"Holy hell, he needs to slow down," she gasped, picking up her purse where it had fallen to the pavement. Ryan was scowling at the road and the car had disappeared. "Thanks for thinking fast."
"That idiot could have killed us both," he ground out, muttering a not so nice word under his breath. "Where could he be going in such a damn hurry?"
"Maybe he had an emergency."
"You always try to think the best of people," Ryan laughed. "I think he was probably just a jerk driving like an asshole."
"Or he might just be a jackass," Mariah agreed. "We'll never know. He's gone anyway, and hopefully he won't run down any more innocent pedestrians."
Ryan gave one last disgusted look in the direction that the car had turned but of course it was long out of sight. To be honest, she hadn't really seen it to begin with.
He reached for her hand again and she braced herself for the contact. As of the last ten years hadn't happened, his mere touch was enough to send tingles to her toes.
This is not good.
Ryan Beck was a dangerous man.
Ryan had ordered bacon, eggs, and toast for himself, and Mariah had ordered a lemon-poppy seed muffin after explaining that she'd already had breakfast with Liza earlier.
"Have you lost your appetite?" he teased. "I've seen you put away two breakfasts many times in the past."
Laughing, she shook her head. "Eating like that isn't a good idea. It's bad enough that all the takeout restaurants within ten miles of my apartment are on a first name basis with me."
"Did you ever learn to cook?"
Mariah's parents had sort of been hippies who had started a health food store chain that had somehow become wildly successful despite them not believing much in capitalism. For her, rebellion had consisted of eating junk food and drinking soda. Her parents had put it down to Mariah expressing herself and they'd assumed she'd grow out of it. Apparently, she hadn't.
"No, but I keep telling myself that someday I will. Mom keeps threatening to try and teach me."
That wasn't a good idea either. Mariah's mother was an amazing woman and Ryan adored her but she couldn't cook. Her idea of cooking was wheat germ wraps with hummus and sunflower seeds.
A thought popped into Ryan's head and the words were out before he could stop himself.
"Didn't your husband ever want a home-cooked meal?"
Shit. I need to learn to keep my big mouth shut.
Ryan had never met Mariah's ex-husband, but that didn't stop him from wondering about the guy. He didn't even know what he looked like. Liza had offered several times to show him pictures on her phone of the "happy couple" but he'd refused every damn time.
Instead of looking pissed off about his question, Mariah instead appeared confused.
"He was a Michelin star chef, Ryan, so...no. He never expected me to cook at all."
A fucking chef? Leave it Mariah, a food lover, to marry a chef.
"I didn't realize. I guess Liza never told me."
She may have tried but he had ignored her.
Mariah's expression was still quizzical.
"We're divorced now so it doesn't really matter. So how about this apology you promised me? I'm waiting anxiously, although I've been checking the sky carefully."
He followed her gaze out of the restaurant front window to the blue sky overhead. "Why are you checking the weather?"
"I'm not checking the weather. I'm checking for pigs flying."
"Are you referring to my apology?"
She was being more than a bit dramatic about it. He was going to apologize. She deserved one.
"The one I haven't received yet? Yes."
Smart ass.
"I was just waiting until I'd had my coffee but since you're so anxious I can do it now. I'm sorry. I apologize about the way I acted last night. I was a jerk."
She studied him for a long moment and then nodded. "I'm sorry, too. I shouldn't have reacted the way I did. This whole thing with Brad has me off-kilter. And thank you for apologizing."
"You keep saying that I never have before."
"And you think that's wrong."
He frowned, his mind all the way back to when they were dating. "I'm sure that I have. I can't remember a particular instance, but I can't imagine that we went out for years and I never apologized for something in that time."
The waitress slipped his plate in front of him and then set down Mariah's muffin.
"I don't want to start another argument with you, Ryan. The past is the past. Digging it up and examining it won't change anything. But I am sorry for saying that you didn't change. Clearly, you have changed."
"For the better?"
Now, why did I ask that? Do I really want to know?
Laughing, she cut into her muffin. "Does your ego need a boost? Yes, for the better. So far, anyway. You could be a total dick, though, and I just haven't seen it yet."
"I'm not a dick. And I do want to be friends."
He'd thought about it all last night because he had insomnia and didn't sleep much. Mariah. The past. Their argument. And the future too. She was right that them being friends would be easier on Liza, and he wanted to make his sister's life easier if he could. She was the one person in his family that he was still close to.
Her gaze softened and she smiled, a real one. Perhaps the first real smile he'd seen from her since she'd opened her front door last night. He wasn't sure that he liked the way it made his heart lurch and his stomach twist in his gut. He shouldn't be reacting this way at all.
"I'd like that, too."
Clearing this throat, he dug into his breakfast, wanting to ignore the rush of emotion he'd felt. It was out of place. Inconvenient. Unwanted.
"Are you going to the memorial service later?" she asked. "We could split an Uber."
"That's a good idea," he heard himself saying. "We have to be there by three."
"I'll be ready. I won't make you wait."
He opened his mouth to remind her of all the times she had made him wait but then decided it was a bad idea. They were spending way too much time in the history of their relationship.
She believed that he'd changed. He could do the same.
He told himself that he wouldn't think about the past anymore but he knew it was a big lie. This case was dragging him back there whether he liked it or not.
10
They were going to give it a second try at being friends. Mariah wasn't sure what changed Ryan's tune this morning but she was happy about it. She hadn't liked that they could barely be around one another. It was hard on Liza and that wasn't fair to her either.
When they'd broken up, it hadn't been some big dramatic thing with lots of crying and yelling. Ryan had brought up the subject first but she hadn't been surprised. They'd been working their way towards it for awhile. If anything, it had sort of been a relief. She didn't have to keep trying so hard anymore. Their relationship had turned into a great deal of work and they'd been too young to know how to do it.
Now that she was older and wiser it didn't look all that daunting, to be honest, but back then their issues had seemed insurmountable.