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I do the right thing and throw myself into my work for the next couple of days. Ryder’s snowed under, so he says, but there aren’t sightings of him in social media and as the minutes tick away and he continues not to bring down any houses, the more my guilt starts to climb.
We’re at week three, and it seems the blogs are bored with the fact Ryder has some kind of girlfriend—sorry, fiancée—who is as scandal and newsworthy-free as, well, me. His scandal is milking her relationship, and that’s where focus is, the will they won’t they no doubt scripted drama being played out with her estranged husband and the Ryder angle has been dropped.
For now.
I’m not foolish enough to buy it’s over.
Whether it’ll be over for the next two weeks or if the waves will rock back against Ryder and his less than stellar reputation is anyone’s guess.
It’s one thing I can’t control or predict. All I can do is be ready.
Which means I have to put aside the personal crap with us and micro guide.
He has another board meeting coming up. They shifted it around, but he isn’t bothered. We talk, but it’s mostly via email and text. And…fuck it, I miss him.
I miss him there on my sofa. I miss bickering and talking and laughing and it doesn’t matter it’s been a thing of my doing along with circumstance, I miss him.
Even when I actually saw him briefly yesterday, it was all business.
I check my watch and start to pack up my desk. Ryder’s got a luncheon, one that was thrown at him by the board. The Women’s Guild of the Upper West Side.
He’s got this, and his mother will be there. Not to mention most of the women will be the matronly sort.
But I don’t want to let him go in without my hand guiding him, even if it’s just a pep talk and a going over of rules.
Ryder’s mother is going to be there and that sends certain warnings going off inside me.
So I close up early and I head to his place.
Ryder throws open the door right as I knock. He’s in jeans and a T-shirt, his tattoo on display and his feet are bare. He doesn’t smile.
“I’m alone.”
“I don’t care.”
“Yes,” he says, “you do.”
I narrow my eyes. “Can I come in?”
At that moment, a guy with a fixed gear bike comes up. “Sinclair?”
“Yes.” Ryder comes past me and gives the guy some cash and takes the paper bag the man digs out of his insulated messenger bag. Then Ryder just walks past me, wafting the mouth-watering scents of Vietnamese behind him. He pauses at his door. “Come on, Perry. I don’t have all morning.”
Inside, he heads to the kitchen where I’ve been once, a masterpiece of charm, industrial and color. “You’re eating?”
“I do that,” he says. “Along with drinking coffee. You want?”
“It’s ten thirty a.m. How the hell did you get Vietnamese at this hour?”
“New York City, baby; that and a lot of money gets results.” He sets two cups under his built in espresso machine, inserts some pods and presses a button. Then he moves a pile of papers and his open laptop from the top of the kitchen bench and kicks over a stool to me. “And I’m not going to this thing without eating what I want first. If I’m descending into hell, then I want a stomach full of great food.”
Ryder grabs the tiny espresso cups and gives me one, and then he opens the bag and pulls out a banh mi and gives me one half.
“I didn’t come here checking up on you,” I say, taking a bite and pretty much almost having an orgasm as the flavors hit my tongue. “Oh, my God, this is fantastic.”
He smiles low, like he knows what just shot through me. “Best kept secret in Chinatown. Squat, ugly place with zero frills, all thrills in the mouth department, and one of my go-to places.”
I take another bite and swallow, the pork melting and spiced just so it melds and builds with the homemade pickles and the herbs. And the hot sauce. The crunch of the bun so light and the inside so soft I’m in heaven. “You’re a man of many hidden depths, Ryder. And I mean it. I didn’t come to check up.”
