Chapter Twenty-Four
Heartbreak was far worse than she’d imagined. Far, far worse.
Sophie had stayed with the nice, motherly bartender for a couple hours, pouring out her troubles while the older woman listened, clucked, and sympathized.
Sophie had assumed she’d feel better after, because talking always had a way of making her feel better.
But instead she felt like there was something vital missing inside her.
When talking hadn’t worked, she’d wandered aimlessly around the city, even though it was far too late to be out by herself, trying to piece together what exactly had gone wrong. In the end, she’d determined she should have followed her instincts and stayed away from Ryder. Her gut had tried to steer her away from him, but she’d gone and dove in headfirst and now she had to pay the price.
Only the price was far too steep.
She’d ended relationships with men she’d cared for before, and yeah, it hurt and it sucked and she’d cried, but this was different.
This morning, she’d finally broken down and called Penelope, who would be arriving at any minute. After, she’d go back home to Revival and finish the job she’d been hired for. As much as she wanted to run away and never have to see Ryder again, she couldn’t do that to Griffin, or the town. She cared too much about the job she was doing.
And she didn’t tuck tail and run. That wasn’t her nature.
There was a knock on the door, and when she opened it, Penelope stood there with a tray of two huge coffees and a box from one of her favorite places, the Doughnut Vault. One look at her friend and she started to cry.
Penelope’s face creased. “Oh dear.” She walked into the room in that efficient way she had, putting her offerings on the table before turning back to Sophie to give her a big hug.
Which only made her cry harder.
Penelope rocked her. “What happened? You guys were so happy when you left. And why didn’t you call me sooner?”
Sophie sobbed and sniffed and generally made a spectacle of herself, hoping at the end it would act as a cathartic release. Cleanse her and put her back on the track of feeling human again.
It didn’t work.
At the end, her misery wouldn’t abate.
They moved to the couch, and she huddled in the corner with a blanket on while Penelope shuffled around the room to bring her coffee and other girl necessities. When everything was set up to her satisfaction, Penelope sat next to her and patted her knee. “Tell me what happened.”
“I took him to John-Paul’s pub last night, and his partner, you remember François, showed up and he said he wanted me for his VP of marketing.” Tears spilled over Sophie’s cheeks. “It’s my dream job, Pen. It blows my last job out of the water. And I’d be awesome at it.”
“Ah, I see,” Penelope said, as though it explained everything.
“Ryder wasn’t happy.”
“What do you mean he wasn’t happy?”
“He said he saw how excited I was about the job and he couldn’t be with me anymore.” She took a tissue from the box Penelope had brought over and wiped her eyes. “Why is it wrong for me to be excited?”
“Oh, Sophie. Of course you should be excited. It’s a huge opportunity for you.” Penelope shook her head.
“Exactly.”
“Is there more?”
Sophie shook her head. “He wanted to talk about our future, but I can’t. Not yet. I’m not ready and don’t want to face it.”
“Maybe it got to be too much for him.”
“What’s too much for him? Why can’t he enjoy the time we have left? Nothing has changed.”
“Sometimes, your emotions and what you want changes.” Penelope’s forehead pulled as her brows creased.
“But my time in Revival has always been temporary. I’ve always been clear about that. Six months, tops.”
Penelope patted her leg. “Things happen, and it throws you for a loop. It crystalizes your feelings, and once you know the truth, you can’t go back.”
Sophie twisted her damp tissue. “I don’t understand.”
Penelope sighed. “It’s like when I had that pregnancy scare when I first got back together with Evan. It scared me because deep down it forced me to confront what I really wanted. A life that included Evan. A tie to him that couldn’t break us. It felt ... weak somehow for me to want that. I hated it, but what was even worse was I couldn’t pretend it wasn’t true. So I did everything I could to push him away because I was terrified he didn’t want the same thing, despite all the evidence to the contrary.”
Through her misery, Sophie tried, but it eluded her. “What are you saying?”
Penelope’s expression filled with concern. “I think, maybe, hearing the job offer made Ryder realize the truth.”
Sophie blinked watery eyes at her friend, this woman who’d been her rock for twenty years, hoping she had the answers. “What’s the truth?”
Penelope glanced over Sophie’s shoulder out at the city skyline. “He had hope, Soph.”
“That I was going to stay in Revival?”
Penelope shrugged. “We can’t know what he hoped. But I think he hoped you had a future, or at least the possibility of a future. Who knows what that looked like to him.”
“But that’s impossible. I live here. He lives there. We never had a future. We just have now.”
Penelope tilted her head. “There are always options. He could move, you could move. Look at James and Gracie, they go back and forth. There are plenty of options you could talk about.”
Why didn’t Penelope understand that it didn’t work that way with her? “You don’t get it. I have to take this job, and there’s no way I can ask Ryder to move with me.”
“Why?”
“Because. His life is there. His friends and family and job. He belongs in Revival. I won’t take that from him.” She couldn’t. She’d always been an obligation, and she refused to be that for Ryder.
Penelope’s expression creased with concern. “And that’s why he can’t continue to be with you.”
Sophie started to cry again, feeling hopeless and lost. “I don’t understand!”
Penelope gripped her hand. “Sophie, the man is in love with you. You can’t seem to see it, but it’s obvious to everyone else. He loves you and you’re leaving. In simplest terms, he just can’t take it. Being with you, knowing you’re already gone is worse for him. You’re going to have to accept it and let him go.”
Sophie shook her head. “It can’t be.”
“Why?”
Sophie scoffed. “Because guys don’t fall irrevocably in love with me. That’s how it is with you and Maddie. That’s not how it works for me.”
Penelope raised her eyes to the ceiling. “You’re so stubborn.”
“He left, Pen. Left.” Anger erased some of her grief. “Look me in the eye and tell me when you acted like a complete butthead by pushing Evan away, that he ever left your side.”
Penelope’s gaze lowered. “We had different issues.”
“But the actions are what matter. Ryder chose to leave. Evan wouldn’t have ever left you and you know it. That man is like glue on you, same way Mitch is with Maddie, and Shane with Cecilia, and James with Gracie. Ryder—” She waved a hand in the air. “You get the picture. Ryder bailed over a job I don’t even have yet. How is that love?”
Penelope took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. “I don’t know how to make you understand.”
Indignant, and ready to latch onto it instead of the grief, Sophie plopped back against the couch. “That’s because you know I’m right.”
Her friend tilted her head, her mink-like hair swaying over one shoulder. “Do you love Ryder?”
The question made her heart do a strange pitter-patter. “I don’t know. I care about him a lot. I miss him. I want him. I feel horrid. But I don’t even know what love is. Why do I have to define it?”
“You’re scared.”
She was. Terrified. Only she didn’t know what she was so afraid of. It was like staring into a dark abyss she didn’t understand or couldn’t make sense of. She didn’t want to think about it. It was too hard. She saw the glimmer of something she’d never had before with Ryder, but she didn’t know what to do about it.
Not that it mattered, because they were over.
She shrugged.
“He gets you, Sophie. Really gets you. And that’s rare.”
She wanted to reject it, because it was true but it was over. It was too hard to think about what she’d just lost. She frowned. “We have chemistry and awesome sex.”
Penelope sighed, full of exasperation, before she spoke. “Evan told me something Ryder said to him yesterday that I think you should hear.”
“What’s that?”
“Evan said he’d never thought he’d meet a man that could tame you. And do you know what Ryder said?”
Tears fell on her cheeks and she shook her head. “What?”
“He said he hadn’t, that he didn’t see the point, because he liked you wild.”
Sophie’s chest squeezed tight, so tight she could barely breathe.
“That’s what love is, not wanting to change the wild. How many men do you think come along like that in a lifetime?”
Sophie started to cry again. Not many.
* * *
When Ryder moved to Revival, he’d done it because he’d needed a change. To do something new and break out of the routine of his life. The last thing he’d expected was to gain a group of friends, which wasn’t what he thought he’d needed but sure seemed nice now.
Ryder, Charlie, and Griffin sat at Sam Roberts’s bar, drinking beer and watching a game on TV as Ryder nursed his broken heart and tried not to think about Sophie too much. They didn’t ask him a lot of questions, didn’t bring her up, but he knew they were all there for him, making sure he didn’t drown too much in his misery.
After the long drive back from Chicago, where there’d been nothing but the roar of the motorcycle he’d driven, the endless stretches of cornfields, and silence, he’d had far too much time to think about her. He wanted to take it back because he wanted her that much, but he couldn’t.
“Another?” Sam said, pointing at his almost empty beer.
He nodded. Charlie and Griff had collected him at about three, and this was where they’d been for the last five hours.
Sam slid a bottle in front of him. Ryder drained the last of his current beer and handed it over. He was well on the way to stupid drunk, and that suited him just fine. Numbness was preferable at this point.
Charlie sat on one side of him, Griff on the other, bookending him in silent support. He took a drink, put the bottle down, and frowned. “Why did I think giving up casual sex was a good idea again?”
Surprised he’d spoken out loud, he blinked.
Griff laughed. “Because you’re in your thirties and it gets old as fuck.”
His brow furrowed. “I was wrong. It’s much better.” He turned to Charlie. “Maybe you have it right. How the hell do you sleep with a woman for months and not get attached to her?”
Charlie shrugged. “Easy.”
“How was it easy?” Sophie had him from the first time he’d kissed her in the Rileys’ kitchen.
Charlie grinned. “You want me to tell you where you went wrong?”
“Yeah, I do.” Because he’d sure as hell gone wrong. He’d known from the second he’d laid eyes on her she was insanity. He’d gone into it fully comprehending that he wanted her and she was leaving. They were supposed to have an affair. He wasn’t supposed to fall in love with her. Where had he detoured so absolutely?
And why the hell couldn’t he make what she was willing to offer him enough? It should be enough. Because being without her was awful. Half of something was better than nothing, wasn’t it?
Only, something inside him couldn’t take it. He couldn’t articulate why, but it was true.
Charlie pointed to Sam. “In deference to Sam, I’ll leave Gracie out of it.”
“I appreciate that,” Sam said dryly. “And if James was here, I’m sure he’d appreciate it as well.”
Gracie Donovan was married to James now, but once upon a time she’d had a friends-with-benefits type of relationship with Charlie that everyone seemed pretty cool about. Her husband included.
“But here’s where you went wrong,” Charlie said, scrubbing his jaw as though thinking through what he wanted to say. “You picked Sophie.”
Ryder blinked at him. “That is no help.”
Griffin laughed. “I get it.”
“So do I,” Sam added.
“Well, I’m lost as shit.” Ryder’s brain hurt.
Charlie sighed. “You don’t pick women like Sophie for casual. Women like Sophie don’t reach inside you because they’re pretty and have a nice rack. They reach inside you because they are the total package.” He grinned.
Charlie clapped Ryder on the back. “I have a simple strategy for picking the women I bed. I have to be able to look into her eyes and know she’s not bullshitting me about a relationship.” He pointed at Sam. “Gracie was like that when I met her. That woman wanted nothing to do with commitment. Not sure I’d ever met a woman less interested in a relationship. That’s why she was so perfect. Hot as hell, up for anything in bed, and had no desire to talk about feelings.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “I’ll tell James you said so.”
“I’m sure he knows what your sister is like in bed.”
Sam scrubbed a hand over his face. “Why do I have to be friends with all my sister’s hookups? A brother isn’t supposed to know these things.”
“Back to the point.” Charlie held up a finger. “You have to have attraction, of course, but the insane chemistry you have with Sophie that rolls off the two of you and drives everyone crazy, I’d stay the hell away from that.”
“I tried.” He had. He slammed down the rest of his beer. “I really, really tried.”
Charlie gave him that eagle-eyed look. “You didn’t try.”
“I did.” She’d just been too addictive to ignore.
Charlie scoffed. “How long had you known her before you had your hands all over her? Less than twenty-four hours, I’d bet.”
Ryder scowled. “Obviously you’ve never experienced it or you’d understand.”
“I haven’t,” Charlie said, laughing. “If I ever ran into that kind of compulsion, I wouldn’t touch her with a ten-foot pole. I’m not an idiot.”
“How was that being an idiot?”
“Because it’s common sense. Everyone knows once you know what she tastes like, you can’t stop.”
Ryder was starting to feel a bit wobbly on his stool. “What do you have against relationships, anyway?”
“We’re not talking about me.” Charlie took a swig off the bottle. “I’ve got nothing against them. They’re just not for me. I’m not good husband material. I play to my strengths. It’s that simple.”
Ryder called bullshit, but knew Charlie well enough to know that was as much as he was going to say on that subject.
He turned to Griffin. “You have anything to add?”
He shrugged. “Maybe next time, if you don’t want to fall, pick someone a little less awesome. Did you know that last week, Sophie got Mary Beth to change her mind? And she did it so smoothly I don’t think Mary Beth even realized she’d ended up doing what Sophie wanted in the first place. Somehow she made Mary Beth think it was her idea.”
Ryder nodded. “Okay, so no commitment types, attraction but not chemistry, and dumb. Is that all?”
Sam tilted his head. “Maybe one that isn’t so daring and adventurous.”
“Pretty, low maintenance, dumb, and boring. Got it.” God, no wonder Sophie had knocked his feet out from under him. That had been his type for as long as he could remember, and the thought of eventually going back to it made him want to stab himself.
He shook his head. “This sucks.”
Griffin nodded. “It does. I remember.”
“At least it worked out for you in the end.” Ryder’s voice sounded angry and hostile, but nobody took offense.
“It can still work out,” Sam said.
All three of them turned to look at him. Sam was an enigma, kind of quiet and watchful. Charlie and Ryder never questioned him about it, but he had a sixth sense about things.
Sometimes when they were stuck on a case and the trail seemed dead, they’d come to Sam’s bar and casually bring it up. Seventy-five percent of the time, Sam would drop a single line that would set them on the right path. The rest of the time, he just shrugged and stayed mute.
Ryder knew to listen carefully to what he had to say now, and all his senses went on high alert.
“How?” Ryder asked.
Sam’s eyes narrowed, and a distant look entered his expression. “She just doesn’t see it clearly.”
That made zero sense to him, so he cautiously probed. “Doesn’t see what clearly?”
“Don’t know,” Sam said, unhelpfully. “She’s . . . cloudy. She doesn’t understand.”
“What doesn’t she understand?” His tone was impatient now; he wanted answers to the niggle bothering him.
Sam met his gaze. “I’m sorry, I don’t know how to explain it exactly.”
“Well, can you try?”
“She has blinders on, and until she takes them off, she’s only able to see things one way.”
“Is there anything I can do?” The beat of hope pounded in his chest, mixing with the alcohol and making him dizzy.
Sam frowned. “You’re not going to like it.”
“What?” He’d do anything.
Sam sighed. “You have to leave her alone for a little bit. She needs space to sort it out.”
Well, fuck, that sucked.