Forced "Love"

Chapter 12

The next day I strayed away from my new look of tight and short clothes and back in to jeans, t shirt and a sweater. I was still shaky from the night before, Ranger noticed something was wrong and kept pressing about it. "Kid tell me what's wrong." He demanded stopping me from leaving the kitchen. 

"I told you it's the nightmares, there getting worse." I picked at one of the cherries in the bowl I was holding and walked to the living room sofa.

The door bell rang, Ranger threw his arms up dramatically and walked to answer the door. I flipped the tv on to a random channel and continued popping cherries in my mouth.  I listen to the mindless babble filling the room as I put a cherry stem in my mouth and tied it. I pulled it out of my mouth and dropped it into the bowl full of pits. "It means your a good kisser." Ryder said as he sat next to me on the sofa. 

"Huh?" I pushed the bowl onto the coffee table.

"Being able to tie a cherry stem with your tongue, it suppose to mean your a good kisser." 

"Oh." I nodded my head. 

"You okay?" I looked down at the floor. "I mean after last night."

"Yea." I smiled at him. "I mean I'm a bit shook up still, but I'm fine."

Ryder grabbed my arm. "Good, because we are going out." He started heading for the door with me in tow.

"Where are we going?" I asked as he pushed the door closed.

"Out." I tried to say Ranger wouldn't have it but he cut me off. "Ranger knows."

I planted my feet as he opened the door to his new pick up truck. "I demand to know where we are going."

"I'm not telling you. Now get your pretty little butt in the car." I crossed my arms tightly across my chest. "We can do this the hard way or the easy way, your choice." I raised my eyebrow challenging him. "Alright princess." He swiftly picked me up bridal style and shoved me in the passenger seat, buckling me in, then crawling over me to the drivers seat. "Let's go."

We drove in silence for a while, I watched trees pass until we hit the freeway. "Why are you suddenly taking me out Ryder?"

"Well you see, I want to be able to have sex when I'm married and not just tossing off in the bathroom to crappy porn magazines I hide under my side of the bed."

"Vivid." I mumbled. 

"I like to give the full picture." He chuckled to him self. "Here we are."

I looked out of the window. "A forest."

"I know, there's more." He held the door open for me. The forest was pretty, deep colors of green and brown surrounded us, we came to a clearing with a pond in the middle. A pond side picnic.... how crappy teenage movie of him. "Well, I don't know about you." Ryder said tugging his shirt over his head and started undoing his pants. "But I'm going in." I watched him run into the water, I just stood there keeping my distance from the blue green water. Ryder surfaced and looked at me. "Come on in." I shook my head. "You can leave your clothes on, I mean your jeans might slow you down a bit." I stared at him. I had no intention of going in water. "I'm not going to try to drown you."

I flinched at the sentence. "I don't want to swim." 

He crossed his arms on his bare chest. "Alec, can you swim?"

"Kinda." Hardly, I could kinda stay afloat. I never went in any water deeper than a couple inches, not even a bath. Not since Jack.

Ryder walked out of the pond and up to me. "I can help you come on." He lightly wrapped his arm on my lower arm.

"No!" I started trying to pry his hand off of my arm. Every thing went hazy and I heard a gurgling sound. "Something is drowning..." I whispered 

Ryder gave me a confused look. "No." I frantically started to try and pull him off of me. "He grabbed my shoulders and looked at me worried. "It's okay, everything is okay."

"Jack!" The name slipped out of my mouth, and with that my knees buckled under me and a crumpled to the floor. Ryder quickly pulled on his pants and came back over to me. Suddenly everything cleared up. "I'm so sorry." I covered my mouth.

"It's fine. Are you alright?" I nodded. He stuck his hand out to me. "Come on, lets go back to the truck. We walked back on the same path that we had come on. I didn't know what to say, and I don't think that he did either. I felt horrid, all the nightmares coming back and getting more vivid each night, then having a meltdown in front of Ryder like that. When we reached the car he jumped on the hood and patted the spot next to him. I climbed next to him and rested and the windshield. "Can you answer a question for me?" He looked over at me

"If you answer one of mine."

"Fair enough, you go first."

I racked my brain. I figured this was the best question I would come up with. "How many girls have you had sex with?"

"One."

I snorted "Bull fucking shit."

"Bull true!" He laughed. "Have you heard any girls actually say they have had sex with me." He raised one eye brow.

"So it was Lydia?"

"Oh god no!" He laughed. "I made out with her a couple of times, then she had it set in her head I was hers, and hasn't left me alone since." He ran his hands through his hair. "To make it better. She's a virgin." He smiled and shook his head.

"Then who was it?" 

"Her name is Alice, she is three years older than us. One of my families closest friends, we grew up around each other." He laughed throwing back his head. "We thought that me might as well get it out of the way. and it was the most awkward experience of both of our lives." 

I smiled so he wasn't as much of a man whore as he let on. "Your turn."

"Who's Jack?"

I took a deep breathe. "My big brother, two years older than me. To the day."

"What happened to him?" He looked at me seriously.

"He was killed by rival mafia." I picked at my nail. "Drowned, we had gone out to dinner, when daddy started letting me out with out Ranger. We were walking back to the car when something smacked my head and knocked me out. I woke up tied to a chair in the middle of some woods, by a creek. Jack had promised everything was going to be okay. But I heard him being drowned, then shots every where. People yelling, Ranger found me first. Cut the rope holding me to the chair, I ran to the creek, thinking that just maybe Jack would be sitting next to it trying to catch his breath. It wasn't like that at all. I saw his body limp and sprawled out. I had a melt down, they had to pry me away form him. My best friend was dead, I mean just like that, gone." I wiped the tears away.

"I'm assuming that's the reason you can't go in water?" I nodded "How come no one ever talks about him?"

"Jack never wanted to be part of the mafia, ever since he was little he pushed against it. It was one of the only things that we disagreed on. He told daddy and mom honestly and they were fine with it. And because of it he was never introduced to people, unless he was willing."

Ryder nodded. "The night he died is what your nightmares are right?"

"Yea." I fiddled with my sweater.

"Do you have a picture?" I nodded and dug through my purse until I found the little leather picture frame.

"It was from Mom and Dad's 25th anniversary, the year he died." Ryder stared at the picture for a long time.

"How long ago was he killed?"

"Two years about."

"Did you guys know who exactly did it?" I shook my head. "Well if you remember, tell me. I can kill them for you." 

I giggled. "Thanks Ryder."

"Anytime princess."

A/N- I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! It's a bit more serious than the others, but for the most part I'm happy with it. The picture of Alec and Jack is to the side!

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