Read Online Heart by Rachel Higginson - Free Book Online Page A

You want to know all of the
sordid details, that’s just fine.”
    “Good.”
    “Just… just tell me why you want to know
first. Why do you want to get mixed up in this again?”
    He let out a weary sigh and sat down on the
bed with me. He sat nowhere near me; there was plenty of space
between us, but I felt him this close. I felt him all over my skin
and deep in my bones.
    “Morbid curiosity,” he answered.
    I didn’t believe him for a second. “Not good
enough.”
    “Well, it’s as good as you’re going to get.”
He sounded very serious about that.
    “Listen, Ryder, you’ve made it perfectly
clear that you want nothing to do with me. I’m just trying to
figure out why you’re here.”
    “Is that what you think? You think I’m acting
like this and that I wrote a song about you and that I dragged my
ass out of bed first thing this morning when Phoenix called me and
told me you were crashing at his place because I want nothing to do
with you?”
    “Yes,” I whispered, feeling like it was a
lie.
    He just shook his head. “Tell me what’s going
on, Ivy .”
    I could tell that he really had lost whatever
patience he’d started with. I decided it was probably just better
to give him what he wanted. I told him everything. I started with
where I had been for the past year and ended with waking up in
Phoenix’s bed with Ryder looming over me.
    “Where is Nix now?” he asked
thoughtfully.
    I lifted one shoulder and rested my cheek on
it. “Probably on his way. I have no idea where he’s coming from,
but if Thalia called him, I have no doubt he’s going to be here
soon.”
    “So what’s your plan?”
    I shrugged again. “I need to figure out what
happened to Honor. I feel like I should figure out what’s going on
with my mom… I don’t know where to start.”
    “Why do you even care? That woman deserves
whatever they do to her.”
    The fury radiating off him surprised me. I
knew he hated Nix, but I had no idea how deep his hatred for my
mother went. “I agree with you. I don’t know though… there’s just
something off with the whole thing. What do they want with her?
What are they doing to her? I’m not saying I want to rescue her. I
just have this feeling that I need to know what’s going on. I’m
missing a piece of this puzzle.”
    “Red, we’re missing a lot of pieces.”
    This time when I laughed, it was real. “Fair
enough.”
    “So what’s the plan?”
    I chewed on my bottom lip while I tried to
make one up really quickly. I didn’t exactly have a plan. “I want
to drive by Smith’s house. I’d like to see if any of his employees
are there and can tell me anything. I’d also like to swing by my
old apartment and see if my mom still owns it or if she sold it or
what.”
    “She didn’t sell it,” Ryder said softly but
with conviction.
    “How do you know?”
    He rubbed the back of his neck and looked
away from me. If I didn’t know any better I would think he was
embarrassed. But he couldn’t be. He had nothing to be embarrassed
about.
    “I’ve, uh, been checking up on it.”
    “You’ve been checking up on it?” I clarified.
Those words knocked the wind right out of me. I felt
sucker-punched.
    “Okay, don’t make a big deal out of it,” he
demanded, sounding pissy again.
    “I’m not.”
    “You are. It wasn’t anything. I just wanted
to know if you came back to town, all right? I had no way of
knowing what happened to you or if you were dead or what.
Okay?”
    “Okay, geez.” My chest bloomed with pain
again. “You really thought I was dead?”
    His gaze shifted to mine and held. I felt
breathless again but for a different reason this time. “Yeah, Ivy.
I thought it was a real possibility.”
    I slid forward until we were just a few
inches apart. My hand shook as I reached out and touched the top of
his. I just barely grazed the back of his hand with my fingertips,
afraid of what more physical contact with him would do to my
fragile heart.
    He stilled so