Chapter 22
twenty-two
RYAN
I’m lying in bed just as dawn begins to break, changing the light pouring in the window from heavy and blue to a swirl of gray. Wren is tucked up against me. I swear to God, it feels like some kind of trick. Like if I move too fast, she’ll vanish.
I spent so long fantasizing about having sex with her that I never realized how fulfilling the other part would be.
The part where she fell asleep in my arms. Her skin is warm, her breathing steady.
Her face is pressed against my chest and her hand curls against my hip like I’m someone she trusts. That wrecks me a little bit.
That trust burns in my chest. Not because I deserve it, but because I desperately wish I was the sort of man who did.
It’s unexpected, but the fact that she’s been so unabashedly needy for the last thirty-six hours blows my mind. I stay still and watch her for longer than I should.
When her eyes flutter open, she gazes up at me. For just a moment, the combative version of Wren is gone. She kisses my jaw, then my neck, then my chest. Each kiss is like a fuse, lit and burning slow. I want to explode.
My heart nearly stops every time she does it. My body hardens. I skip ahead in time, anticipating that she’ll want me. That she’ll straddle my hips and grind into me. My body reverberates with need.
But then her phone buzzes.
Wren groans and hesitates. Then she reaches for it. Looking at the screen, she screws up her face. “There’s a 7 a.m. production meeting,” she says. “Top secret, of course. I have to go.”
“Are you sure?” I kiss her bare shoulder. She shivers.
She smiles at me and bites her lip. Of course, I get it. I already know that she’s the producers’ behind-the-scenes plant, the secret crew member embedded in the cast. I just hate that it means she has to pretend.
Pretend we’re not combusting. Pretend I’m not already ruined for anyone else. Pretend that we’re enemies. Pretend that nothing’s changed between us.
It certainly feels as though things have.
She kisses my lips and then gets up. She pulls on a fresh pair of panties and a bra from her duffel bag. I watch her move around my room like she belongs here. In another life, when she wasn’t Jay’s sister, this could be normal.
Then she looks over her shoulder. “Can I borrow a shirt?” she asks.
“You can wear anything of mine, anytime,” I say.
She drags on a pair of jeans and pulls my shirt on. It swallows her frame. But somehow, it fits better on her than it ever did on me.
“It smells like you,” she says. “I mean that in the best way possible.”
I grab her and kiss her lips again. She leans in and kisses me back for some time, but before I can deepen the kiss and start taking her clothes off, she backs away.
“I really have to go now. I’ll see you later tonight.”
I almost say don’t go . Almost. But I bite it back and let her choose.
She blushes as she bolts out the bedroom door. Then I’m alone.
I hate it.
My body is primed for sex. It’s not going to happen. But I lie in bed for much too long, refusing to do anything about it. I talk myself down. I tell myself that it was just sex. Just two nights of pretending and breaking the rules.
But the echo of her laugh in my head, the way she looked wearing my shirt. That doesn’t feel casual.
I picture her face, the way she looked at me when I went down on her for the first time. The way she looked at me like I was good. No, I wasn’t good. I was the best thing she’d ever had. Like she wanted me for more than a hookup or a headline. Like I was safe. Like I was enough.
If I start to believe any of that is true, I’m terrified of the outcome.
I shower and dress before I grab a bowl of oatmeal. My phone is full of texts and missed calls. Jay wanted to grab lunch yesterday. Jay asking if I had plans last night. Then my sister Ellie, sending me several blushing emojis and suggesting I call her.
I text,
So Wren got a makeover. As you can see, it’s… a lot.
The dots appear instantly.
Hot girl transformation?
My lips curve upward.
She looks like the kind of woman who’d eat me alive.
Sounds like your type.
I stare at the screen for a second too long.
She had heels on. Eyeliner. A crop top. How was I supposed to resist?
You poor thing. Did you faint?
No, but I forgot how to use my legs for a minute.
Be honest. You’ve been into her since she wore that nerdy little Greek mythology shirt to your birthday party.
That was three years ago.
Exactly.
I pause. How do I dodge her accusation?
I’m going to eliminate someone. Someone other than Wren, obviously. Pray for me.
The reply comes fast.
Do you remember how weird it was when you first moved into the dorms at Emory and had to make friends with Jay? You survived that. You thrived. You’ll be all right.
The difference is that no one was going to cry on national television.
You heartbreaker.
I’ve certainly been called worse.
I remember how stiff Wren was the first night we were on set. She bristled when anyone so much as looked her way. Now she’s laughing and wearing my shirt to set. And it’s wrecking me in ways I can’t admit.
Checking my watch, I see that I don’t have to be on set for several hours, later tonight.
There’s a group date and then an elimination. I should go to the gym and then rest.
Instead, I text Coach T.
Skate?
We meet at the ice rink. It smells like chilly air, sweat, and hard work.
I walk down the stands and see Coach T sitting and watching young hockey players skate before him.
His arms are crossed. He’s outwardly emotionless, but his eyes dart back and forth, carefully monitoring the activity on the rink.
When I sit down, Coach hands me a brown paper lunch bag.
“Evelyn made you a sandwich,” he says gruffly.
That’s how you know Coach cares. He doesn’t ask questions. He sends food. He shows up.
Emotion wells in my chest. I don’t know whether I’m going to laugh or cry, but I accept the paper bag with reverence.
“Tell her she’s still my favorite woman.”
He eyes me for a moment and then gives me the tiniest smile.
“She knows.”
I sit beside him and unwrap the sandwich. I’m not starving, but when Mrs. T offers me food, there’s no way I’m going to skip that. I unwrap the sandwich and find it’s turkey, cheddar, and mustard. Same thing I used to eat in Coach’s kitchen after school.
I used to inhale these while Ellie sat beside me, swinging her feet and trying to copy my stick tape job. The familiarity and comfort the first bite brings me are an anchor, fixing me in time.
I watch the kids skate on the ice before me.
They’re little messes with oversized helmets and untied laces.
I can’t stop the flood of memories. Begging Coach to take us in.
Promising I’d work, clean, run drills, tape sticks, do anything if it meant keeping Ellie close.
We had been split up by CPS. I didn’t know where she was sleeping. I didn’t know how to protect her.
When Coach and his wife Evelyn finally agreed to take us both in, Ellie was quiet and shell-shocked for weeks afterward.
I was afraid I’d taken too long. That some kind of fracture had already formed in her personality.
She eventually warmed up and returned to her usual easygoing self, but I still wake up in the dead of night sweating and shaking, afraid she isn’t safe.
I’m a grown man now. I’ve got twenty-five million in the bank and a trophy case with my name on it. But that fear? It never left. It just got quieter.
Coach T is the best. Mrs. T is second only to him in my book, but she’s the only woman who has that designation. Every other woman in my life has been a flicker. Gone before I could even get warm.
Women often leave and say they’re coming back, but they never do. They always leave.
I stop eating my sandwich and put it down because it suddenly seems like I’m eating ashes.
They always leave.
Wren felt too good. Too easy. I know she will leave at some point. If I let her mean something, if I let the relationship between us grow, it’ll ruin me when she goes.
Because she will.
They always do. Wren will smile. She’ll tell me it meant something. Then she’ll walk away like she never touched me at all.
Coach T slides his gaze to me.
“There something wrong with the sandwich?”
I shake my head. “No, it’s not that. I just ate before I came here.”
Not exactly true, but the white lie makes me feel a bit better.
He eyes me. “You’re moody today. Is this about a girl?”
I sigh and drop my gaze. I don’t say anything, but I feel like Coach sees right through me. He’s not a big talker. He’s more of a listener, so he lets the silence stretch between us, like he always does.
Eventually, I say, “There might be someone.”
“Might?”
I purse my lips. There is someone, but it’s not, you know. It’s not gonna work. She’s too young. She’s too sweet. She deserves better than me. I can’t afford to lose focus.
Coach arches a brow. “No?”
I shrug.
We lapse into silence for another minute before he surprises me by breaking the tension.
“You don’t let yourself have good things, do you?”
I stare at the ice and clamp down on any show of emotion. I’m not interested in letting Coach see the ins and outs of my relationship with Wren just now. I haven’t even begun to process it.
Coach stands up and jerks his head toward the ice.
“Come on. Come down and talk to the kids. They’ll be excited to see to you. Talk to a real professional hockey player.”
I wrap up the rest of my sandwich and take it with me. As the kids’ practice ends, a dozen of them run up to us, yelling my name, asking for autographs and selfies. One kid asks for tips on his slapshot.
Coach hands me a Sharpie and claps my shoulder again. I’m off the hook for now, but one thought keeps crawling back in as I sign jerseys and ruffle sweaty hair.
If Wren makes me feel like I’m enough… what happens when she realizes I’m not?
What happens when she leaves and I can’t pretend I never needed her?