How To Kill Ryder Blake (COMPLETED)

{Seventeen} Lay Me Down

I shifted uncomfortably on Ryan's toolbox.

Though he'd been insistent that Ryan sat with me, the younger Blake had ignored his brother's requests and was in the midst of helping Ryan lay out a few thick blankets and pillows in the bed of his truck under my feet.

"You might want to grab an extra blanket." Ryder made a jab at his brother as he passed, then sent me a playful wink. "I mean, with her next to you all night, I'm sure you'll get all worked up."

It was a very Ryder thing to say and Ryan didn't even try and conjure up a comeback but shook his head in amusement. It was easy to forget that he was getting sicker by the day when he fell back into his old ways, made his old comments and sent those quirky, but weirdly contagious smiles. When he walked around the car and edged closer to me, my own smile faltered. Despite having been doing nothing but sleeping the last two days, he looked as if he hadn't gotten a wink in for months. His eyes had sunken even deeper into his ashen cheeks, the dark bags under them even more visible and protruding. His lips were so chapped that they'd lost a lot of the color and taken on the bloodied color of the blood he was continuously coughing up. His body was what was most startling to watch shift; a once athletic build had thinned out into skin and bones, made very apparent any time he lifted something and the shirt he wore rode up and revealed his rib cage.

"Can you help with this?" Ryan asked from the end of the bed, one of his eyebrows raised. I set my phone down on the toolbox and stood, joining him on the tailgate. As soon as I was within reaching distance, he knocked me off my feet and cradled me against his chest.

"Ryan! What are you doing?" I gasped, slapping my palm against his chest. He only smirked. "You better not throw me into that lake. I will kill you!"

The smile that lit his face was enough for me to hesitate in pounding my hands against his chest until he put me down. It was genuine, the only one I'd seen light his eyes in a while.

"Death's inevitable anyway. May as well have a good reason to be taken out."

He didn't give me enough time to process the morbid words before I was thrown into and submerged in the lake. I had to give him credit for not running, he stood with his arms crossed, waiting for me to come back up. I should have climbed out and punched him repeatedly, but my eyes shot passed his flexed arms and to Ryder. He was hunched over, one hand clutching his stomach, the other the tailgate, as he threw up the little he'd eaten on the way here. Ryan followed my gaze, and once he'd helped me out, bowed his head a bit, before we headed back toward his brother in silence.

**

Why Ryan had a spare Tee tucked safely under his passenger seat, I had no idea, but it came in handy tonight. He made sure to drape his leather jacket over my shoulders as well, probably feeling the guilt eating at him as he watched me shiver with the temperature dropping as night rolled around.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" I said aloud, watching the lights shoot overhead in awe.

Ryan moved from his perch near the toolbox and joined me on the tailgate as he responded. "It's not the only thing taking my breath away tonight."

"Ha ha." I rolled my eyes, nudging him with my shoulder. "How many times have you used the line on girls before? Because that was terrible."

He leaned forward and brushed this thumb along my jaw. "I don't know what you've heard, but I'm not the type of guy to just hand my shirt out to chicks. This. This is why."