Wanting to Love You (Houston's Finest Book 3) Read online

  Wanting to Love You

  Copyright © 2019 by Erin Rylie

  www.erinryliewrites.com

  Editor: Erica Russikoff of Erica Edits

  Interior Formatting: Brooke Cumberland

  Cover Design: Jay Aheer, Simply Defined Art

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of the book. This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Coming Soon

  About the Author

  Books By Erin Rylie

  Newsletter

  For Becky, the peanut butter to my jelly.

  Chapter One

  “I don’t give a shit what you want to wear, Rebecca. Your father has an event tomorrow night and we are going to look like a family. You’ll wear the white dress and nude heels I picked out, or so help me—”

  Her mother stopped speaking, taking in a calming breath and smoothing her hands down her pristine dress. When she was fully composed, every inch Vanessa Waters, senator’s wife, she returned her gaze to Becky.

  “You’re going to wear that dress, Rebecca. And make sure you’re up early so we can do something about that atrocious hair of yours. It’s a fucking mess; I don’t know where the hell you got it from. There must be some frizzy, frumpy redhead hiding somewhere in your dad’s family tree.”

  Becky fought the tears welling in her eyes. After seventeen years living in this house with this woman, she’d like to pretend her mother’s words didn’t affect her, but they did. God, did they. She dug her nails into her hand, the bite of pain helping her hold back her sadness. She knew she’d have cuts in her hands from her fingernails when she got up to her room, but she couldn’t show her mother even an ounce of weakness.

  “Yes, Mother,” she replied, in what she thought was an even and calm tone of voice.

  In response, her mother flicked her manicured nails and turned away, as though spending one more moment of time with Becky was a complete and utter waste. Leaving her parent’s bedroom, she walked down the hall at the steadiest pace she could manage. When she got into her room, she shut the door with a quiet snick, careful not to slam it even a little. Slammed doors were another of her mother’s pet peeves.

  Instead of giving in to the need to throw herself on the bed and sob into the mattress, Becky maintained her calm gait, entering her bathroom. Once she was standing in front of the sink, she unclenched her hands and looked down at them numbly. She could see the bleeding half-moon impressions her nails had left and couldn’t seem to find it in her to care. She washed her hands in the sink, clearing away the blood, and grabbed a towel from the rack, pressing it to her hands to staunch the flow of blood.

  Sorry to mess up your embroidered towels, Mother.

  Once the bleeding had stopped, Becky looked in the mirror, taking in her appearance. Her hair was a frizzy mess, but she liked the untamed red curls. Unlike her mother’s perfectly coiffed blonde hair, Becky’s hair had volume and character.

  Heaving a heavy sigh, she turned on the shower, stripped out of her pajamas, and climbed in. She still had time before school to blow-dry her hair straight if she rushed. Becky knew her mother would throw a fit if she tried to leave the house with her hair curly and untamed. When she was finished showering, she wrapped a towel around her body and started the painstaking process of straightening her hair. She poured a dollop of straightening serum in her hand and worked it through her hair before brushing it gently. Then she blow-dried it carefully, using a large barrel brush that her mother had purchased for her during their last trip to the hairstylist.

  Once her hair was dry, she sprayed it lightly with a frizz-free styling spray and ran a straightener through it. Her hair presentably tamed, she carefully put on the approved amount of makeup and moved to her closet to get dressed. Her mother had organized her closet into sections. There was one section for school-appropriate clothes, another for daytime events with her father, and finally, one filled with dresses for the nighttime functions and fundraisers she was required to attend.

  Below each section of hanging clothes, her mother had even placed a shoe rack with approved footwear for each occasion. She pulled the first outfit her hand landed on from its hanger: khaki pants that had been altered to fit her perfectly and were tapered at the ankle, a chambray button-down that was to be tucked in, and a black and cream striped cardigan. She fastened the black belt she knew that her mother liked paired with the outfit, and clasped a plain string of pearls around her neck. Simple ballet flats finished the outfit.

  Her morning routine completed, she studied her reflection in the mirror, making sure that her clothes had no wrinkles and not a single hair was out of place. Finding her ensemble perfectly put together and perfectly fucking boring, she grabbed her backpack (designer, of course) and left the house to head to school.

  Deciding that it would look better for a senator’s daughter to attend public school, her parents had enrolled her in Memorial High School—the school her home was zoned to, yes, but conveniently the most elitist high school in Dallas.

  Unfortunately, being a senator’s daughter didn’t exactly make her an approachable person. She was required by her parents to take all AP classes, and was heavily encouraged to maintain a 4.0 GPA. The one time she’d gotten a less than perfect score on an exam, her mother had slapped her so hard that she’d been forced to miss school for a few days while the handprint on her face faded. It just wouldn’t do for a senator’s daughter to show up to school with her mother’s handprint on her face.

  Because of her prim appearance and constant focus on academics, most of her classmates ignored her. The ones who did find the courage to approach her found her too boring to befriend. She was, of course, acquainted with the children of other local politicians, but she was by no means friends with any of them.

  Becky’s day passed pretty quickly, her classes a blur of monotony that she hardly focused on. She always learned better when she studied on her own, so she rarely paid too much attention in class. Instead, she spent her class time daydreaming of a different life. One in which she was actually loved by her parents and was free to pursue things that actually interested her.

  By the time lunch rolled around, she could feel her stomach clenching in hunger. In her hurry to leave the house this morning, she’d neglected to grab anything for breakfast, and she was starving. She pulled her lunch from her backpack and had to hold in a groan. As usual, her mother had ensured that their cook prepare a basic salad with grilled chicken. Just once, she would love to eat a school lunch. She heard other kids complaining about them, but at least they got to eat burgers. Lucky assholes.<
br />
  She had just begun to dig in to her bland meal when she heard a tray hit her empty lunch table. Becky looked up in surprise and promptly lost her breath. The kid now sitting at her table—a table she had never shared with anyone else—hardly looked like he was young enough to be in high school. For starters, he was tall, towering over her even while seated, and had broad shoulders and muscles so defined she could make them out through the material of his raggedy T-shirt. His features were far too chiseled for a seventeen-year-old, and he had the most piercing green eyes she’d ever seen.

  She followed his gaze to the tray he’d set down on the table and watched in surprise as he pulled a small brown bag from his backpack as well, emptying a Tupperware container of cookies, a bag of chips, and a sandwich onto the table.

  Instead of asking why he’d decided to sit at her table when there were plenty of more interesting options in the cafeteria, she found herself blurting the only question currently on her mind. “Why did you get lunch from the cafeteria if you have a packed lunch?”

  Those stunning green eyes lifted to meet her own plain brown ones, and the stranger smiled, revealing a dimple in his right cheek. “My mom never packs enough food for me. I don’t want to hurt her feelings, so I buy myself a lunch and eat both.”

  “You buy yourself a lunch?”

  “Sure.” He shrugged. “I work after school so I have my own money. I save most of it, but I’m a growing boy—I need a big lunch.”

  “Of course,” Becky muttered, returning her attention to the meager salad in front of her. She swore there was less chicken on it every week. The damn salad was mostly lettuce with maybe a quarter of a chicken breast on it and only oil and vinegar for dressing.

  “I’m Reese, by the way.”

  “Why are you sitting with me?”

  He shrugged again, a habit she found oddly endearing on someone so bulky. “You were sitting alone and it’s my first day here. I figured it was a better idea to sit with a loner than try to sit at some cliquey table somewhere else.”

  “Why do you assume I’m a loner?”

  He made a show of looking around the empty table before looking at her and raising his eyebrows.

  “Fair enough.” She acknowledged his unspoken reply and dug into her salad.

  “What kind of high-schooler brings a salad for lunch anyway?”

  Becky scoffed. “The kind who has to fit into constricting formalwear every weekend.”

  “Every weekend? What, do you go to every school dance in the state? One per weekend?”

  She laughed mid-bite, a piece of lettuce flying out of her mouth in an exceptionally un-ladylike fashion. “No. Nothing like that. My dad is a politician, so I have to go to his fundraisers and campaign events.”

  “Fancy.”

  “Hardly.”

  Becky glanced at his meal and noticed that he’d already managed to eat one of his lunches. This kid was quick—she always tried to make her salad last. If she ate slowly it tended to feel like a bigger meal. Maybe she could trick her stomach into believing it, too.

  “So how long do I have to sit here before you decide to tell me your name?”

  “Oh, I’m Becky.”

  Finishing off the last bite of his sandwich, he pulled the Tupperware of cookies toward him and popped the lid. The delicious scents of vanilla and cinnamon hit her nose, and it was an effort not to drool. Reese must’ve noticed the covetous way she eyed his cookies, because he took a cookie for himself and held the plastic container out for her.

  “No thank you. I don’t, um, like sweets.”

  What I really mean is if that container of deliciousness comes any closer to me I’ll devour every single cookie inside of it without pausing for breath.

  Unfortunately for her, weekly weigh-in was tomorrow morning so she couldn’t afford to eat any sugar today. She occasionally snuck in a McFlurry on Tuesdays after school, but a Monday was not the day to splurge.

  “Right. I’ve heard that about teenagers, you know. We as a group don’t tend to like sweets or junk food. Is there even dressing on that salad you’re trying to pass off as a meal?”

  “It has oil and vinegar on it.”

  “Oh yum, I bet that’s almost as delicious as ranch.”

  She couldn’t seem to help the smile that spread across her face. She hadn’t had something to laugh about in months, maybe longer. Becky was already dreading the bell that would ring in a few minutes to announce the end of lunch. She hadn’t seen him around and assumed it was Reese’s first day so he didn’t have friends yet, but she was sure he’d be sitting with a group tomorrow. The football team would probably snap him up in a hurry with those muscles.

  Before the bell came, however, Reese collected his trash, piling it on his tray. He pulled the last remaining cookie from his Tupperware and placed it on a napkin before standing up and slinging his tattered black backpack over his shoulder and picking up his now trash-filled tray.

  “It was nice to meet you, Becky. I hate to dine and dash, but if I don’t leave now I’ll never find my next class in time. This place is a maze.” He slid the napkin holding his last cookie to her side of the table. “Help a guy out and eat that last cookie? My mom gets offended if I don’t finish off what she makes me.”

  He didn’t wait for her response, instead throwing his trash away and leaving the cafeteria. She checked the time on her phone and discovered that she only had a few minutes remaining to finish her tiny-ass lunch. She downed the rest of her salad and looked at the cookie, still sitting where Reese had left it.

  Stop looking at me like that. I can’t eat you.

  Despite her request, the cookie continued to call her name. Giving in to its persuasion, she took a bite and nearly moaned. Snickerdoodles had always been her favorite kind of cookie.

  Chapter Two

  Hiding in the bathroom like a teenage girl at prom had never been Becky’s intention. She was more the “take-no-prisoners” type of girl. A tough childhood tended to turn out strong adults, and Becky wasn’t afraid of much. Seeing Reese for the first time in years, though? She hadn’t been prepared for that.

  And now he knows about Ryker. Shit, what am I going to do?

  Sitting on the toilet with the seat down, she took a deep breath, her head in her hands. This was a disaster. When she’d passed Sophie on her mad dash to the bathroom, she’d asked her friend to keep Ryker calm and away from Reese, but she needed to check the situation for herself.

  If I can just get myself up off this fucking toilet.

  Seeing Reese like this was bringing back a surge of emotions she hadn’t been prepared for. As much as she hated to admit it, her initial reaction upon seeing him had been appreciation. It had taken a moment to register that the tattoo-covered, bearded stranger talking to Carlos and Kelsey was her childhood crush. The years had been good to her ex-boyfriend. He was tall, muscled, and sexy as all hell. None of that changed the things that had happened in their fucked-up past, however.

  Once she’d registered who she was looking at, her immediate instinct had been to hide Ryker. Her son wasn’t ready for this—his life had changed completely over the course of the last six months. So many changes would be a struggle for any child. A young boy with Asperger’s though? She worried constantly about the effect these changes were having on him.

  It’s too soon—Ryker needs more time to adjust.

  What the fuck was Reese doing here anyway? The last she’d heard he’d been in Dallas. It made no sense for him to be here, invading her life, talking to her friends. Had he known she’d be here? Had her parents sent him to find her?

  No, that wasn’t possible. If her parents had sent him, he’d have known about Ryker. Still, though, why the fuck was he here?

  A light knock on the door distracted her. Keeping her head in her hands, she replied in a pathetically muffled voice.

  “Fuck off. This is obviously an occupied bathroom. The door is closed and locked. Occupado.”

  She heard a loud, exaggera
ted huff that could only be coming from Kelsey through the door, followed by her friend’s voice. “You can’t hide in the bathroom all day, Becky. Reese is outside with Carlos and Rafe, and Ryker is in the living room watching a movie. You need to come out so we can figure out what to do.”

  “I thought you’d learned by now that appealing to the adult in me is useless. I hate that bitch. I’m a Toys ‘R’ Us kid for life.”

  She heard Sophie laugh and a slap that was likely Kelsey hitting Sophie on the shoulder to silence her. Kelsey’s rational voice filtered through the door again. “Toys ‘R’ Us closed, you dork. Now get your ass out here so we can talk about all of this.”

  Before Becky could reply, Sophie spoke up. “We have cookies!”

  “And a margarita,” Kelsey added.

  Well…cookies and margaritas were delicious. Plus she had a son to worry about; hiding in the bathroom wasn’t the most mature course of action—even if it did make her feel better. She stood slowly, checked the mirror to make sure she hadn’t ruined her makeup, and opened the door.

  “You lying bitches! I don’t see cookies or margaritas!”

  When she reached out to close the door on her traitorous friends again, Kelsey grabbed it and pulled her out of the bathroom. “They’re in the kitchen, you loon. Come on.”

  She followed her friends down the hall to the main part of the house, and could just hear the sounds of the movie her son was watching when Kelsey shoved her to the side. She was pushed through an open doorway, and the door was quickly closed behind her. She jiggled the handle, but it wouldn’t budge, indicating that someone was holding it still with their hand so that she couldn’t twist it to get out.