don’t say you aren’t going to stress over it. You stress over everything.” She smiled while I snapped my mouth shut. “Sometimes you’re so stuck in your own head that you’re not— Well, you’re not really living.”

My brows rose.

She glanced down at the bowl of popcorn. “Please don’t take that the wrong way. It’s just that I think sometimes you miss what’s going on around you, because you’re so worried about what others are thinking about you and your choices.”

I wanted to argue against that, but I couldn’t. “You’re right.” She was so right, because I constantly worried about what Carl and Rosa thought, what even Ainsley thought, and then Rider and Keira, Jo, Mr. Santos... The list went on and on.

“I know,” she chirped, and then she sobered. “It’s really sad about the stuff with Jayden.”

Typical Ainsley, moving from one conversation to the next. I fiddled with the hem of my pants. “He was so...beat up.”

“It doesn’t seem like Rider is heavily involved in whatever is going on.” She set the bowl aside, next to her book bag. She’d come over Sunday afternoon under the guise of studying alongside me. We hadn’t even opened a textbook. “Still, it was sad and scary.”

I wasn’t sure I agreed with Rider not being involved. Yes, it had nothing to do with me, but Rider had been involved and I doubted he would stay out of it if things continued to go bad for Jayden. It just wasn’t in Rider’s nature. He had a near suicidal hero complex.

My stomach tumbled.

And I also really liked Jayden. He had always been kind to me, even when he really had no idea who I was. I wasn’t sure how I could help him or if it was even in my power to help.

“So tell me about Hector. I want to know everything about him.”

I cocked my head to the side. “Thought you didn’t like him?”

“I don’t have to like him to be all up in his business from a distance.” Ainsley grinned.

I smiled. “I don’t know a lot about him. He...works at McDonald’s part-time, and he’s...nice.”

“Nice?” She laughed as she tossed her hair back. “You should’ve heard what he was saying about me, in
front
of me. He’s a jerk—a dirty-minded, perverted jerk-face.”

I stared at her.

“But he is hot,” she added with a sly grin. “There is that.”

I nodded in agreement. “How’s Todd?”

Her eyes rolled. “Boring. Snobby. I don’t want to talk about him, because there is something we do need to talk about.” Ainsley glanced at my closed bedroom door. Carl and Rosa were somewhere downstairs. “You’re dating Rider now, right? You’re his girlfriend and don’t you have Homecoming soon? Your first dance!”

I winced. “We...haven’t even talked about that.”

“You can talk about it now.”

“I don’t know,” I responded.

She raised a brow. “You should at least ask if he wants to go. It’s kind of like the normal thing to do,” she said, lowering her voice.

I nodded, liking the sound of that. “I want to be normal.”

Her mouth opened and then her nose scrunched. “Okay. Pause. Normal is subjective, and you are normal, Mal.”

I wrinkled my nose.

“What? You don’t talk a lot and sometimes you occasionally freak out. How does that make you abnormal? There are tons of people out there like that.” She threw her hands up. “So what? And you came from foster care—a crappy foster home, but again, unfortunately that’s also not unusual. That doesn’t make you weird.”

I started to explain that I was weird, but I stopped myself. Ainsley had a point. I didn’t have a common childhood and I didn’t talk, but that didn’t make me some strange, unknown creature.

Ainsley knew a lot about my childhood. She knew it had been rough for me and Rider, and that I’d been burned, but there were things I hadn’t told her. Stuff that I had only ever talked to Dr. Taft about. Things Carl and Rosa knew, because they’d seen the police reports and my case file.

My gaze swung around the room, settling on the owl soap carving before coasting over my neat desk and the thickly cushioned window seat. This bedroom was so different than the ones in that house. Clean, bright and airy. Welcoming.

The back of my throat dried as I looked at Ainsley. Never in the past had I wanted to tell her the things I never talked about, but the need blossomed, burning through my stomach and chest.

I forced my tongue to become unglued from the roof of my mouth. “I have...a problem with noise and talking.” Heat flooded my cheeks as I lowered my gaze to the pillow I held. It was hard to explain why a dance might be too much. “I had to be quiet, because Mr. Henry didn’t like...noise. He didn’t like a lot of stuff, but staying quiet kept me out of...trouble for the most part.”

Ainsley stilled, quiet.

Drawing in a deep breath, I continued. “Rider would always...tell me ‘not to make a sound’ so...I couldn’t be found when Mr. Henry was drunk or when I...did something wrong. Sometimes, he would get mad if I ate cookies or...walked up the stairs too loudly. He never liked it if I spoke. And I...I guess—I
know
that’s why I don’t like to talk and I don’t like noise. The therapist I saw used to say it was post-traumatic stress syndrome...and conditioning.” The heat lessened as I continued. “Anyway, the night...I was burned, something else happened.”

She didn’t know how I was burned, so I told her. It was rough and painful to get out. The room was so quiet, even with the TV on low in the background, I could hear a cricket sneeze. I told her about Velvet and how much I treasured the doll Rider had stolen for me, no matter how old I got. I explained how a few weeks before, Mr. Henry had gotten mad over something insignificant and had taken the doll, stashing it in plain sight, really just to taunt me. I told her how Mr. Henry had tossed Rider outside after he’d asked if we were having dinner that night.

“He...threw the doll in the fireplace,” I explained, smoothing my hands over the pillow. “I didn’t think. I reached in...and tried to grab it. That was how I burned...my arms.”

“Oh my God,” she whispered.

“I know it sounds stupid, but Velvet was the...only thing that was mine. It never belonged to anyone but...me. I just panicked.” I shook my head. “But before that, I...tried to get Miss Becky to wake up. She always...liked Rider. I thought she would step...in.”

“She didn’t?” Her voice was quiet.

I swallowed the sudden burn in my throat. “I went...into her bedroom even though I wasn’t supposed to. Miss Becky drank a lot. When I was younger, I thought it was because she was sick. I...went into that room and she was lying on the bed...”

My breath caught as the image of the room formed.
Empty bottles. Messy floor. Miss Becky on the bed, her thin chest unmoving and her skin a weird, waxy color
. “I thought...she was sleeping. She slept a lot. I called her name and when she didn’t wake up, I went to the bed. I tried to shake her.” Wincing at the memory, I barely heard Ainsley’s soft inhale. “She wasn’t asleep. She’d...died sometime that day. Later I heard that it was an overdose. Pills and alcohol. Mr. Henry didn’t even know. I guess her passing out...was so common, he...he didn’t even check on her.”

“Oh my God,” Ainsley repeated.

“I’ve been dreaming about that night, about touching her. I don’t know why. For a while I didn’t think of her, but it...messed with me.”

“It would mess with anyone, Mal. God, I would be traumatized if I saw a dead person from a distance, much less up close and personal.” She tucked long blond strands behind her ears. “What happened after you were burned?”

“I...I was screaming. I guess. I don’t...remember exactly. I just pieced it together from what I heard later, but Rider heard my screams and he...went to the neighbors. It took a couple houses...before anyone answered the door. They called the police.” I forced myself to keep going. “When the police showed up, Mr. Henry answered the door like...nothing was wrong. So crazy. Mr. Henry ended up in jail for what he did to Rider and me. I...I doubt he’s still in jail. I don’t think about that,” I said, and that part was true. “I don’t know why, but I...I don’t.”

I lifted my gaze just in time to see Ainsley spring forward. She wrapped her arms around me, nearly tackling me. I froze, unused to this. I didn’t hug a lot. For the most part, I didn’t like to be touched, but I got over it quickly, because the hug was warm and good. Different than Carl and Rosa’s. Different than Rider’s, but just as good.

Wrapping my arms around her, I hugged her back. I didn’t even know why I’d told her, but I was glad I did. A weird rush of tears pricked the backs of my eyes. Not sad ones. More like relief. Confiding in Ainsley felt like I’d just stripped off a layer of bulky clothing.

Ainsley pulled back, her eyes shining. “Thank you for sharing that with me.”

I didn’t know what to say, but for once I didn’t mind. Right now there was nothing to be said and that was okay with me.

* * *

My heart was racing so fast Monday morning I wondered if it would pop out of my chest and run circles around me. Today looked like every Monday that came before it, but it would be different. It was the first day in school since Rider and I had gotten together and I didn’t know what to expect. I doubted things would change significantly. Wasn’t like I was wearing a badge that said “Rider Stark’s girlfriend,” but going to my locker in the morning felt different, and it wasn’t because Jayden wasn’t there.

I worried about him during lunch. He’d been so bruised and bloodied, but I knew from previous experience that sometimes bones could be hard to break, as if they were laced with titanium. Other times, bones were like dry branches, easy to snap. Had Jayden suffered broken bones? That nose hadn’t looked too good.

I’d picked at my salad until lunch was over. I didn’t even like salads, but I wasn’t sure what the heck the alternative was.

At the end of lunch, Keira stayed at my side while Jo and Anna walked ahead. “So.” She drew the word out. “There’s a party at Peter’s house this week. It’ll be really fun. It’s an annual thing he does the weekend before the homecoming game. I just wanted to make sure you knew that you’re invited, and I hope you come.”

My step faltered as I dragged my right foot.

Anna looked over her shoulder. “Of course she’s coming. Right, Mallory?”

I nodded, almost afraid if I did speak, I’d ruin the moment, and it was a big moment because I was invited to a party. A real party.

“Cool.” Keira nudged me with her hip. “You can bring whoever you want with you. There’s really no limit.”

I felt myself nod. Normally that invite would have me stressing out, but my stomach had started doing cartwheels for a totally different reason, and the giddiness continued into calculus. I had no idea what was being covered in that class and when the bell rang, I bit down on my lip to stop myself from grinning like I was deranged. Shoving my textbook into my bag, I walked out of my class and there was no stopping my smile.

Rider was waiting for me.

He pushed off the lockers opposite the classroom, unfurling his long body. Parting the sea of students, he shoved the ratty notebook under his left arm and prowled up to me. I stopped, smile widening as I lifted my chin and looked up at him. His hair was wavy, as if he’d shoved his fingers through it a dozen or so times and it flopped onto his forehead in a careless way.

“Hey,” I said, speaking first.

The dimple in his right cheek appeared, and he dropped his arm over my shoulders as he lowered his head. We were surrounded by people, but in that moment, as he lowered his mouth to my cheek and kissed me, it was like we were on our own island. There was something sweet and familiar about that feeling.