10 #3
Ryan stood, collected the peas from the floor, and tossed them at me again. “Ice your hand.”
I caught them against my chest. “These are going to be disgusting.”
“They already were.”
I pressed the bag against my knuckles and hissed at the cold.
Ryan went to the linen closet and pulled out a blanket that looked like it had survived several bad decisions. He tossed it onto the couch beside me. “You’re sleeping here.”
“I have an apartment.”
“I know.”
“That means I don’t need your couch.”
“Tonight, you do.”
I looked at him. “You always this bossy with houseguests?”
“You always this self-destructive in other people’s houses?”
“Only when inspired.”
“Then be less inspired.”
A weak laugh escaped me despite myself.
Ryan’s mouth twitched like he would accept the win without acknowledging it. He grabbed the remote, tossed that too, then headed toward the kitchen.
“Ryan.”
He paused.
I stared at the peas resting against my hand because looking at him felt too close to gratitude. “I’m not saying you’re right.”
“I’d worry if you did.”
“But…” I exhaled slowly. “I heard you.”
He nodded once. “Good enough.”
For now, maybe it was.
Ryan glanced toward his phone on the counter. “Charm’s coming by soon. The ABCs went up in flames after Hockey House, and this is her safe zone.”
I looked up from the peas. “So, this Charm thing is really happening?”
He leaned one hip against the counter. “Still too soon to tell, but close enough.”
I considered him for a second, then lowered the peas from my hand. “Okay, then say you and Charm are me and Aura. What would you do?”
For once, Ryan didn’t have all the answers at the ready.
He looked toward the rain-darkened window, then toward the shelves stacked with more stories than one man should have had room to hold. His jaw shifted while he considered the question from every side, and when he finally looked at me again, the humor was gone.
“I wouldn’t have agreed to something that didn’t bring me peace.”
The answer landed harder than I expected.
Ryan folded his arms. “Charm has her family shit, and that could blow up in our faces—and it will if we keep going at the rate we are. But I wouldn’t have toyed with her if she needed that many rules just to fuck me.”
I looked down at my hand.
“I think that’s where it got messy, hermano,” he continued. “I’m not judging you, but I would’ve tripped over that from the jump and cut my losses.”
“Would you have risked it if it was Charm?”
He thought about that too. “Probably not.”
I lifted my gaze.
Ryan shrugged, but there was nothing casual in his face. “We’re different men. Regardless of our personal boundaries, my shit with Charm isn’t easy either, hermano. It’s just a different war, and we haven’t been fighting it nearly as long.”
His mouth pulled faintly at one corner.
“I think you fucked yourself into a corner and caught feelings. You and Cade both got caught in the friends with benefits shit—you both got different results. I fuck a woman with intention. If it’s for a night that intention is clear.
” He stops and I wonder if he is thinking of Charm, but don’t push because Ive been there in that lost in thought stage.
There wasn’t anything to argue with though so I left the moment there.
I nodded slowly because he was right. I had understood the rules before I stepped inside them. I had accepted every fraction of her attention and every piece she was willing to hand me because wanting Aura had outweighed what it cost.
“I accepted scraps because I wanted her badly enough.”
Ryan held my gaze. “Yeah.”
The word carried no judgment.
He glanced toward the hallway, then back at me. “If this is meant to work out, it will. But not because you keep trying to force it.”
I stared at him. “Ontario turn you into a fucking philosopher, or was it all the literature?”
“I do have a degree, cabrón. Try to respect the education.”
I laughed weakly and pressed the peas back against my hand.
Ryan pushed away from the counter. “Anyway, she’ll be here soon.”
“You kicking me out?”
“You’re staying on the couch so don’t make it weird.”
“Pretty sure your version of not making it weird is standing in the kitchen eye-fucking her while discussing nineteenth-century symbolism.”
“Go to sleep, East.”
He switched off the kitchen light and disappeared down the hallway, leaving the apartment dim except for the weak lamp beside the couch and the city lights spilling through the rain-streaked window.
I lay back because sitting upright felt too much like waiting for something. The couch was uncomfortable, the blanket smelled faintly of detergent and my hand pulsed beneath the frozen peas.
Somewhere across town, Aura existed beneath the same rain, probably hating me.
Maybe missing me too.
Maybe both.
I closed my eyes and saw her face when I walked away. I heard my voice beside her ear, warning her what I would become.
For the first time since I said it, I wondered whether warning her had been a threat or a confession.
Then I turned my face toward the back of the couch and stayed awake until the rain stopped.