“Hunter.” An all-too-familiar voice rang through the apartment lobby, but I kept walking.
“Hunter, I know you can hear me.”
Sure, I could. It didn’t mean I had to listen.
I turned to the doorman standing in front of Ryder. “You’re new?”
“Yes, sir.” His gaze darted from me to the insistent intruder to my right. “My name’s Dean. Is he your visitor? I called up to the apartment, and the person who answered said she was on her way down.”
My jaw clenched teeth-shatteringly hard. “Dean, he’s not welcome here. The previous shift should’ve let you know.”
His eyes widened.
Without turning around, I gritted out the words, “You can leave now, Ryder.”
“Hunter! All I want to do is talk.”
I glanced over my shoulder.
Dean had his hand on Ryder’s chest and looked between the two of us.
The similarities were there. Blue eyes, light brown hair, similar jawline, but so much of that was my dad. So when I saw Ryder, I didn’t just see him, but the man who’d betrayed my family. The same man I saw when I looked at myself in the mirror, and I fucking hated it.
The elevator doors pinged and opened. Sabrina stepped out with bedhead, navy sweatpants, and a gray T-shirt. With no bra on—kill me now. Why the hell had she agreed to come down here in the middle of the night for a stranger?
“There’s nothing we need to say to each other.” I marched toward her to get her back into the elevator and get us both out of here.
“This is how you treat your own brother?” The strained, angry voice snapped me out of the sweatpants stupor Sabrina had put on me.
My shoes squeaked on the polished marble floor.
Sabrina’s eyes widened and bounced between me and Ryder.
I spun and charged back toward him. “I got this, Dean.”
He hesitated before letting go and walking back toward the front desk.
I grabbed Ryder’s arm and pulled him toward the front door. “Let’s get one thing straight. We are not, and will never be brothers.”
His gaze narrowed with the blustering anger only an eighteen-year-old could perfect. Blustering and ineffective. “We have the same dad.”
“We had the same sperm donor and he’s dead now, so any link that might’ve been there is gone. It was gone the second he cheated on my mom and decided to leave her while she had cancer to run off and start a new family with you and your mom. Why the hell are you even here in the middle of the damn night? Aren’t you still in high school?”
There were times I could pretend I was over it. I could pretend saying fuck you to my dad and meaning it would erase the year of hell he’d rained down on me and my mom, and the two years of being in limbo after, but it didn’t. Having Ryder show up here only brought back memories I’d rather leave behind. The ones where I had a dad.
“Why do you care if I’m out in the middle of the night? If it helps, he was no better to me or my mom.”
“It doesn’t.” I turned around and marched off toward the elevators. “Don’t come back here again, Ryder.”
I grabbed Sabrina’s arm and pulled her along with me.
She struggled, looking over her shoulder. “What— Who—”
“We’re not talking about it.”
She jumped, startled by the sharpness in my tone.
Stepping inside the elevator, I spared a glance at the sullen eighteen-year-old with his head drooped and fingers gripping the straps of his backpack tightly in each fist. Whatever he hoped to get out of showing up here wasn’t coming from me. “Do you need an invitation or what?”
Looking over her shoulder, she glanced between us before stepping inside, worry furrowing her forehead.
“If you’re going to be staying in the apartment, we need to have a talk.”
Her gaze narrowed, but she didn’t say a word. I was acutely aware of her sleepy eyes even though they glittered with promises of payback in pajamas.
I swallowed, trying to keep my gaze off her statue-stiff figure with locked arms and bedhead hair. The warm wood smells and five-hundred-dollar perfume lingering in the elevator hit me, and it felt like I was powering down. Like that last block to your house when you really had to pee and your body had given up on maintaining its control, only this was with sleep. I fought back a yawn, hoping I didn’t fall asleep inside and leave Sabrina to drag me into the apartment. Or maybe she’d leave me to ride up and down all night. “Tomorrow. We can talk about it tomorrow.”
The doors to the elevator opened.
“I can’t wait.” She marched off toward the front door, and I followed behind her, trying to figure out how I was supposed to get through the indeterminate amount of time we had left in the apartment with my sanity intact.
9
Hunter
I jolted awake with a yell muffled by the music filling my room and shot up from the wingback chair in the corner. I must’ve nodded off at some point, since I was still in my clothes from last night. A groan ripped from my lips, and my hand flew to the side of my neck. The tweaked muscle sent shooting pain radiating down my back.
The sun hung low against the horizon. I checked the time: barely seven in the morning.
Straining to make out any noises in the rest of the apartment, I rubbed my eyes, which felt like they were filled with sawdust. All was quiet and it sounded like Sabrina was still asleep. The fact that my door hadn’t burst open while I crashed meant I hadn’t ripped her from sleep in the dead of night. At least that was one thing going for me.
My sleep had been close to nonexistent since she’d arrived, and I’d start seeing things if I didn’t get a few minutes of shut-eye, but first I needed to talk to her.
I staggered into the bathroom and cranked on the shower. Once again I was bombarded with the gentle lavender scent that reminded me of Sabrina. I’d never been angrier at my dick, but it didn’t stop me from closing my eyes and picturing her beneath me, crushing my lips against hers as I sank into her soft and supple flesh.
I came so hard the tweak in my neck wrenched even tighter and my knees nearly gave way. My hand slammed into the glass. Delirium had obviously taken hold. Sabrina and I needed to figure out a schedule. One where she was out of the apartment for a set amount of time, where I could sleep.
After cleaning up and toweling off, I got dressed. My armor of choice: pressed pants and a button-down shirt. At least I felt like I was a normal human, not a zombie.
I knocked on her door. “Sabrina, are you in there?” No stirring or movement. I knocked again. “Sabrina.”
Trying the doorknob, I turned it all the way. The latch released, and the door swung open. She wasn’t here, but once again I had a better view of her room now that she’d settled in, and I was even more confused than before.
The lights. The tripod. The cables running to outlets. The camera equipment. The neatly folded sets of sheets along the wall under the window, along with the boxes with new sheet sets sitting inside.
I gingerly stepped into the room like I might spring a booby trap and be hit with a blow dart in my neck. With the not-so-gentle throb there, it wouldn’t be completely unwelcome.
My leg bumped into her desk, jostling her mouse, and the computer screen sprang to life.