Loving the Fighter

83

Jax's POV

I sat on the left side of Ryder while I thought over my life choices.

When Ryder asked of I wanted to do something, I thought he meant like take a walk or have a nice sit in the woods. I didn't expect for him to drag me into a canoe and then leave us stranded in the middle of the lake.

"Why are we out here?" I asked after we were already in the center of the lake. Looking back, that would have been a better question to ask before I even got into the boat.

"We're paddling," he said simply as he dipped his paddle back in the water and started pushing. Sadly, due to his upper body strength, we didn't end up going very far.

"Okay, yea I gathered that, but why?"

"For fun. Now are you going to help me or not." I sigh but say nothing as I push my paddle in the water a few times. We sat in silence. Nothing but the sound of ores cutting through the water made a sound.

"This is definitely fun," I say, sarcasm dripping off every word. "Why haven't we done this before?"

"You're a real ass, you know that right," he asked with a glare but his chuckle told me he was joking.

"It's not my fault you picked a bad thing to do," I said with a chuckle of my own as I continued to paddle but without Ryder matching my strength we were really just going in big circles.

"I hate nearly everything about this," I say as I take the ore out of the water and just lay in the bottom of the small boat instead.

"Nearly everything," he asked with a small frown.

"You are literally the only reason I'm still out here."

"If you want to head back we can," he said quickly, failing to hide the insecurity in his voice. "We can find something else to do or we could just head back to the cabin-."

"Ryder," I just to grab his attention while kicking his foot a bit. "I'm joking. This is perfect."

Relief washes over him as he visibly relaxes again.

His eyes move away from me again as he settles watches the water move around us.

I would never tell Ryder this, but I was honestly bored out of my mind. If I wanted to lie on a hard surface in silence I would have stayed at the cabin.

"So what did you do before you got here?" I asked after a while just to break the silence but when Ryder's eyes went wide I began to panic a bit too so I quickly re word it. "Like for fun. I used to listen to the radio a lot."

I still don't know much about Ryder before he came here. I mean I know he used to prostitute himself but that's all I've been able to piece together so far.

"Oh," he said as he calmed himself down a bit more. "I used to read a lot. Back home I have a wall of nothing but bookshelves. I have the collectors' edition of all of my favorites on display and everything," his eyes stared off dreamily in the distance before he frowned, seeming to come back to reality. "At least I assume they are all still there. It's been a while since I've had any letters from home."

"Yea, all my stuff has probably been pawned off by now. I'll be lucky if my mattress is still there when I get out of here."

"You mean you're going back there?" Ryder asked with a small glare, making me confused.

"Well, I mean we graduate in 7 months and I don't know about you but I don't exactly have the money to afford an apartment after I leave here."

"What about your dad? Won't he be there waiting for you?"