The Problem with Forever(9)

Most important, was he safe now?

Not all group homes were bad. Not all foster parents were horrible. Look at Carl and Rosa. They put the awe in awesome. They’d adopted me, but before them, this boy standing before me and I had not been lucky. We’d been fostered by the worst kind of people who somehow managed to pass inspection. Caseworkers were underfunded and understaffed, and most did the best they could, but there were a lot of cracks to slip through, and we’d fallen right through one in the worst way.

Most foster kids didn’t stay in the system or one house longer than two years. Most kids were reunited with parents or adopted. No one besides Mr. Henry and Miss Becky had wanted us, and I still couldn’t figure out why they wanted us and yet treated us so badly. Our caseworkers came and went with the frequency of the seasons. Teachers in school had to have seen what we’d been going through at home but none risked their jobs to step in. The bitterness of being overlooked and stepped on for so long in an overburdened and broken-down system still clung to me like a second skin that I wondered if I’d ever shed.

But there was good and bad in everything. Had he finally found some good?

“Really?” he said, his fingers tightening around the old notebook he held. “After everything, after four years of not knowing what the hell happened to you, you just show up in f*cking speech class and then run away? From me?”

I inhaled sharply as I lowered my arms. My bag slipped off my shoulder, hitting the hot asphalt. Shock flowed through me, but in the back of my mind, I wasn’t surprised that he’d caught up to me. He never ran. He never hid from anything. That had always been me. We had been yin and yang. My cowardice to his bravery. His strength to my weakness.

But that wasn’t me anymore.

I wasn’t Mouse.

I wasn’t a coward.

I wasn’t weak.

He took a step forward and then stopped, shaking his head as his chest rose and fell unsteadily. “Say something.”

I struggled to get the word out. “What?”

“My name.”

I wasn’t sure why he wanted me to say that, and I didn’t know how it would feel to say it again after all this time, but I drew in a deep breath. “Rider.” Another breath shuddered through me. “Rider Stark.”

His throat worked and, for a heartbeat, neither of us moved as a steamy breeze tossed strands of hair across my face. Then he dropped his notebook to the pavement. I was surprised it didn’t burst into dust. His long-legged pace ate up the distance. One second there was several feet between us, and in the next breath he was right there in front of me. He was so much taller now. I barely reached his shoulders.

And then his arms were around me.

My heart exploded as those strong arms pulled me against his chest. There was a moment where I froze, and then my arms swept around his neck. I held on, squeezing my eyes shut as I inhaled the clean scent and the lingering trace of aftershave. This was him. His hugs were different now, stronger and tighter. He lifted me clear off my feet, one arm around my waist, the other hand buried deep in my hair, and my breasts were mushed against his surprisingly hard chest.

Whoa.

His hugs were most definitely different than they were when we were twelve.

“Jesus, Mouse, you don’t even know...” His voice was gruff and thick as he set me back on my feet, but he didn’t let go. One arm stayed around my waist. His other hand fisted the ends of my hair. His chin grazed the top of my head as I slid my hands down his chest. “I never thought I’d see you again.”

I rested my forehead between my hands, feeling his heart beat fast. I could hear people around us, and I imagined some were probably staring, but I didn’t care. Rider was warm and solid. Real. Alive.

“Hell, I wasn’t even planning to come to school today. If I hadn’t...” His hand unclenched from my hair, and I felt him draw a strand out. “Look at your hair. You’re no longer a carrot top.”

A choked laugh escaped me. When I was younger, my hair had been an orangey-red mess full of ratty knots and unruly waves, and thank God, the tone had calmed down somewhat. A visit to a hair salon had helped. The knots and waves were still up for debate whenever it was humid.

Rider drew back just enough that when I blinked my eyes open, I found him studying me. “Look at you,” he murmured. “You’re all grown-up.” His hand left my hair, and a fine shiver danced along my spine as his thumb swept across my lower lip. The touch startled me. “And you’re still as quiet as a mouse.”

My spine stiffened. Mouse. “I’m not...” Anything I was about to say died a fiery death, because his thumb had tracked its way across my cheekbone, the pad of his finger callused and rough, but the caress tender.

My gaze tracked up to eyes I’d never thought I’d see again, but he was really here. Oh my God, Rider was here, and so many thoughts bounced around. I could only grab hold of a few of them, but memories surfaced like the sun cresting a mountain.

One night I’d woken up, frightened by the booming voices coming from the dark downstairs. I’d snuck into the room next to mine, which had been Rider’s, and he’d let me crawl in bed with him. He’d read to me then, from a book that I’d loved, a book that Rider called “the stupid rabbit story.” It always made me cry, but he read to me to distract me from the shouts filling up the small, broken-down row home. I’d been five, and from that moment on, he’d become my entire world.