Chapter 3 The Things Left Unsaid

• Ryan POV
• The locker room was almost empty by the time Ryan pulled his tie loose.
• A few night shift guards were changing out of uniform, laughing at something on a phone screen. One of them raised a hand.
• “Night, Brooks.”
• Ryan nodded. “Night.”
• He opened his locker and stared at his reflection in the metal door. He looked older than twenty-eight tonight. Eyes bloodshot from being up all night. A faint stain near his shoulder where Nathan had cried into it.
• He should have called Nathan’s assistant. Should have handled it the way the job required.
• Instead he’d stayed.
• Ryan shut the locker harder than he meant to.
• “You good?” the guard nearby asked.
• “Didn’t sleep.”
• “Happens.”
• If only it were that simple.
• He changed into a plain shirt and jeans, folded his uniform the way he always did. The badge stayed clipped to the jacket. It felt heavier than usual.
• —
• He stopped at the pharmacy on his way home.
• “Morning, Mr. Brooks. The usual?”
• “Yeah.”
• The pharmacist rang it up. Ryan slid his card across the counter.
• DECLINED.
• “Try again,” he said, already moving money from savings before the cashier could apologize.
• The second attempt went through.
• Outside, his phone buzzed. A balance notification. $183.47. Rent due in four days. His mother’s therapy appointment Friday.
• He put the phone away before the math could get any worse.
• —
• He climbed three flights because the elevator still didn’t work, and let himself in.
• “I’m home.”
• “You said that ten minutes later yesterday too.”
• Ryan smiled before he even saw her. She was by the window in her chair, TV on low, blanket over her legs even though it wasn’t cold.
• “You waited up again.”
• “You know I don’t sleep till you’re home.”
• “You should.”
• “And let you think nobody’s waiting for you? Not happening.”
• He crossed the room and kissed the top of her head. “You eat?”
• “I waited for you.”
• “Ma.”
• “I know, I know.”
• “You promised.”
• “I also know that.” She gave him the same innocent smile she’d been giving him since he was twelve and it still worked on him every time.
• He rolled up his sleeves. “I’ll make something.”
• “You mean breakfast. It’s morning.”
• “Still yesterday to me. Haven’t slept yet.”
• She laughed under her breath.
• —
• He moved around the kitchen on autopilot, rice on, chicken seasoned. Halfway through the vegetables his hands slowed without him telling them to.
• Nathan’s voice, quiet, wrecked. Don’t leave.
• “Ryan.”
• He blinked. His mother was watching him from across the room.
• “You’ve cut that same carrot into about twelve pieces.”
• He looked down. She was right.
• “Guess I did.”
• “Long night?”
• “Yeah.”
• “Difficult client?”
• He hesitated half a second too long. “Something like that.”
• She let it go. She always did. Instead she wheeled herself closer.
• “Landlord came by.”
• Ryan’s hands stopped.
• “Wasn’t rude about it,” she said, which usually meant he had been.
• “How far behind?”
• “Two weeks, he said.” She reached for an envelope on the table, unopened. “Electric bill’s higher than last month too.”
• Ryan took it, already knowing what was inside.
• “I get paid Friday. I’ll handle it.”
• “You always say that.”
• “Because I always do.”
• She looked at him a long moment, pride and guilt sitting in her eyes at the same time.
• “I hate this,” she said finally.
• “Hate what?”
• “Watching you carry all of it.”
• Ryan crouched down beside the chair so they were level. “You carried me first.”
• “That was a long time ago.”
• “Doesn’t matter.”
• Her good hand came up, brushed through his hair the way it had when he was small. “If your father were here—”
• Ryan’s jaw tightened before she could finish it.
• They both knew where that sentence went. His father had left before the accident, left them with debts and a house half paid off, and when the call finally came it wasn’t an apology — it was the state police telling them there’d been a crash on the interstate. He was gone before he reached a hospital. Two weeks later she’d had the stroke.
• Some people called that grief.
• Ryan had never believed it was only that.
• He stood before either of them had to sit inside the memory any longer. “I’ll get the food plated.”
• She didn’t stop him. Just watched him move around a kitchen too small for how much he was carrying.
• On the counter beside the unopened electric bill sat his badge. He picked it up, thumb running over his own name.
• Ryan Brooks. Head of Executive Security.
• A job he couldn’t afford to lose.
• He closed his hand around it.
• “Can’t happen again,” he said, quiet, to no one.
• Not because he regretted staying that night.
• Because he wasn’t sure, if it came down to it again, that he’d have it in him to walk away a second time.