Chapter Seven
Iopened my phone for the tenth time in twenty minutes.
No new messages.
“Welp.” I tossed the phone to the other side of the couch and looked back at the computer screen in front of me. I somehow managed to write out over twenty thousand words over the last few days of being home from the award ceremony.
While Ryker had been a muse for parts of my story, I was still missing pieces.
I wanted to see him again. Talk to him.
My head hit the pillow behind me as I stared up at the ceiling, willing for a message to appear on my phone.
Something.
Jemma had given him my number, I knew that much, but what I hadn’t understood was why he hadn’t used it yet. The time I spent with this man was like we’d known each other for ages. It was easy with him. Even after Parker showed up, when I looked back at him in the dark theatre, his eyes were on me.
Only me.
“Ugh.” I picked up one of my other pillows and placed it over my head, screaming into the fabric.
I’d known this man for a total of a few hours, and I couldn’t get him out of my head.
He’d been popping up in dreams, filling the pages in front of me with slight touches from my male character.
I wrote down anything I could remember and used all of it.
Bzzzzzz.
My laptop slid from my lap, and then the blanket and pillow went straight to the floor as I dove to the end of the couch to reach my phone.
A new message from an unknown number.
Please be him.
I opened the message, my heart racing as I read the words on my small screen.
Unknown Number: Hey, Odette, this is Ryker. I should have messaged you days ago, but I couldn’t think of anything good to say, so I’ve been sitting on this message and am finally hitting send.
A smile broke out over my face as I hugged the phone to me, a giggle escaping.
I typed back immediately.
Odette: I was beginning to think that weekend was just something I imagined.
My finger hovered over the send button. Fuck.
Was that too cheesy?
“Press. Fucking. Send.”
“Ahhhh!” My phone went flying at Jemma’s voice behind me.
She picked up my phone from where it fell on the couch beside me and hit the send button before handing it back.
“Knock much?”
“You know I never do.” She blew a kiss to me before making her way to the loveseat across from the couch I was on. “I wanted to check on you since you’ve been holed up in here writing, just to come in and see you acting like a complete teenager over a message.”
I rolled my eyes, looking back down at my phone.
No response back yet.
“He finally messaged.”
“I can see that.”
“I wrote a lot.”
“Good.”
I tilted my head to the side at Jemma’s responses.
“What’s going on?”
She took a deep breath and then finally looked my way.
“I’m happy to see you like this; giddy and getting your groove back with writing, but fuck.” Both of her hands rubbed over her face before she continued. “I wish it hadn’t been Ryker. Who is best friends with Beckett.”
The smile I had moments ago is gone now.
“You’re not telling me a lot when it comes to you and Beckett.”
“I know,” Jemma took another deep breath. “It’s not fair to you that I feel this way; I just didn’t expect to have Beckett come back into my life like this.”
My phone buzzed in my hand, but I didn’t pay attention to it.
“Tell me more about you and Beckett.”
“No.” The answer was clipped, and Jemma avoided my gaze again.
“If you want me to cut off Ryker, I will.” I stood up from the couch and made my way over to her, placing a hand on her shoulder. She finally looked up at me, her eyes glossy. She didn’t look upset, but frustrated. “You’re my best friend. You’ll always come first.”
Jemma placed a hand over mine.
“I would never ask you to do that, but thank you.”
“Then how can I help?”
She took another deep breath before answering me.
“Fuck, I don’t know. Make Beckett disappear? Make it so he stops messaging me. I blocked his number, but he somehow got a new one and is messaging me on social media. I can’t fucking get away from him.”
“Wait, is he stalking you?” I was concerned now because I’d dealt with this type of behavior before.
“Yes, but no. I mean, I don’t mind that he’s messaging me, but could he just not be so persistent?” Jemma’s head leaned back, eyes closed, and she took in deep breaths.
“So, let me get this straight,” I kneeled in front of her. “You don’t want him messaging you or finding new ways to do so, but you also want him to?”
“I don’t know what the fuck I want.” She sat back up, eyes meeting mine. The glossiness from before was gone, and she was her stoic self again. Jemma didn’t give me much to work with since she didn’t want to talk about Beckett, but I’d never seen her like this, coming unraveled because of a man.
“Why don’t you message him back at least?”
Jemma stood up quickly, and I followed suit, making room for her to exit the living room.
“I just wanted to check on you and make sure you were still alive.”
“That didn’t answer my question.”
She walked away from me, and my smile came back. She was running in the only way I’d even seen Jemma run before, from feelings she was too scared to feel. It happened on the night of her first gallery opening we went to, and it was happening again now.
“Let me know if you need anything, love ya.”
And then she was gone, and I was alone again.
My phone.
I looked down to see a new message from Ryker.
Ryker: It was very real.
That was it. Simple. To the point. Nothing more.
I didn’t have a response, so I grabbed my laptop instead.
While I typically wrote in silence, I didn’t feel like it this evening.
I reached for the remote, turning on the TV.
I had no idea what to put on. Thumbing through different movies and playlists, I somehow ended up looking at gaming streams, until I stopped on one that I hadn’t really watched before but felt like clicking into.
I stared at my TV with half the screen showing my video game and the other with a blurred, unrecognizable figure. CovertRetriever had started his stream not even ten minutes ago.