Chapter Eleven
Adate.
We were officially on a date, and I had no idea what to do. How did we even get here?
“Where should we start?” Ryker’s question broke me from my thoughts.
Shit. Where should we start?
“Have you eaten yet?” I asked.
“I have not.”
“Okay,” I started to walk away toward an area that had the most food options.
Ryker followed beside me but didn’t say anything more.
I was a fucking ball of nerves, not knowing what to do.
It was different when we were at the awards show.
We had a reason to be there, an agenda to stick by, but it was just the two of us, and I didn’t know how to handle that.
I finished my tea and tossed it into the first bin I could find before coming up to one of my favorite booths, which had amazing sweet treats, but also served the best apple cider donuts.
“Do you prefer sweet or salty?” I turned around to Ryker, finally paying him a little more attention rather than just dragging him around. He looked completely relaxed, dressed in loose jeans and a black shirt. I knew it was from a game, but I didn’t let him know that I knew which one.
“I’m okay with either as long as it’s not that tea again.” He laughed, and my shoulders relaxed at the joke. He was trying to make light of this, and I was grateful.
“They have some of my favorite snacks. Would you like a donut or a fritter?”
“One of each?” Ryker tilted his head to the side and smiled at me. “My treat.”
“Oh, you don’t—” I started.
“I’m not taking any objections.” Ryker interrupted me and headed for the booth, ordering an apple cider donut and an apple fritter. I watched as he took charge and grabbed napkins for us. When he turned around, I was still speechless. “Food.”
He held up the bag with both goodies, and I grabbed for it, opening it up to waft the smell of apple between us.
“It smells amazing,” Ryker’s head dipped close to mine again as he inhaled.
“They’re my favorite.”
“I want to know all of your favorite things,” he stated before pulling out the fritter and taking a large bite. “Where to next?”
He asked between chews, and I swear my heart skipped a beat. This man was standing in front of me, eating my favorite things, talking with his mouth full, having kissed me only a few minutes ago, after appearing out of thin air in front of me today.
“We can get smoothies a few booths down,” I suggested.
Ryker’s nose scrunched up at the mention, and I laughed.
“I guess that’s a no. What about lemonade?”
“Now that I can get behind! Where to?” His head whipped around as he looked for where to walk. He looked so young, carefree, and excited about life. More inspiration for these characters I was working on.
“Come on.” I grabbed his free hand and led him to the lemonade stand. His fingers intertwined with mine, squeezing, let me know he was there as I walked in front of him. I could hear slight moans behind me as he continued to devour the fritter.
My stomach grumbled. I hadn’t eaten the donut he’d gotten yet.
I tried to pull my hand away to grab the bag I had as we came up to the next booth, but Ryker’s grip on it tightened.
“I’d like to eat a little, too,” I laughed as I held the bag with the donut up to him. The sheepish look on his face was laughable as he took another bite and reluctantly let my hand go as we walked up to the lemonade booth.
I stared at the menu, not sure what I’d get today. I wasn’t normally a lemonade fan, but I thought it would be a good option for Ryker. The one other time I’d come here, the drink I got was seasonal and no longer on their menu.
Ryker stepped up to the stand, ready to order.
“One original, and,” he turned toward me, waiting with a smile on his face. I looked over the menu again as a line formed behind us. I looked back to see two more people join the line.
Shit, what was I going to get?
“Sorry.” I read through the options once more, not sure what I wanted or what might be good with my donut that I hadn’t taken a bite of yet. My free hand instinctively went to my shorts, rubbing against the fabric, and the other held on tighter to the paper bag. “Um.”
“You going to order?” Someone said behind us.
“Give her a moment, please,” Ryker addressed them as I read through the menu a third time, frozen in place, not sure what I wanted. I heard a grumble behind me, and the panic rose up. I needed to just order and not overthink it.
“Go ahead and take these people; we’ll order after the line dies down.” The man behind the table gave Ryker a nod as he led me to the side of the booth.
He threw away his trash from the fritter he’d eaten and then grabbed my donut bag, taking out the breakfast I still hadn’t started. He broke off a piece, holding it up to my lips. I opened and started to chew on the pastry.
Heaven.
I closed my eyes and relaxed into the sweet treat that was still surprisingly warm.
I finished the first bite, opened my eyes, and Ryker was there, handing me another piece.
“I’m sorry.” I hadn’t had an episode like this in a long time, but then again, I hadn’t been off my routine in ages. Nothing new was happening, and when it did, Jemma was normally there by my side to help regulate.
Instead, this time, it was Ryker.
Someone who was new to all of this but was navigating it quite well.
“No sorries,” he said as he handed me another piece of donut. I looked up at him, finally meeting his gaze.
Soft and understanding.
“That hasn’t happened in a while,” I admitted. “The freezing up, I mean.”
“I was going to ask if this had happened before.”
“It has.” I took another bite he offered.
“It used to happen a lot more when I was doing new things and I was alone, so I’d only go places where I had pre-planned and knew what to get.
But when I’m with others, I tend to have an internal freak out where I start to clam up when I don’t know what I want, since I can’t always plan things.
When Jemma is with me, she helps, but we” I motioned between us “haven’t spent much time together, so when those other people came behind us and it was a time crunch, the shutdown started. ”
“How are you feeling now?” Ryker crumpled the now-empty bag and threw it away.
Somehow in this conversation, I’d eaten the whole donut and was now feeling a lot better.
“Better. Thank you.” I said with an ever-growing smile on my face. I took a deep breath, and Ryker stood there, watching me, waiting patiently. I breathed in and out, regaining my composure from moments ago, and looked back at the booth that now had no line. “Lemonade?”
“Only if you’re ready.”
“I am,” I said with confidence.
Ryker held his hand out, motioning for me to go first to the man and place my order.
“I’ll take a strawberry lemonade with juice only, and he’ll have an original.”
“Coming right up.” The man said cheerfully as he turned around and made our drinks. His assistant rang us up, and Ryker swooped in, paying for both our drinks. “Here you go.”
The man handed us both large containers with our drinks, and we thanked him and made our way over to another aisle, walking down and viewing all the different options available for purchase.
I held my drink in one hand, and the other hung at my side, sweeping next to Ryker’s hand. After the second swipe by, he grabbed my hand, once again intertwining our fingers as we meandered through the rest of the farmer’s market.
“This is quite the turnout.” Ryker’s gaze moved from the booths to those walking around with their downs, wagons filled with goodies.
“It’s like this every weekend, and with the season soon coming to an end, everyone is stocking up.”
“Season?”
“Our farmer’s market ends right before winter hits since it gets too cold. We’ll be closed for the season, and next year will open back up in full swing. That’s typically when I do my stocking up if I haven’t been able to reach the vendors directly to purchase.”
I took a drink of my lemonade; the sweetness outweighed the sour. Silence enveloped us as we walked down the last of the aisles, just as some of the vendors were packing up. I looked over at City Hall, the large clock built to see that it was, in fact, the end of the market day.
“It looks like it’s about done for the day.”
“It does.” Ryker pulled us off to the side, away from everyone else.
We stared at each other. I didn’t want this to end like this, us just leaving each other, but I had no idea where to go from here.
I hadn’t wanted a date to continue or go on another in such a long time.
I’d been wanting to see Ryker again, anyway, but this time was an accident, and I wasn’t sure how to make it purposefully happen again without flat-out asking him on a date.
I was not that brave.
“So, tell me about yourself.”
The smile on Ryker’s face grew, and a small laugh escaped him.
“What would you like to know?” One of his eyebrows arched as he asked his question.
I took my hand away from his and placed it on my chin to think. What to ask him to prolong his presence here.
“What do you do in gaming?”
Perfect question to learn why he was at the awards and how much he knew about the industry, since he clearly knew who I was. Except where I expected him to answer so freely like he’d been doing since we stumbled upon each other, it was his turn to freeze up.
“Um,” he took another drink of his lemonade before continuing. “I help my friend out when he games.”
“Do you play?” I asked, trying to find out more.
He was mid-sip and started to choke on his drink at the question.
“Are you okay?” I took a step toward him, placing my free hand on his shoulder as he coughed.
“Yeah,” Ryker croaked out. “And sometimes.”
That was all he gave away.
“What about your friend? Beckett, isn’t it?” I knew exactly which friend he was talking about because it was the one Jemma was obsessing over at this very moment.
“Yeah, sure.” He took another sip. “He plays.”
Something about his answer didn’t sit right. Almost as if he was avoiding the subject or didn’t know what to talk about when it came to the topic of gaming.
“What about you? You write too, don’t you, besides gaming?”
“I do,” I answered as short as he had.
Static energy was forming between us, and I could feel my smile fading.
I wanted to return to the carefree conversations we’d been having, but I also wanted to know more about Ryker.
We’d talked about me each time we messaged and called each other, but not much about him.
He also had the advantage of knowing who I was, and yet I still knew so little besides what we had chatted about, which, oddly enough, was never about games.
“Are you writing anything good?”
“I am,” I bit my lip, thinking of what I was working on, that my main muse was standing in front of me, having given me loads of inspiration.
“From the look on your face, it seems like it’s something good.”
“As a matter of fact, it is.” I giggled this time, my shoulders dropping at my overthinking of Ryker’s responses. “I like it a lot.”
“Oh yeah,” Ryker closed the space between us. “Why is that?”
“Because I’ve been receiving some really good inspiration lately, and it’s been fueling the words,” I said matter-of-factly.
It wasn’t just Ryker inspiring me now, either, though.
Sitting and writing while watching CovertRetriever play was helping set the ambiance I needed to get this new world together.
“Then,” Ryker leaned, his lips close to my ear. “I hope I’ll be all the inspiration you’ll ever need. Let me take you out on another date tomorrow night.”
His voice was husky, and I was caught off guard by his first comment, swearing it was exactly what he’d said to me the night of the ball, and oddly enough, sounded just like what CovertRetriever had said the first stream I’d come into of his.
“Yes,” I said, trying not to think too much about how similar his comment was to theirs, but also how different it was.
CovertRetriever was an online gamer, and Ryker was standing in front of me.
But I didn’t exactly know who he was. I breathed in Ryker, a woodsy scent filling my nose just before he pulled away, a smirk looking down at me.
Fuck, he was sexy.
“I should get going, Odette.” Ryker’s free hand came up and touched my cheek before he leaned down and gave me a quick kiss and pulled away. “Message me your address and I’ll come pick you up tomorrow around seven.”
“Anything I should know for this date?”
“Now, why would I ruin the surprise?” Ryker winked at me before finishing his drink and throwing the cup away.
“You sound like you have it all planned out.”
“For you, I’ll fake it till I make it.” He winked again before shooting me a large grin.
The smile that crossed my face matched his, and he leaned down to kiss me before starting to back away.
“I’ll see you tomorrow night,” I confirmed once again with him. Because, how could this be real? How could I be so close to this man when hours ago I was unsure of how or when I would see him again, only to now have two dates in one weekend?
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Odette.” He blew a kiss to me and walked over to one of the central parking lots. I stood there as the hustle around me continued, as everyone was finishing packing up.
I was going to see Ryker tomorrow.
Shit.
I headed toward the house with one mission: get Ryker down on the page so that I knew he was real.