“I think I have the advantage at least for the moment,” he said as he squared his shoulders, feeling like he was about to walk into a battle. “Abby wants answers more than she wants to be angry.”
Hoping he was right, Spider knocked on Abigail’s door, the flowers held out before him like a peace offering. His eyes narrowed when she opened the door, there were dark circles under her eyes hinting she hadn’t slept much last night.
“I asked you to leave,” she said.
“I can’t do that. I promised you that I wouldn’t walk away from you again and I’m not.”
“Ryder, what do you want?” she asked, exhaustion covered every word.
“To take you out on a date,” he replied.
“Ryder …”
“Look, don’t decide yet, I want to tell you why your dad didn’t think I was good enough for you.” As much as he abhorred the idea of Abigail learning about his past, part of him wished he had done it back in the beginning. Maybe if there hadn’t been any secrets between them then he wouldn’t have felt like he had no choice but to leave.
Abigail studied him for a long moment, her expression not giving away any of what she was thinking, and Spider found himself holding his breath until she finally nodded and stepped back to allow him to enter.
Score one.
It was a small victory, but he’d take it.
“Did you sleep at all?” he asked as she closed the door behind them.
“Nightmares,” she said shortly.
“Did you eat?”
“Not hungry.”
“You have to eat, Abs, you have to keep your strength up.”
“Why?” The toneless way she said it as she dropped down into one of the armchairs had his heart stuttering in his chest.
She sounded like she’d given up.
That was unacceptable.
That wasn’t his Abby.
Knowing that it was because of what he and her brother had told her the day before that had pushed her to her limits had his guilt-meter ticking over to full.
“These are for you,” he said as he held out the flowers.
“We’re doing the flower thing again?”
“No, well kind of, it worked last time.” He tried to joke, but when she arched a brow he set the flowers on the kitchen counter and sat down on the couch. “Abby, not fighting for you—for us—is my biggest regret, I can’t take it back, can’t undo what’s been done, but I’m hoping that once you understand why that you might be willing to give me a second—or a third—chance.”
She said nothing, just sat quietly with her legs folded beneath her and her hands in her lap, and waited for him to explain. She obviously wasn’t going to make this easy for him, but he didn’t deserve for it to be easy. He had messed up, big time, and now he had to try to clean up that mess.
“Did your mom ever tell you anything about my childhood before I went to live with my grandparents?” Spider asked.
“No. I know that you had a rough childhood, but I don’t know any details.”
“Your mom met me in juvenile court,” he began.
Abigail’s brow furrowed. “I can’t imagine you doing anything that would have you in court.”
He gave her a sad smile. “That’s because you don’t know the Ryder that existed before I met your family. As you know, your mom worked security at the court, she was there the day I had my court appearance. I had been getting into fights at school, it made me hate school, I was in foster care at the time and I snuck out, got some spray paint from one of the older kids, I went to the school and graffitied the buildings.”
“What did the kids bully you for?” Abigail asked.
That she had zeroed in on the crux of what had led to him taking a spray can to the school made him smile. Although they had been like oil and water as kids a part of him had always known that she was special, that she got him. “I was a scrawny little thing as a child, tiny for my age, we didn’t always have a lot to eat at my house.”
“Were you abused, Ryder?” Abby asked, her voice soft and full of empathy, all traces of anger and hurt gone as she focused her entire attention on him and his story and not the bad blood between them.
“My dad was a drunk. A violent, mean drunk. He worked in construction when he was sober enough to work, the rest of the time we went hungry. When he was drunk he used to beat my mom. As I got older he tried to come after me a few times, but my mom would always get in between us, offering up herself so long as he didn’t put his hands on me.”
Abigail slipped off her chair and joined him on the couch, gently covering his hands with her own. “I’m sorry, Ryder, that’s awful. Your mom sounds like she was such a brave lady.”
“Just like you,” he said, cupping her cheek in his hand as his thumb stroked across the petal softness of her skin. “Do you know why my nickname is Spider?”
“No, I never really thought about it, and you never told me.”
“One day when I was about six, I remember my dad was drunk and beating on my mom, and then this spider dropped from the ceiling and ran across his arm, he freaked out. The spider was a small one but he was terrified of it. The spider reminded me of myself. I was small, only no one was afraid of me, but it gave me comfort. If spiders were small and yet they could scare people then maybe the fact that I was small meant that I could be strong too, I could learn how to make people afraid of me so I didn’t get beaten up. That fascination with them just kind of stuck.”
“I remember you had a pet tarantula when you were a teenager.” Abigail huffed, but her eyes sparkled. “I also remember the time you and Eric thought it would be funny to set it loose in my room to scare me. As I recall it did.”
Spider laughed. “I’d forgotten about that.”
“You and Eric loved to drive me crazy,” she said with a reminiscent smile. “I remember I used to hate you so much. I used to feel like you stole my place in my family and left me out in the cold, but I remember the day that changed. I was twelve and my best friend Maria had a crush on a boy from her church. She lied to her mom and said all the kids from the church were going to hang out together but she and her boyfriend just wanted to make out. Her friend tried to kiss me, but I got this bad feeling about him so I told Maria I was going home. He followed me. He dragged me into my yard and tried to touch me and then all of a sudden you were there, pulling him off me. I think I fell in love with you that day.”
He remembered that, remembered the look the boy had had on his face when he looked at Abby. It had reminded him of the look his father gave his mother before he beat her up. “I’m glad I was there.”
“Me too. After that I hated that you just saw me as Eric’s annoying little sister. I remember when you and Eric told us that you had made it, that you were SEALs, I cried for a month because I thought it meant that I could never have you. You drove me crazy, but I respected you, even when I didn’t understand why you did what you did.”
The smile she gave him touched him deeply, it said she didn’t always get him in her head, but she did in her heart. It said they had a connection that nothing could sever.
At least he hoped so.
“I remember the day I fell for you. It was your eighteenth birthday, I hadn’t seen you for almost eighteen months and all of a sudden you weren’t a kid anymore, you were a woman. I remember you danced and you were amazing, I’d never seen you dance before but you were magical. I couldn’t stop thinking about you, dreaming about you. When I saw you again a month later at your graduation I couldn’t keep my hands off you.”