Page 11 of Find Me Again (KRK Security #3)

On his way home, Neil barely managed to drive below the speed limit, because the nervous energy was making him want to jump out of his skin.

He'd approached Ryan and asked to have a conversation—something he hadn't managed to do since the day of the break-up. Back then, for the remainder of their senior year, he'd been too afraid of everything Ryan could throw in his face and mean every word of—which would have been everything Neil had deserved. But now…

Now, he'd actually come up to him and asked. And he had less than two hours to figure out a plan for what came next.

After half an hour of going in circles and dangerously spiraling towards calling this whole thing off, he gave up and went to ask his mom for advice.

"You're looking for a place to talk with Ryan Dawson?" she asked, taken aback. "And he agreed?"

"Yes, Mom, he agreed. I wouldn't kidnap him for this." Neil ran a hand through his hair. "So, is there a café, or a restaurant, or whatever that we could go to and not have people coming up to me? Maybe something that's deserted at this hour?"

She shook her head. "The word would spread in a hot minute and you'd be signing autographs instead of talking to Ryan for who knows how long. I have a better idea."

"What is it?"

"Bring him here."

Neil crossed his arms. "No, that's—"

"Listen, I'm leaving in an hour and I'll come back with your father after dinner. You have the place to yourself, which means you'll have all the peace and quiet that you want. Just bring him here."

He hadn't considered this as an option before. It was a smart one, in theory, but he still wasn't sure, since bringing Ryan here seemed somehow more significant than taking him up to the hill. Maybe because they'd already met there by accident while this would be anything but or because Neil was sentencing himself to new memories of Ryan in this space—memories that would stay with him until the day he left, if not longer.

"What are you so afraid of?" his mom asked, and he didn't know what to tell her. She stared at him some more, and then sighed. "Listen, if he said yes to this, he's at least ready to hear you out, right? That's something. It doesn't magically fix everything, but this is your chance to make things better."

"There's no 'making things better' if said things happened twelve years ago."

He'd never actually said he and Ryan had been together back then, but she'd figured it out, so there was no reason to pretend like she hadn't.

"Apologizing can definitely make things better. And so can explaining yourself, if you need to. There's no guarantee, of course, but it's your best bet."

"How do you know I'm trying to apologize?"

She narrowed her eyes. "You'd better. That boy had stood by you for years before the two of you stopped talking right after your first trip to Chicago. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what happened, so if you haven't apologized yet, you should do it now."

"I don't want to talk about it," he muttered, leaning heavily against the counter. The initial excitement had now dimmed, leaving him tired and afraid again.

If Neil's own mother thought that, Ryan had to feel a hundred times worse.

What was he even doing, agreeing to Neil's invitation?

His mom straightened in her chair and pinned him to his seat with a look alone, just like she'd done when he was a kid.

"Listen, everyone makes mistakes. Everyone has done something that hurt somebody else. It sucks, but that's how it is. You don't have to run away from it for the rest of your life."

Fuck , that hurt. She went straight for the jugular and it hurt.

But could a simple apology ever be enough if Ryan had deserved so much better from him back then? Neil had walked away from everything they'd been building, after all, and chased his own ambitions. While his younger self might have wanted two things above all—to play professional hockey and to be with Ryan—in the end only one of them wasn't solely a dream, but an ambition as well.

And he'd taken that ambition and ran with it, all the way to the NHL and multiple Stanley Cup victories. He was still running with it, and he wasn't ready to stop.

Not yet.

So was his apology even worth anything?

The screeching of the chair brought him out of his head, and he lifted his head to see his mom coming closer.

"Love you," she murmured before pulling him in for a hug.

That was his mom in a nutshell—she might be fed up with him, but she still made sure to remind him what really mattered in the end.

He dropped a kiss onto the top of her head. "Love you, too."

"I meant what I said." She stepped back and headed towards the door. "Bring him here."

With a sigh, Neil rubbed a hand over his chin, the stubble prickling his skin after he skipped the shave this morning.

It seemed like he had the place handled, so now he needed to get through everything else.

No pressure, or anything.

* * *

Parking in front of the Dawson family house was a truly surreal throwback moment. He'd done the exact same thing so many times back in high school, parking in the exact same spot and looking towards the house until he saw Ryan running out, always in a hurry to get to him.

Neil hesitated briefly now, then honked twice in quick succession, using their signal from back in the day.

Sure enough, the door opened about a minute later and Ryan appeared.

He wasn't in any hurry now, though. He wasn't stalling or anything, he simply wasn't running towards Neil.

Which was understandable. They were two grown men with a complicated history, and Neil hadn't been expecting it. It simply… jarred with his vision of the present recreating the past, that was all.

As he watched Ryan approach, Neil suddenly felt a visceral longing like he hadn't since those first weeks after the break-up. After being so used to seeing, and touching, and even simply existing with Ryan always by his side back then, it had been a shock to suddenly lose it—a shock he hadn't anticipated.

And he certainly hadn't anticipated feeling that loss again now. How could he? Neil didn't know this man in front of him, hadn't seen his Ryan change and grow into this one, right here.

Which was perhaps the point.

Neil had missed all that happened between then and now, all the important and unimportant things that make up a person, and he could never erase that. He'd lost that chance. All he could do was connect to the parts of Ryan he remembered and, if he was lucky, slowly learn about the new ones.

"Hey again," he greeted Ryan when he got into the car.

"Hey." Ryan shifted in his seat—the exact same, familiar move Neil had seen many, many times. "So, where are we going?"

"To my parents' house. They won't be home until late in the evening, and it's both warm and without an audience, so there should be no distractions."

There was a slight frown on Ryan's face, here and gone, and Neil would've probably never noticed it if he wasn't watching him so closely. He had seen it, though, and he was about to scratch the whole idea and drive them onto the hill, after all, but then Ryan nodded.

"Sure, okay."

Driving the small distance between their houses took no time at all, and after turning the engine off, Neil glanced at Ryan, only to see him staring at the house, unmoving.

The silence stretched between them, until Neil couldn't take it anymore.

"Come on, let's go," he said, and without waiting for a reply, he stepped out of the car.

Ryan followed after another second.

So far, so good .

Neil led him to the house and, on instinct, went towards the kitchen, because that had been the first place they'd always gone to. It didn't even occur to him until they were already in there that he probably should've picked the living room.

Ryan didn't comment on it, thankfully, so maybe he, too, felt more at ease in the kitchen.

"Do you want something to drink?" Neil gestured at the table for Ryan to take a seat. "There's tea, of course, and coffee, juice, water…"

"Tea would be great," Ryan said as he looked around the room.

Probably cataloging the changes , Neil figured. His parents had renovated the kitchen a few years back, and only the old table remained, along with a winged chair tucked next to the window nook.

Hearing a familiar noise in the hallway, Neil turned around in surprise. Ken hadn't come out to greet any guests in forever, but now he appeared in the doorway and headed straight for Ryan, wagging his tail.

Ryan, for his part, beamed and got down on his knees.

"Hey, boy, hey," he murmured in a soft voice that absolutely did not tug at Neil's heart hard enough to knock something loose. "Such a good boy." He laughed when Ken licked his neck and jaw. "Ah, yes, I didn't miss this part. I guess you haven't grown out of that, huh?"

Ken lay down on his back in front of Ryan and nudged him with his head any time Ryan would stop petting him for longer than a second.

"Shameless," Neil muttered once he'd gotten his voice back, only to be faced with both Ryan and Ken as they looked up at him—Ryan with a grin that punched Neil right in the chest and Ken with an open-mouthed "smile" of his own.

Ryan's grin disappeared when he seemed to remember where he was and with whom, but he still didn't move from his place on the floor, now sitting cross-legged with Ken's head on his lap.

"Sorry, I—"

"No, no, not you," Neil assured him quickly. "I meant him." He gestured towards Ken. "He spends most of his days in the backroom, only going out when he needs to or when we nudge him, and then the moment he senses you, this happens."

Ryan grinned again.

"Is that true?" he asked Ken, mock-serious. "Am I getting special treatment from such an esteemed senior citizen as yourself? I'm honored, sir."

Ken lapped at Ryan's hands, making him laugh.

Neil snorted, too.

"I see how it is," he said, then turned towards the counter to hide his face, because the sight of the two of them together was—

A lot. It was a lot.

As he busied himself with the kettle and preparing mugs, he kept an ear out for the sweet nothings Ryan continued to bestow on Ken. In the past, those two had gotten along great, but it had been twelve years. How in the world had Ken even recognized Ryan after so long?

Seems like you weren't the only one who missed the man , the sarcastic voice at the back of his head supplied readily, prompting Neil to grimace.

Touché . It wasn't like a part of him wouldn't love to roll around the floor with Ryan as well.

Neil's brain screeched to a halt.

This was not what he'd intended, at all. He hadn't invited Ryan here for anything other than a conversation. He wanted advice, and he wanted it from a person he could trust, a person who had experience in coming out and all that it entailed.

But Neil was starting to realize that he'd been kidding himself, thinking that the two of them could manage a conversation—especially one on something as important as this—and nothing else. They'd exchanged mostly pleasantries up on the hill, and yet Neil could barely stop thinking about it. How could he expect that this talk would be better, not worse?

Once again, he hadn't done enough thinking on the issue.

Perfect. Absolutely perfect .

Still, they were here, the tea was ready, and it was time to get them back on track. A wobbly track, Neil could readily admit now, but still, a track.

When he turned, a mug in each hand, Ryan caught his gaze and slowly untangled himself from Ken.

"I'm sorry," he murmured at the unhappy huff from Ken. "I'm not going far, you see? You can totally come with me, if you want. I promise to pet you some more later on."

As Ryan sat down on the closest chair, Ken huffed one more time, but then pushed himself up on all fours and took those few steps to lean against Ryan's legs. Since he wasn't strong enough to stay in a sitting position for long, he would probably end up lying down at Ryan's feet soon.

And Neil wouldn't blame him.

Fuck . He put the mugs down on the table too hard, but thankfully didn't spill anything. Get it together .

"Okay," Ryan said, prompting Neil to look up. "Let's get to it. What did you want to talk about?"

Neil curled his hands around his too-hot mug.

This was it. This was what he wanted. Now he just needed to open his damn mouth and speak.

He took a deep breath.

Here goes nothing .