Chapter 10

THIRTEEN

I.Am.Going.To.Kill.Him.

The world literally stopped after those three words left his mouth.

Jason was frozen in place staring at me in a complete and utter shock, anger beginning to spark in his eyes.

He probably thinks I was leading Cody on this whole time.

Thanks a lot, Ryder.

Ryder just smiles and tightens his grip on my shoulder, his fingers digging into the wound on my arm. He grabs the second beer on the table with his free hand.

He holds it up. "Cheers."

He's avoiding looking at me, probably because he can feel the burning of the ax murderer level glare I'm giving him.

"Of all the things in the world you could pick to say," I toss his arm off from around my shoulders. "You just couldn't resist could you?"

He gives me an evil smile. "Nope." He places his arm back around me again and I bite my tongue when his fingers once again dig into my shoulder.

"You have a girlfriend." I start, removing his arm from around me again. "And she is not me."

"Wait so he isn't your boyfriend?" Jason interrupts, pointing between the two of us with a cautious look on his face.

Ryder begins to laugh hysterically. "Are you serious?" He asks Jason. "I wouldn't date her if my life depended on it." He picks up the beer again. "And I pray for the lost soul who chooses to." I punch him in the arm and he just laughs.

"It's not like you're exactly the best boyfriend either. Who forgets their girlfriend's birthday?"

He winces. "That was one time..."

I roll my eyes and Jason just sits there, clearly trying to take in everything and put the pieces together. He's still eyeing Ryder with a guarded look.

"How is your girlfriend?" I ask Ryder. He just stares blanking at his beer and raises it to his lips.

"We broke up." He states simply before taking a drink. He shrugs. "It wasn't really working out anyway, she was complaining way too much."

"About?"

"How I'm never home. How I value my job more than her." He looks over at me and his eyes spark with amusement as he says this next part. "How I spend way too much time obsessing over you and where you're at."

I roll my eyes with a smile on my face. "And why do I get the feeling you didn't say anything in an attempt to make it better?" He smiles widely and chuckles to himself.

"I told her the truth." He says with a mischievous smile. "How you and I are platonic soul mates and in the end, I'll just end up dumping her and running back to you and we'll go hunt her down and kill her together because it will help to strengthen our already unbreakable bond."

I laugh loudly causing a few people to look over at us. "You're an FBI agent. You can't go around making jokes like that. You'll get fired if she chooses to report you."

He shrugs. "I didn't actually say any of that at all. She told me to choose between her or my job and you." He smirks, his eyes lighting up with mischief.

"And what did you tell her?"

"I told her to leave her key in the mailbox while I went to work."

I shake my head with a smile on my face as he just sits there smirking.

"That is so you," I mutter.

"She was basically telling me to chose her, or chose money and more money." He shrugs innocently. "I need money to live."

"Glad to know all you see me as is a source of income." I snort, rolling my eyes at him.

"Absolutely." He nods in agreement. "Speaking of which," He holds out his hand in front of me. "Pay up."

I groan and slide my hand into my pocket, removing my wallet.

"You suck Ryder," I grumble as I pass him two hundred dollars.

He plucks it from my hand. "Thank you." He counts it out in front of him. "You know, if you hadn't said anything, to begin with, I wouldn't have even realized it was you." He shrugs. "I was only coming over here to make sure he wasn't some criminal."

Jason chokes on his beer.

"He's not a criminal." I shake my head at Ryder as I gesture to Jason.

He's still choking.

"Well, I know that now." He reaches over and slaps his hand on Jason's back. "Place the next bet."

"Two weeks," I say and he nods. "A thousand."

"Oh, it's on." He rubs his hands together in glee. "Prepare to lose...as usual."

"Excuse me who won last time?" I question and he glares playfully back at me.

"That was a fluke accident. Plus you totally cheated."

"I did not!"

"Did too!" He sticks his tongue out at me and I roll my eyes with a smile on my face.

"You want to talk about cheating?" I question. "You called my office telling Megan there was something urgent you needed to discuss with me."

"That was true."

"No, it wasn't." I chide him. "The only reason you were calling was to see if I was already at my office." Ryder hides his grin in the beer cup. I turn back to Jason.

"What are you two even talking about?" He asks. He's eyeing me with a strange look on his face, confusion.

"We make bets on whether or not Ryder the living human hound over here-"

"Hey!"

"Can find me when I'm off on missions," I reply. "If he finds me within the allotted time period, I pay him. If he doesn't find me, he pays me, but the bet only starts two days after we last see each other."

"So basically, he's lost a lot of money."

I laugh loudly and Ryder glares at Jason, a scowl on his face.

"You'd be surprised how often I win." He responds, his face turning into a smirk when he thinks of all the times he's won.

Ryder can find anyone in the world, even if they don't want to be found. How he does it, I'll never know cause he never tells me. And if we had to tally up the number of times each one of us has won...

Sadly his number would be a lot higher than mine.

Of course, my thought process is, if he can find me when I don't want to be found, he can find anyone. And that is why I keep him around.

He owes me a lot of favors.

A waitress walks up and places a piece of cheesecake in front of Ryder. He sends her his thousand watt smile and thanks her.

"When did you even order that?" Jason mutters.

"Before I came over here to bug you people." Ryder responds and pushes the piece of strawberry syrup covered cheesecake decorated with little pieces of cut up strawberries over to me.

"For you." He says and I give him a flat look.

"You're hilarious." I retort dryly.

He gives me a look of confusion as if he's actually confused as to why I won't take the cheesecake. His eyes, however, are filled with mischief and humor because he knows exactly what he's doing.

He lets out a gasp of shock. "I'm so sorry." His voice lacks all sincerity and is instead replaced with sarcasm. "I completely forgot you're allergic to strawberries."

"Uh huh, I'm sure." I glare at him and I see him bite his lip, trying so hard not to burst out laughing.

"Well more for me." He finally says, taking the plate from me and digging and his fork into it. "Mhmm. This is heavenly."

"I hate you."

"I know." He smiles at me with cheesecake stuck in his teeth.

"You're disgusting," I mutter.

"What was that?" He asks with his mouth full. The waitress comes by and places another plate of plain cheesecake on the table. Ryder slides it over to me.

"I love you."

"That's what I thought you said." He states smugly.

He bumps me with his shoulder and my bad arm hits the end of the both. I bite my tongue to keep from cursing him out. He eyes me carefully.

"Are you hurt?"

"No." I reply at the same time Jason says, "Yes."

"Show me your arm." Ryder orders.

"I'm fine."

"She's really not."

I glare at Jason and he just shrugs and leans back, though he seems to have relaxed around Ryder now.

"Show me your arm." Ryder orders again. I glare at Jason one more time and he rolls his eyes. I pull down the sleeve of my sweater so my shoulder is visible. Ryder eyes the white bandage.

"What happened?" He asks.

"She was stabbed with a furnace for a dagger," Jason speaks up before I can say anything. Ryder's eyes widen.

"Why would you stab yourself?"

I give him a confused look as does Jason. "I didn't stab myself."

"You're the one who had the damn dagger."

"Doesn't mean I stabbed myself." I retort. "And I don't have it anymore, I gave it away."

His eyes widen even further. "Why would you give it away?!"

"It's a long story," I reply, finally taking a bite of the cheesecake. "I called you for advice. You didn't answer. I solved the problem on my own. Created a new one. And saved four idiots from certain doom. I think I did good."

"I'm sorry I asked." I hear Ryder mutter under his breath.

I glare at him and he holds his hands up in mock surrender.

"Oh hey." He starts, his mouth full of cheesecake. "I've got to pack a bag, but as soon as I do I'm coming over to your place." He licks his fork clean. "Just a fair warning."

"Yeah well, your room's still the same messy pig sty it always is," I reply, swatting at his hands as he tries to take a piece of my cheesecake.

"You didn't clean it for me?"

"I'm not cleaning it, and I'm definitely not going to have Henri do it either. There are things in there still unknown to science." I scoff and he gives me a deadpan look.

"It's not that bad."

I roll my eyes at him and shoot him a disbelieving look.

"Your entire apartment is pristine, but the one room I have reserved for you in my house is the equivalent of a landfill."

"Well if it was my house I'd feel obligated to clean it." I whack him the back of the head.

"It's my house. You should feel obligated to clean it."

"But I don't."

"But you will."

"Are you threatening me? Cause I can have you arrested for threatening a federal agent."

"And I can kill you faster than you can arrest me."

"That's a threat."

"No, it's not," I say innocently, giving him an evil smile. "It's a fact."