Night Blindness Read Free Page A

your beautiful skin.” She pressed the back of her hand to my cheek. “So.” She turned to Ryder. “You’ve seen our little girl, all grown up.”
    â€œA sight for sore eyes.” He never quit looking at me.
    â€œShe’s so thin.” Jamie’s hand fluttered around my ribs. “If you don’t have to be skinny to make a living, for goodness sake, why don’t you eat? Artists’ models are so lucky they’re supposed to be voluptuous.” She patted my hand. “Right?” I nodded, not bothering to tell her that fat went out with the Pre-Raphaelites. “Come.” She put her perfectly manicured hand on my arm, leading me to the kitchen. “Luke made his famous coq au vin and saved a plate for you.” I felt Ryder follow us. And I wanted to turn around and look at him again. I couldn’t get his lips, that beautiful mouth, out of my mind.
    The black granite counters were clean, and the dishes had been put away. A cast-iron skillet in the pot rack dripped onto the chopping block. Jamie opened the fridge. She looked so out of place in the kitchen. My dad or Luke did the cooking.
    â€œWhere’s Daddy?” I asked.
    Ryder sat at the island. He seemed so relaxed, familiar with a house he hadn’t been to in over a decade.
    â€œHe and Luke drank a little too much bourbon. I put him to bed and sent Luke to the guest room.”
    â€œIs it okay for him to drink alcohol?” I glanced at Ryder, but he was watching Jamie.
    â€œOh, honey, we don’t know what’s what yet.” She pulled out a casserole dish covered in aluminum foil.
    â€œNo thanks.” I hadn’t eaten since leaving for the airport that morning, but I wasn’t hungry.
    She raised her eyebrows. There was the feeling that glass was breaking all around us. “Well, then.” She covered it back up. “Wine?” She pulled a bottle of white from the door. Ryder shook his head no, and even though I was dying for a drink, I did, too.
    â€œAll right.” She gave Ryder a pout.
    I watched her pour herself a glass.
    â€œWhat’s going on with Dad?”
    Ryder started winding his watch. A fancy one—the kind advertised in men’s magazines—that he wouldn’t have been caught dead with in high school. I knew beneath that monogrammed oxford he had my father’s football jersey number tattooed on his biceps. He and Will had gotten them as soon as they’d turned sixteen, and I’d run my tongue around it more times than I could count. I wanted to reach under the sleeve and touch it now, to make sure it was really him.
    â€œOh, honey.” Jamie blew a few wispy hairs out of her eyes. “You always were one to face things head-on.” She picked up her wine and glanced at Ryder. He was still winding. “I think we should wait until tomorrow to talk about Daddy.” Her tone was the curt one she’d used to shut me up when I was younger. I didn’t know if I wanted to slap the drink out of her hand or cry.
    â€œI’d rather hear it now,” I said, and then my cell phone rang—Nic’s custom ring. I’d waited for him to call on the way over in the cab, pressing my face to the glass and watching Colston pass, so lush compared to New Mexico. I’d seen the neighborhoods I’d played in and the beaches I’d swum at, Mandy’s house, Ryder’s.
    â€œI have to take this.” The phone kept ringing while I walked across the kitchen. “I’ll just be a minute.” I could feel them watching me as I let myself out the back door and walked onto the deck. The crisp New England air ran straight through my flimsy rayon shirt. “Hey.” I dropped into the love-seat glider.
    â€œWhere are you?” Nic asked.
    I thought of my mother and Ryder in the kitchen, looking out at me. A thin line of smoke drifted over from the neighbor’s chimney. It smelled like hickory; the same