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“My mother?” He laughs again, a soft, low chuckle that sounds real. Like he finds my question genuinely amusing. “No,” he says, shaking his head. “She deemed me untrainable a long time ago.” He lifts his glass to his mouth. Still laughing, he drains it. “She deemed me a lot of things.”
I can tell from his tone that whatever those things are, they aren’t good, but I ask anyway. “Like what?”
“How do you know my name, Cari’s little sister?” he says, throwing up a big, fat stop sign instead of answering my question. “You shouldn’t. Not unless we’ve met before.” He frowns at me, a look of frustration creeping across his face. “Have we met before?”
“No.” I shake my head. “I went dress shopping with the girls yesterday,” I tell him, the words tumbling out of my mouth, fast and loud. “Tess mentioned that Henley’s older brother was going to be her date tonight and then later on, Henley said you were in the Army and that you’d been—” I stop short, the word getting stuck in my mouth.
“Wounded.”
He looks right at me when he says it and for some reason, the word sounds like a dare. Like he’s challenging me somehow.
I nod, feeling like I just got my knuckles rapped with a ruler.“Anyway, that’s how I know your name—where is she?” I ask, shooting a quick glance around the crowded gallery.
“Where is who?” The corner of his mouth twitches again. “My sister or my date?”
“Yes.”
That earns me another laugh. “Conner had proposal plans this evening so, my guess is he and Hen aren’t going to show.” He takes a sip of club soda. “And Tess is somewhere with Declan, doing… something.”
“But she came here with you,” I say, angry for him, even though it’s absolutely none of my business.
“Tess is a friend.” He says it a little too quickly. His tone is a little too hard. It makes me wonder which one of us he’s trying to convince. “Just a friend.”
“But you want to be more.” That much is obvious. What’s less obvious, is why I care. Why it bothers me. Why thinking about them together makes me feel small and petty.
He sighs and shakes his head, gaze trained on the painting of Molly in front of us. “Tess and Declan are inevitable.” He looks at me, his mouth softening into a smile that seems vaguely sad somehow. “And everyone knows it but them.”
“Henley doesn’t like him,” I say because I don’t know what else to say. “Declan—we ran into him while we were shopping. I can tell.”
“Not a lot of people do.” He cocks his head and offers me a sardonic chuckle. “Patrick seems to be the only person who can tolerate him—and your sister. She seems to like him fine.”
“Do you like him?” I want to stuff my fist in my mouth to stop myself from peppering him with stupid questions that are none of my business, but I can’t seem to stop.
“My feelings for Declan are even more convoluted than my feelings for Tess,” he tells me in that blunt, direct tone of his. “I don’t like him—I’ve never liked him—but I owe him.”
Because I sense it’s a subject he doesn’t want to talk about, I change it. “She’s wrong, you know,” I tell him in a matter-of-fact tone that draws his gaze to my face. “Your mother. I mean—you were in the military, right?” I gesture at him, waving my hand at his uniform. “They were able to train you just fine—so, maybe she’s the problem, not you.”
His jaw goes tight. His shoulders stiffen and I’m instantly sorry I said it. Before I can apologize, he looks down at my glass before aiming a pointed look at my face. “You gonna drink that?”
No.
No, I’m not.
Even though it’s the truth, I don’t say it because saying it would encourage him to ask me why and my answer would offend him. Possibly make him angry and I’m not sure I can handle this guy when he’s angry.
When I don’t answer him, he gives a soft exasperated sigh and reaches out to take the glass from my hand and I let him. His movement pulls my gaze to his hand. Up close, the scars that cover the back of it are even worse than I thought but as bad as they are, I have a feeling they’re nothing compared to the scars I can’t see. When I look up, I find him watching me again.
Before I ask him another dumb, intrusive question or make another offensive comment about his mother, Ryan drains the glass he took from me and stands. “See you around, Cari’s little sister,” he tells me with a flat, polite smile.
And then he walks away from me without a backward glance.