CHAPTER 24 #2
She let the silence stretch until they had driven three blocks. Then she couldn't stand it any longer.
"Are you okay?" she asked quietly.
Ryan kept his eyes on the road. "Is Ethan the guy Katrina mentioned? The one you dated for six months?"
Whatever she'd expected him to ask, it wasn't this. She looked over. "So she told you."
Of course Katrina had.
A small part of her bristled. It wasn't that she'd been hiding Ethan. She simply hadn't thought he was worth mentioning. Besides, it wasn't really Katrina's story to tell.
Ryan glanced at her briefly before looking back at the road. "She told me when she was trying to set me up with you," he admitted. "I asked about your dating history."
That made sense. She sighed. "That was a long time ago, Ryan."
Ryan made a left turn onto the road that led toward her house. “You haven’t dated anyone else since, according to Katrina.”
“That’s not because of Ethan,” she said. “It actually didn’t work between us.”
He was quiet while she explained about the distance, the canceled plans, the constant work. She found herself telling the story almost as though it belonged to someone else.
Because in a way, it did.
The woman who had waited for Ethan's calls, rearranged her schedule around weekends that never happened, and convinced herself things would be different next month... she barely recognized her now.
"Ethan wanted me to move to San Jose," she said. "I couldn't leave Cliff Harbor."
Ryan nodded, but his silence told her he was hearing something different. "I wouldn't ask you to leave," he said quietly. "I'd visit."
Her heart tightened. She believed he meant it, but that wasn't the problem. "Yeah," she said softly. "That's what you believe now."
He glanced at her.
She continued, "The real world catches up pretty fast." She wasn't talking about Ryan—she was talking about hope.
Hope was easy on a vacation. It was much harder three months later, after deadlines, traffic, late meetings, and exhausted Friday nights.
She knew. She had lived it.
When Ryan asked whether she'd missed Ethan, she almost laughed.
"No."
The answer surprised even her—She hadn't missed Ethan. Not once.
She'd missed the sense of security she'd hoped to find in him. Maybe she'd been searching for someone a little like Dad all along. Someone dependable. Protective. Someone who would drop everything just to be with her.
Ethan had never been that man.
"What exactly is bothering you, Ryan?" she asked.
“Nothing's bothering me,” he said. “I'm just surprised to find out I'm walking in your ex's shoes. And he's also my boss, which is great.”
"So what?" she said quietly. "You're not him."
She had hoped that would reassure him. Instead it seemed only to push him farther away.
"It doesn't matter anyway. We're not even dating. It's just a fling, right?" he answered after a pause.
The words landed harder than she expected. She turned toward him. "That's what you think this is?"
She'd been trying so hard not to promise herself anything. Not because she didn't care, but because she cared far too much already.
When he accused her of not believing he'd come back, she closed her eyes briefly.
He didn't understand. It wasn't that she doubted his sincerity. She doubted time. Distance. Life. She doubted all the things that had once sounded temporary until they became permanent.
“I’m being realistic,” she said. “I don’t want you to make promises you can’t keep.”
"Like what Ethan did?" he asked.
The question stole the words from her. She stared at him in disbelief, and then looked out the windshield.
They’d finally reached home. Ryan pulled into the driveway and turned off the engine.
The porch remained dark, but warm light spilled through the living room windows. Katrina was still awake. Of course she was. They'd had plans for the evening. They were supposed to watch My Cousin Vinny, a movie Ryan recommended.
Katrina was also going to bake cookies for the occasion, and had gone for a grocery trip just to buy the ingredients. It was the first time in years she'd baked anything just because it sounded fun.
Katrina had gone to all that trouble, and now Marina doubted she could pretend everything was fine. The last thing she wanted was to spoil her sister's evening.
For a long moment neither of them moved.
"I should get to Ethan's," Ryan said.
The words stung far more than they should have. After everything that had happened tonight… After she'd rushed through work because she wanted another hour with him...
He was still going to spend the rest of the evening with Ethan.
She wanted to protest, but instead, she said, "Yeah, you should."
She heard the flatness in her own voice but couldn't bring herself to fix it.
"We'll see each other tomorrow."
She gave a small shrug. Maybe. Maybe tomorrow would feel different. Maybe it wouldn't.
She reached for the door handle. "We had fun," she said, forcing a smile that didn't quite make it to her eyes. "That's what flings are for, right?"
The moment the words left her mouth, she wished she could take them back. But it was too late.
She stepped out into the cool night, closed the door gently behind her, and walked toward the house without looking back. She didn't trust herself to.