Chapter 26
Ryan
“What’s going on with you?” Casey suddenly appears at my office door. Or maybe he’s been standing there for a while. Honestly, I have no idea. I’ve been so consumed by Scarlett’s words on my screen that I’ve lost track of the outside world.
I blink a few times and push my glasses up on my forehead to rub my dry, screen-tired eyes.
“What do you mean?” I hedge, though I have a good idea what he’s asking me about.
Casey takes that as permission to enter my office, and he folds himself into one of the chairs facing my desk. With a few forceful blinks, I try to make myself transition out of the fictional world Scarlett has created and back into the land of the living. If he’s sitting, this is going to take a while.
“I haven’t seen you that engrossed in something for a long time.” He smirks as he crosses an ankle over his knee and settles in.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve had something to be engrossed in,” I fire back.
“Mm-hmm.” He nods as if that was also what he was thinking but doesn’t say anything else.
“Did you need something?” I ask. “Because if you didn’t, I’m really swamped.”
Casey uses his chin to indicate my computer screen. “What are you working on?”
I narrow my eyes at him and rest my palms on my desk. “Scarlett’s manuscript. I’m almost done with this pass.”
His smirk widens into a smile, and I pinch the bridge of my nose. This is starting to get really irritating.
“Say it, Casey.”
“We haven’t talked in a while, is all. You’ve been…busy.” The way he says it has me bristling. “I wanted to see if you have anything new in your life.”
“As a matter of fact, I do,” I say. His eyebrows tick up with curiosity. “And I have you to thank,” I continue.
He removes his ankle from his knee so he can lean forward and rest his forearms on his thighs. “Yeah?” Casey has always been an insufferable gossip. I’m not surprised he’s interested, but it is way too easy to get him excited.
“Yeah.” I eye him across the desk to draw it out a little longer. “For kicking this manuscript to me. It’s really great, man.”
Casey leans back in his chair so violently that I’m surprised it doesn’t tip over. “Come on, Ryan. I know you’re seeing Scarlett again.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
That gets him flustered. His eyes widen slightly, but he recovers and clears his throat. “I have my sources.”
“Who?”
“I can’t disclose that.”
I glare at him over the top of my glasses. “This is a publishing house, not a newspaper.”
“And either way, you didn’t deny it.” He’s changing the subject, but I can see I won’t get his source out of him anyway.
Sighing, I nod silently. This must be all the confirmation he needs, because he chuckles darkly and shakes his head.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” he asks, wincing.
I frown. “A second ago, I thought you were excited.”
“I don’t know how to feel about it. And it’s not really my feelings that matter. You’re the one who got your heart crushed so badly that it fundamentally changed who you are as a human being.”
“That’s a little dramatic,” I grumble.
“It’s not,” he insists. “You’ve been pining for her for so long that you got her words tattooed on your arm.” He rolls his lips together as if it could stop him from saying the next thing, but he takes a breath and barrels on. “If I had known that manuscript was hers, I never would have asked you to look at it. I would have told Trina she was out of her mind to come around here with Scarlett’s work again.”
I arch an eyebrow and laugh. “Are you feeling guilty or something?”
“Not yet, but I will if this goes south.”
“What makes you think it will?”
“Aside from the fact that it’s a conflict of interest to have a romantic relationship with one of your authors?” Casey twitches an eyebrow up in challenge.
“You think Martis gives a shit about that? We weren’t together when she signed, and if it’s that big of a deal, I’ll step aside for the next book.” It would have gutted me to let her work go if we weren’t seeing each other, but now I suppose I can have the best of both worlds if it came to that.
Casey narrows his eyes at me. “She has kind of a fraught history with her mental health. And with you.”
“She’s different now,” I say without thinking.
“Different enough that you had to bring her food to get her out of a tough spot? It feels like you’re conveniently ignoring a lot of what she was like before she bailed on JMP.”
“You’ve been talking to Trina,” I accuse him.
He shoots me a look. “I will neither confirm nor deny that. Don’t try to weasel out of this, Ryan. I’m concerned.”
“Don’t be,” I say harshly, but I soften a bit as I chew on a corner of my mouth. “The more I hear her side of it, the more I realize that we were the ones who wronged her, not the other way around. She deserved better.”
“Better than a seven-figure publishing contract?”
“It wasn’t about money.”
Casey shakes his head. “It’s always about money.”
I furrow my brow so hard that I’m squinting in disbelief. “That is fundamentally incorrect. Anastasios Press was acquired on the idea of better work-life balance after JMP took a hard look at their practices.”
“It’s still capitalism,” he says with an air so casual, it seems forced. “We still have to sell books. If this book sells well—and I’m sure it will, especially when people find out who wrote it—they’ll want more and more. The cycle continues. What are you going to do then, Ry? What if she disappears again?”
I don’t want to admit it, but Casey is voicing something I’ve been thinking about off and on since she ghosted Charles at the restaurant a week ago. But every time I consider the possibility of her leaving again, I remind myself that things really are different now. She’s more open about her feelings, and I’m there every night to make sure she shuts the computer down and recharges. Last time, I let her work herself to the bone. I was distracted by dollars and didn’t see the harm in it. I won’t make that mistake again. I know the signs now, and I also know what I need to do to help her.
Shaking my head, I reply, “She won’t. I know what I’m doing this time.”
Casey draws his eyebrows together and tilts his head. “You can’t fix her.”
“But I can help her. I want to help her. I want it more than anything.” I pause, taking a deep breath and smiling to myself. “I’m so fucking happy. Maybe it doesn’t make sense to you, but she… I think she’s my soulmate. If you believe in that sort of thing, I guess. I don’t know if I do, but if soulmates exist, she’s mine. Nothing felt right in my life until she was back in it. Even before I kissed her again…just knowing she was here and she was okay…it settled something in me. Like a missing piece.” The cliché makes me cringe, and I silently curse the English language for not having words to adequately express how it feels to hold her again.
She could walk away from me a million times. As long as she comes back to me a million and one, I’ll die a happy man.
Casey regards me as he rubs his chin with his thumb and forefinger. “You love her again.”
It’s a statement, not a question, but I answer anyway. “I never stopped.” I’ve never known something to be true in my bones like I know this: I love Scarlett. I will always love her. Even if she left me high and dry again, I’d still love her. Probably forever.
Casey sighs, resigned. “I know.” He smiles sadly. “I hope things turn out better this time.”
“They will,” I insist. They have to. For both of us.
Pulling containers out of the bag, I announce each as it lands on the counter in front of me. “I got buttered noodles, mac and cheese, and pad thai.”
“You sure know the way to a girl’s heart,” Scarlett calls from her seat in my bedroom. When she had come here the first time after we spent the night at her apartment, she squealed with delight that I had set up the desk for her again in there and ran to it, setting up to work.
I didn’t tell her I never had the heart to take it down in the first place. That it has remained, unused and untouched, since the last time she sat there. I couldn’t bring myself to move it. Not the place she sat when she wrote her second book or when she told me she loved me for the first time.
“Pretty sure the saying is about the way to a man’s heart being through his stomach,” I reply, shifting so I can see her from my kitchen.
“Same biology,” she says distractedly, not moving her eyes away from the screen. She taps her lips rapidly with her middle and pointer fingers. Her eyes narrow, then she starts typing again.
I come up behind her and lean down so I can wrap my arms around her shoulders. “Hey, beautiful. Come eat.”
Her typing doesn’t stop, and I watch as the words fire across the screen. “Almost done.” Her voice is vacant, as if she’s responding on autopilot. Scarlett has left the building, and in her place is a one-woman writing machine.
The urge to kiss her is strong, so I plant one on her temple. Not moving my arms from around her, I pull back enough to watch her. Those blue eyes trail along the monitor like one of those bouncy balls illuminating words on a children’s sing-along video. She’s not paying attention to me in the least. So, I wait.
There’s a moment—one breath, that’s all—when Casey’s warning plays in the back of my mind. What if she dives in again and I’m not enough to pull her back out?
But her rhythmic typing becomes erratic, then stops altogether. She rolls her eyes and smiles to herself. “You’re staring at me like a creep.”
“A creep with food,” I counter, meeting her grin with one of my own.
She lets out a sigh, but it sounds like it’s more for show than out of irritation. “You said mac and cheese?” Her voice is bright. Scarlett is back in the building. There is no crisis here.
“Oh, so you were listening,” I tease.
She turns her face to mine, and my lips buzz at our proximity. But she winks before I can act. “I always listen when you talk about cheese.”
“Noted.” I do kiss her then, because I can’t stay away. She’s so brilliant, so beautiful. And she’s mine. I won’t waste another moment not kissing her when I could be. Not again.
Scarlett moans softly, circling her arms around my neck. I angle my head to kiss her more deeply, teasing at her lips with my tongue. She gives me entry easily. Without separating myself from her, I fumble around with my hand to close her laptop.
Chuckling, she pulls away and rubs her nose against mine. “Message received.”
I don’t know if I’ll always be enough to pull her out of her work, but my heart soars with the knowledge that I am now. Keep things manageable—I can do that.
She kisses me again quickly, then stands and makes her way to the kitchen. “Cheese first, then dessert.”
I follow her out of the bedroom, adjusting myself as I walk. “I didn’t get dessert.”
Flashing me a devious smile, she retrieves a fork from the drawer and opens a container. “Not what I meant.”
I just about tear my clothes and hers off right then and there, but I restrain myself. This woman is going to be the end of me, and now that she’s back in my life, I’m going to enjoy every delicious moment.