Thick Love (Thin Love, #2)(63)

“Who did this?” I asked him, coming closer to the sofa with my knee leaning against the plank wood coffee table.

“It doesn’t matter.”

Those large hands trembling, the defeated, exhausted tone of his voice, were almost too hard to bear. I’d never seen him like this up close—broken, wounded in a way that I worried couldn’t be healed.

When I came to my knees in front of him, Ransom didn’t move. “Hey,” I said, pulling his face up to look at me. “Talk to me. How can I help?”

“You can’t,” he said, as a bitter laugh left his throat. “You can’t help the hopeless.”

“No one is hopeless.”

He stared at me a long time and when I tried to touch his hand, he sat back, fingers running through his hair.

Everyone tiptoed around Ransom when it came to bringing up the past. He was such a large, imposing figure that only Keira and Kona really got to push his buttons. They knew how to handle him, everyone else took their lead. And as much as I respected them, loved them even, I thought they did more harm than good letting Ransom wallow in his grief, not making him confront the stuff that seemed to weigh him down. Now he had brought the past to my front door. Or backdoor, however you look at it. He hadn’t come here for a damn dance lesson. I thought maybe it was being here, at the studio, getting lost in the music and movements that eased him. Maybe, just maybe, he’d come here because he needed a friend who wouldn’t try to tell him things would be fine. More likely, he’d been lost but that innate desire to please, to keep to his responsibilities had somehow pushed through the sick birthday reminder and led him here.

Ransom needed a friend, I knew that, but he also needed to talk through the ghosts that were hurting him. It was a risk to mention, but one I’d take just to get him past this. “Is this…the roses, it has to do with…with Emily?”

His fingers came down, slapped onto his leg at my question and I recognized that swift flare of anger, insult in his eyes. But Ransom was able to retain his temper holding back from it as he looked away from me. “I shouldn’t be here.”

“Leann’s still downstairs. She will be for a while.” Again I tried touching him and he grunted, leaving the sofa to avoid my reach. “I thought we were friends,” I said, trying to calm him without cutting him any slack. He had his back to me as he paced, hands loose on his hips. “This is what friends do, Ransom.”

“What?” he said, moving his head to the left to glare at me over his shoulder before he turned around. He moved his hands from his hips to ball into fists at his side. “Get in your business? If that’s the case then I don’t want any friends.” It was a shock, that harsh tone, one he hadn’t used since that first confrontation after I lied to him. Instinctually, I flinched when he yelled, stepping back, then feeling stupid for pulling away.

I’d only meant to help, to get that sad frown off his face and deep down inside Ransom must have known that because his immediately softened. “Aly…I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…” He laced his fingers in his hair again, staring up at my low ceiling. “Shit, I suck at this.”

Someone had to reach him, knock down the walls Emily had erected the day of the accident. “You don’t talk about her?”

That anger flashed again and Ransom stood straight, curling his fingers into a fist. I felt the tension from him, it shook his arms and lowered his deep voice. “No.”

“It might help.”

He shook his head.

“Ransom…”

“No!” This time when he shouted I wasn’t surprised and found myself annoyed that he was trying to use his size, his imposing voice to make me back off. It wouldn’t work on me. My father had done that for years and once I realized that it was my reaction, the way I’d huddle away from him for fear of that voice alone, I’d stopped doing it. It gave him too much power over me and no one did that to me anymore. Not even Ransom.

He moved his chin up, but kept his face hard, a frown that shook his top lip, reminding me of a tiger, pent up and pacing behind a glass wall at the zoo. “No one gets that from me. It’s none of your damn business.”

He stepped closer, the sadness and frustration that had covered him downstairs now replaced by a quick rip of anger.

“Fine,” I said, waving him toward the door. I had my own bullshit to handle and I wouldn’t stroke his ego if he didn’t want help. That would do him zero good. “Go face Leann on your own. Go mope in your car.”

“What…” His glare twisted, became a shock of surprise, eyebrows lifting as though he couldn’t believe I’d call him out. “What the hell did you say to me?”

“Did I not make myself clear?” More annoyed than angry, I didn’t get why no one had forced the issue with him. He had a charmed life, so much talent, so many people in his corner, so many resources there to help him excel. So why did everyone watch him fall apart, why did he refuse to get back up again? He wasn’t the only one who had lost someone. Everyone hurts. Everyone has pain. But he was loved. He was blessed, and even though his loss had been great, and tragic, it didn’t need to be a guarantee that he’d be alone forever. The stubborn bata either had no idea how loved he was or he had forgotten it, chose instead to let his grief comfort him. It made me madder than I’d been in a long damn time. “Take off. Get out, wallow in your own shit, but do it on your own.”