Chapter 10
Ryan stepped into Trap, the street noise instantly replaced with music and laughter and the clinking of glasses. It smelled of beer and vodka and sickly-sweet perfume.
He ignored all of it as he scanned the crowded bar.
Where are you, Emi?
When he didn’t immediately spot her, he wove through the crowd, closing in on the crack of billiard balls.
Connor, Raven, and Zac stood at a pool table, cues in hand.
Zac straightened from taking his shot. “You got here fast.”
“Where is she?”
Zac’s gaze shifted to something behind Ryan.
He followed his friend’s gaze, eyes narrowing on Emily.
Not just Emily. Her friend, the other female actress, and that self-absorbed prick, Preston, stood with her.
There was also a small crowd of women around them.
Four. All gazing longingly at Preston as the man talked.
“Thanks.” Ryan started to move, slipping through the crowd, eyes only for Emily.
When he reached the high table, he stopped beside her.
Her eyes widened when she looked up, a slight glaze over the deep hazel. “Hey. What’re you doing here? Wait, don’t tell me! Zac called.” She glanced toward the pool table. “Your friends have been watching me very closely.”
“They’re worried.”
“About me? Why? I’ve got everything. Money. Fame. A career people would kill for. What’s there to worry about?” She lifted her drink and swallowed a big gulp of the liquid.
“What’s going on, Emily?”
“Just havin’ a good night. Appreciating the life that’s been gifted to me.”
Preston’s arm swung around her shoulders. “Everything okay here?”
She glanced at him, a slow smile curving her lips. “Just reminding Ryan how lucky I am.”
“Fuck yeah, you are. We’re the rich and famous, baby.”
Ryan’s eyes narrowed on the arm around Emily’s shoulders, then he returned his attention to the idiot who owned it. “You drinking too?”
“Are you for real?” He looked at Emily. “Is he for real?”
“Very real. And very good at making decisions for people.” There was a slight slur to her words. She swallowed the last of her drink. “Time for another.”
She stepped out from beneath Preston’s arm and headed toward the bar. Ryan followed, making sure he was close enough so that if she swayed or tripped, he’d catch her.
“Your mother paid me a visit,” he said once they’d reached the bar.
“Well, she’s a bundle of joy, so that must’ve been fun.” She looked at him, but there was anger in her eyes now. “Let me guess—she was looking for me? She was angry that I left and for once made a decision for myself.”
He inched closer and lowered his voice. “What happened?”
“She lied to me. She tricked me. But that’s not even the worst part. The worst part is, I let her.”
Dusty stopped on the other side of the bar. “What can I get you?”
“Vodka soda, please. No, two. Saves me a trip back when I finish the first.”
Dusty looked at Ryan, who gave a subtle nod. Emily could have her drinks, but he’d make sure she got home safely.
As Dusty turned to prepare the drinks, Ryan looked back at Emily, angling his body toward her and making sure his words only reached her ears. “What did she lie to you about?”
“Do you know she blames the fact that she never had an acting career on me? Because she was pregnant with me? Does she even know how many ridiculously famous and talented actors were discovered after having kids? If every actress could only work until she got pregnant, Hallmark movies would have an extinction event.”
“Emily—”
“Here you go.” Dusty set the drinks on the bar, and Emily rummaged through her purse, but Ryan handed money over before she could pay.
She frowned. “Why’d you do that?”
“What did your mother do?”
She lifted one of her drinks and handed him the other. “Drink with me.”
“Em—”
“Actually, I have a better idea.”
She downed half her glass in one go before setting both of them back on the bar and taking his hand. Then she dragged him to the dance floor. There was only one group of middle-aged women already there.
Emily stopped right in the center, wrapped her arms around his waist and laid her head on his chest. “Hm. This is better. The world was swaying a bit before.”
He held her, taking a lot of her weight as he rocked. “Tell me what happened between you and your mom, Emi. Please.”
“She made sure that what you broke stayed broken.”
He frowned. “How?”
“She lied. Said she called you after the accident. She didn’t.” Emily looked up, her eyes somehow both glazed and clear at the same time. Tired and angry and sad all at once. “Would you have answered?”
“If she’d called me?”
“Yes. If she’d called you the day after you broke up with me. If she’d told you that I needed you, would you have come?”
He shifted his gaze between her eyes. Eyes that held his entire heart captive. “I don’t know if I would have had the strength not to.”
Tears filled her eyes, but she blinked them back.
Then she leaned her head on his chest again.
“You know, I’ve lived my entire life with people thinking they know what’s best for me.
You. My mother. Producers and casting agents.
Everyone makes these huge, life-altering decisions on my behalf and dresses them up as kindness—you deserve better, you’re too talented to do anything else, this is for the best. But what no one realizes, or maybe no one cares about, is that while they’re all praising me, they’re also telling me that I’m not capable of deciding anything for myself. ”
“Emi—”
“I think I’m done.”
“Done with what?”
“Letting anyone else dictate the life I want to live.” She glanced at him again. “She blocked your number on my phone. Then she changed your contact to a different number.”
Anger sliced through him like a knife. “She what?”
“Yeah. She’s a bitch. But I knew she was a bitch. She’s been that way my entire life. But you? I expected more from you.”
Guilt. Pain. Both hit him like a kick to the gut.
He tightened his arms around her, as if she might slip from his grasp like sand through his fingers.
From his peripheral vision, he saw some women whispering and taking photos. He ignored them. “Can I take you home?”
“I should say no.” She sighed and leaned into him again. “But in the name of making my own decisions, you’re comfy…and I just don’t care about what I should or shouldn’t be doing right now.”
Warmth. It soaked into Emily’s side, making her lean even closer.
Ryan’s arm cinched tight around her waist as they walked toward the door to the bar.
People watched. Whispered and stared with phones in their hands.
She was used to it.
She glanced up at Ryan. “Did you get taller?”
“Do I feel taller?”
“No. You feel exactly the same.”
His brows knit together. He didn’t like that comment. Why? It was true, and with the buzz of alcohol slipping through her veins, she couldn’t seem to sensor her thoughts or her words.
Outside, he stopped at his truck in the lot, and before she realized what he was doing, he’d lifted her into the passenger seat.
Her head spun. She still hadn’t recovered when he leaned over her to put on her seat belt, his thick arm cutting across her chest. “You smell like evergreen.”
His forearm grazed her nipples. “Like the forest?”
“Pine trees. Leaves. Autumn.”
The seat belt clicked into place and he looked at her, his mouth so close his breath blended with hers. “I take it that’s a good scent?”
“It used to be my favorite.”
His brows creased again.
She reached up and ran her finger over the line between them. “You frown too much.”
“You know what you smell like?”
“Alcohol?”
His lips twitched. “Flowers. And rain. And something else. Something I’ve never been able to name or replace.”
She shook her head. “You shouldn’t say things like that. I may be drunk, but I’ll remember.”
She wanted him to say he didn’t care, that he wanted her to remember.
Instead, he stepped back. “You’re right. Sorry.”
The snap of the door closing destroyed the fragile intimacy between them.
She leaned her head back and closed her eyes, letting the world swirl behind her eyelids. When Ryan started driving, the dull thrum of the engine tried to lull her to sleep. She didn’t let it.
She wanted to be present for every second she had with him. She didn’t care if that made her pathetic or stupid, didn’t care that she was setting herself up for a painful goodbye. She didn’t care about her future self at all. She just cared about this moment.
She turned her head and watched him from beneath hooded lids. She watched him for the entire drive. And either he didn’t notice or he didn’t care.
When he reached the inn, she slipped off her seat belt and opened the door. But her drunk self forgot that she was in a truck, and the step was bigger than she’d anticipated.
Her foot hit empty air, and she almost hit the ground when fingers suddenly wrapped around her waist, lowering her gently to the ground. “Whoa. Are you okay?”
“Now you catch me.” It was supposed to be a drunken joke.
But the darkening of Ryan’s eyes told her that he did not find it funny.
With an arm around her waist once again, he led her across the lot.
When they reached the door, she fumbled for her key card. Obviously, she fumbled too long, because he slipped his hand into the back pocket of her jeans and pulled it out for her. And hell if drunk Emily wasn’t turned on by the brief touch to her ass.
They stepped inside and headed down the hall.
“That’s Mom’s room.” She scowled at the wooden door beside hers. “Do you think she’s in there plotting the next ten years of my life? Do you think there are vision boards and timelines? Could even be contracts she’s already signed on my behalf.”
“I think she’s sleeping.”
“No. Evil doesn’t sleep.”
They stopped at her door, and Ryan used the card to unlock it.
The second she was inside, she collapsed on the bed. Just for a second, she felt like she was floating. That weightless, the-world-is-moving kind of float.
She felt Ryan slipping the shoes off her feet before he spoke. “Sit for me, Emi.”
Slowly, she did. Because there was a power in his voice she couldn’t ignore.
“Arms up.”
That deep rumble had her lifting her arms. His gaze didn’t leave hers as he tugged her top over her head.
He pulled the sheets down, and she dropped back to the mattress again. He popped the top button of her jeans, then slid the zipper down.
It was funny, if any other man had driven her home drunk, then proceeded to undress her, she would have screamed. But with Ryan, there was nothing but trust. Trust that she was safe with him.
Physically, at least.
Once her jeans were off, he pulled the sheets over her. The bed dipped as he perched at her side. “How are you feeling?”
She was quiet for a moment. Then, “What do you think would have happened if you hadn’t broken up with me?”
The question dropped from her tongue into the air with a bang like a stone hitting glass.
“What do you mean?”
She opened her eyes and let herself memorize his dark chocolate gaze.
“Would we live in a house with floral wallpaper and peach-colored kitchen tiles? Would I spend my mornings watering the scarlet-red Indian paintbrushes and offering acting classes, while you rescued people from the forest?” Pain burned through her chest at the image.
A hurt that only came from devastating loss.
Loss of the life that she felt in her soul was supposed to be hers.
His dark eyes flickered between hers. “I don’t know.”
“Don’t lie. You know the memories we would have made. The life we would have created. Does it hurt you too? Knowing everything we could have had, but don’t?”
He was silent for so long that she thought he might ignore the question. Avoid it. Change the subject.
Instead, he slipped a piece of hair from her cheek and whispered, “Yeah, Emi. It hurts. It’s possibly the worst pain I’ve ever had to endure.”
She closed her eyes. There was both validation and devastation in that statement. He knew. They both knew.
The haze of alcohol mixed with exhaustion began to tug her under. “I think it’ll always hurt.”
“Emi, I’m—”
The ding of his phone cut him off.
She opened her eyes and watched as he pulled out his cell and glanced at the screen. “What is it?”
“The guys need me.”
“Go.” The single word felt heavy. She didn’t want him to go. She wanted him to slip between the sheets and hold her. Let her believe, just for one night, that she could have him.
But he wasn’t hers to keep.
His gaze bore into hers. Then he lowered his head and let his lips linger on her temple. “You were the best thing that ever happened to me, Emi.”
He rose and left. And even as the door clicked closed with a resounding thud, one word repeated in her mind—were.
Not are. Not present tense.
Were.