Fade Out (The Morganville Vampires #7)(72)

As Lucas leads me into the party, his arm wrapped around my waist, guiding me toward my future, I plaster a practiced smile on my face. I bury my pain and regret so far down that it will take an excavation to unearth it. It’s what I’ve been trained to do.

They mustn’t see any defining qualities of self. I am an image. A persona.

I am perfection amid the flawed.

And later, when Lucas slides the engagement ring onto my finger, drawing a collective awe from my family and their friends, my hand trembles, tears leak from my eyes, and I welcome their mistaken assumption that I’m happy. That I’m reveling in my perfect world.

It’s easier to allow people to believe what they want—what they choose as their truth. When no one looks too deeply, only concerned with the superficial, they’re easy to fool.

I was once one of those fools. I can be again. I have to be.





28





Ryder





I’m a f*cking idiot.

Even after Ari plainly spelled it out for me, stating I was just a college fling, I continued to cling to my belief that we were more. I wanted to believe she was angry. Hurt. Distraught, even. That she needed time to process all the shit my brother threw at her.

Because nothing that left her mouth felt real. I could not—would not—accept it.

I walked away that night at her parents’ house with a sliver of hope. It was just a fragile wisp, but it was there; a tiny shred of evidence that she loves me. I said the words she needed me to say, what she needed to hear, in order to alleviate the pain I knew she felt. She’s suffered enough pressure from her parents; I wanted to be different.

She needed someone who was willing to wait for her. I was going to be that guy. I was going to shove my ego and butthurt feelings aside to be the man she truly needed.

I was going to win her back. Prove that my feelings for her are damn real.

Then, I saw the ring.

Fucking idiot.

I knew, in a suspended moment where my reality shattered, that it was all bullshit. I recalled every conversation, every word, every look, where she tried to explain it to me. But I was just too stubborn and hotheaded to hear her.

I’m the guy that gets the romp in the hay. The guy she goes slumming with in college. The guy to f*ck her six ways to Sunday. So that when she marries the guy who she’s meant to marry, she can look back with fond memories. Having zero regret about never getting dirty with the boy from the wrong side of town. So she never has to wonder about what she might be missing.

My jaw tense, I shout the play. “Blue, ark! Blue, ark!”

At the line of scrimmage, I try to center all my focus on the practice game. Too much riding on tonight. Get it together, Ryder.

You’d think after three weeks she’d be out of my system. You’d think after being played so hard I’d gain a f*cking backbone. But I’m still a pathetic waste, hung up on a girl who just wanted a fling before she got married. Before she ran off.

That’s right. Because now, she’s gone. Who needs a college education when you have Daddy’s money? Or rather, her future husband’s money.

Fuck, but I hate that I notice—that I wonder if she’s with him…

But maybe it’s easier this way. I don’t have to see her in the hallways. Watch as she ducks her head and tries to cover up that huge rock on her finger. She couldn’t even look me in the eye. Like I’m some shameful secret. Some mistake.

My hands ball into fists, my jaw clenches tight. As I hunch over, I force my fingers to spread and spear the ground, digging the tips into the earth.

I call the live color, then, “Hut, hut. Hut. Hike!”

The ball snaps to me. I palm it in both hands, my feet already in motion, as the clash of padded bodies thunders over the field. My gaze locks on James. One second. Two. Three—he’s in the clear. I pull my arm back, ready to launch—and arms anchor around my waist. A hard tackle takes me down, the air knocked from my lungs.

“What the hell!” Gavin shouts.

I roll onto my back, and pain slices through my shoulder blade. Dammit. Then Gavin’s standing over me, a pissed off scowl on his face.

“You let f*cking Derrick take you down?” he says. I hear Derrick’s grumble of resentment, but Gavin doesn’t remove his glare from me to acknowledge him. “Man, I have to say. This shit is tiring.”

Yeah, I can’t argue with him there. I accept his hand as he pulls me up. “Let it go,” I tell him.

“Fuck you,” he shouts. He points a finger at my chest. “I didn’t work my ass off, putting up with all Keebler’s shit, just for you to blow the championship tonight because—” He breaks off as he meets my warning glare.

He holds up his hands. “Sorry, Ryde. But she’s gone, man. How long are you going to torture yourself over her? She made her choice. And hell, she chose another—”

Anger grips me whole. I grab him by his chest pad. “Don’t say shit, Gav.”

He pushes me off of him, breaking my hold. Looking me over, a disgusted expression hardening his features, he says, “One night, man.” He holds up a finger. “I know you’re f*cked up over Ari. But I’m just asking you for one night. Get your shit together and do what you need to do.”

What I need to do.

For who?