Chapter 3 - Home Sweet Home

Ryder’s POV

It was well after noon by the time I paid the fee to get my car out of the impound lot and drove back home. I was hungry, tired and wanted nothing more than to get something quick to eat and crawl into my bed to sleep the rest of the day away. I lazily punched my code into the keypad at the gate at the front of my property, yawning as I waited for it to open enough to get my car through and start my way up the driveway. I bought this house when I got my signing bonus with the Lakers. I wanted a sanctuary away from the prying eyes of the media and saw ten houses before this one, each larger and more luxurious than the last. But when I set eyes on this house in Malibu, I made an offer immediately.

The house had five bedrooms and five bathrooms with a separate one-bedroom guesthouse that sat on a twenty-acre block. The first thing that got my attention was the ocean views, but that love grew as I stepped into the home itself. Walking through the magnificent pivot glass door and strolling through the living room with a bar and fireplace towards the open planned kitchen with waterfall counters, state of the art appliances, and finally settling in the family room with sweeping ocean and canyon views, there was no saying no. On top of the extra bedrooms, I had a movie room, home gym, study, an outdoor entertainment area with a built-in outdoor kitchen, a huge flat lawn with an infinity pool with a waterfall, spa and outdoor basketball court.

I strolled into the kitchen with the intention of heading to the fridge to heat up one of the prepared meals I always had on hand when I saw a shadow out of the corner of my eye. I stopped and did a doubletake, my eyes landing on a young girl sitting at the breakfast bar eating a bowl of frosted flakes.

The young girl was fifteen years old, a little over 5’7, with long, wavy, sandy blonde hair, her bright blue eyes studying me.

“What are you doing here?” I asked her cautiously, she didn’t answer and just stared at me blankly, and that’s when I noticed her bare ear and lifted my hands to sign as I spoke, “Put your cochlear back on.”

She rolled her eyes at me, dropping her spoon in her bowl and reaching into her pocket, pulling out her implant, connecting it and sliding it around her each, “Happy now?”

“Thrilled.” I growled, “now, what are you doing here? You weren’t supposed to be back from Heather’s until tomorrow.”

The girl shrugged as she got up, taking her bowl to the sink and rinsing it out, “Her dad surprised her with tickets to a play or something, so I bailed, sorry to ruin your fun plans.”

“Faith, don’t be like that.” I pleaded, watching her turn and walk away from me and up the stairs, “Come on, Faith, come back here.”

A few minutes later, I heard a door open and then slammed shut, causing me to close my eyes and pray to whatever god was listening to give me the strength to get her through the rest of her teen years without strangling her. My mother lost her battle was ovarian cancer when I was five, and it took my father five years to marry again, and less than a year later, Faith was born. From the day she was placed in my dad’s arms, she was his little princess. My father loved my stepmother and my little sister immensely, but I always felt like my stepmother loved my father’s money more than she loved him. He was a senior partner in a very prestigious law firm, and with all that prestige came a fat paycheck. Faith became her favorite accessory that she paraded around at parties and then handed off to the nanny to deal with until my father could take over. He was very hands-on with her, just like he was with me.

When Faith was six, she contracted one of the rarer strains of bacterial meningitis that she wasn’t protected from with her vaccinations, and though she made a full recovery, one of the long term side effects was the loss of her hearing. I was seventeen at the time, and my father and I threw ourselves into taking care of her, she was a candidate for a cochlear implant, but we both learnt sign language with her to make sure that even when she didn’t have it in, we could still communicate. Faith was a little self-conscious about it, especially at first due to the looks of disgust from my stepmother. My stepmother prided herself on the entire family looking and acting perfectly and having a deaf child did not fit in with her perfect image, which is why she didn’t even bother to learn sign language. She started travelling more and more, saying that she was doing charity work, but the time between her visits became further apart.

When my father died from a heart attack in my final year of college, she didn’t even come back for the funeral. She just sent her legal representative on her behalf, saying she was too distraught to return from Italy at the time. My father never bothered to divorce her, didn’t want to put Faith through a messy divorce, so she got nearly everything when he died apart from the house and the trust funds my father had set up for Faith and me. I didn’t think twice before I asked my dad’s best friend and partner at his law to help guide me through the process of obtaining guardianship of Faith. My stepmother didn’t put up a fight when I went to court. She was too busy spending her fortune.

When the pro teams started sniffing around my final year of college, I made sure that they knew that my preference was either the Clippers or Lakers if possible, as I didn’t want to uproot Faith’s life. Her mother had abandoned her, and then her father had died. I wanted to keep her life as stable as possible. As luck would have it, the Lakers needed a point guard. They were so supportive of my responsibilities at home that they even pointed me towards a reliable service that I could use to hire a live-in housekeeper who doubled as a nanny when I had games. She resided in the guest house but stayed in the main house with my sister when I travelled for away games. For the last five years, it had worked for us.

It was summer break, and she was supposed to be staying at her best friends house last night and again tonight, which was why I went out last night. I was supposed to go out for drinks tonight with Marcus to see how he was going with the whole house thing that I won, but I would have to cancel. I tried only to let loose when I was out of town or Faith wasn’t home. When she was here, I liked her to know that she could count on me.

I pulled out one of the meals that Angela had made. It was getting closer to heading back to training camp, so I had to move back towards healthier meals, today it was miso-glazed salmon with rice and steamed veggies. After I was done eating, Faith’s reaction was still bugging me, and I doubted I would be able to sleep until I sorted it out. I jogged up the starts to her room and knocked on her door. The music was blaring. I doubted she could hear me, so I proceeded to open it without further knocking.

She was sitting with her legs crossed on the bed, a couple of textbooks open on the bed in front of her. She wanted to be a lawyer like our father when she grew up and spent hours studying Marcus’ old law books that he gave her when he gave up that career. She got all the brains in the family, whilst she got straight A’s throughout school. I was lucky to maintain the C average I required to continue to play basketball in high school and college.

The change in her body language let me know that she knew I was there but simply chose not to acknowledge me. I moved forward until I could sit on the edge of her bed, but she still didn’t look up at me, so I shut the textbook she was reading to get her attention, which earned me yet another glare.

“I was about to go have a snooze, but I couldn’t until things were right between us. You know I’m happy to have you home. I was just surprised.” I advised her.

She snorted, “Sure, whatever.”

“I am,” I assured her. We got along great most of the time, but there were moments like this where she doubted that I wanted her here with me. After our dad died, I got her into counselling, especially after her mother returned. Her counsellor assured me that whilst she had a few abandonment issues, I just needed to keep reassuring her when she got like this, “What do you say after I have a sleep we camp out in the movie room, watch that god awful show you like and order in dinner.”

Her ears perked up, and I even caught a small smile forming, “Vampire Diaries and pizza?”

“How about Chinese food?” I countered, shuddering at the thought of the extra hours in the gym tomorrow that I would need to work off all that cheese. At least with Chinese, I could get a semi-healthy choice.

“Deal.” She agreed, so I got up and headed towards the door, but her voice stopped me in my tracks, “Hey Ry, you might want to have a shower before you go to bed because you kind of smell. What were you doing last night?”

That made me chuckle softly, “That’s for me to know and you never to find out. I won’t sleep too long.”

I made my way down to the other end of the hallway, where my bedroom was. My master was a spacious room with amazing views of Point Dume from my own private balcony, a granite fireplace and a sitting area paired with his and her walk-in closets that both had entryways into the master bathroom. When I entered the bathroom, I coulnt help but always admire the hand-painted cement floors, a large stainless steel tub with an awesome view from the floor to ceiling windows, a huge walk-in shower and matching his/her sinks on a floating cement vanity.

I had a long, hot shower, scrubbing off the stench from the jail cell before changing into a fresh pair of Calvin Kleins and crawling into bed. After sending a quick message to Marcus to let him know about our change of plans tonight, I was out like a light as soon as I put the phone down.