Chapter Nineteen
“I’m here!” Jemma yelled, her footsteps echoed on the wood floor as she ran through the house, trying to find me. “What happened?”
“Living room,” I mumbled from the couch with a pillow over my face. I came home from Ryker’s house and lay on the couch while waiting for Jemma. My breaths came out in a one, two, three pattern as I worked to steady my heart rate.
“Fuck.” Jemma lifted my feet, sat down at the end of the couch, and sat them back down on her lap. I pulled the pillow away to see her still in her purple silk pajamas and hair up in her bonnet. My heart sank at the fact that she had jumped up and come over. “I don’t know what is going on, hun.”
I stared at her, words not really coming to the surface.
“Beckett messaged me to be prepared for you to need me, and I have no idea what that means, but if it means that Ryker fucked up, then fuck him and Beckett.”
“No, not ‘fuck them’.” I tried to assure her, but it felt more like I was trying to reassure myself.
I knew, in all of this, I wanted Ryker. I wanted to go back to him, but fuck, he was CovertRetriever.
A gamer who’d played League of Witches since it came out.
Who’d won awards for playing that very game.
The same man whom I’d spent months talking to, watching his games, and had no idea because he hadn’t told me.
I sat up.
“I looked him in the eyes when that award was given,” I whispered.
He knew who I was when he met me. I mean, others knew who I was; it wasn’t a secret online, but had he sought me out?
Did he plan to meet me? Had he been at other events, and I was just oblivious to him?
Having a stalker trope in a romance novel was one thing, but in real life, that was something I was trying to figure out if I was okay with.
My head was spinning with all the questions, not just the ‘what ifs’, but the why now? Because I’d let him know everything last night? Did he feel guilty? Did he actually want to tell me?
My head was starting to spin. I placed my hands on the sides of my temples and kept taking in deep breaths.
“Who? Ryker?”
“Yes,” I pulled my feet off of Jemma’s lap and pulled my knees to my chest. “And no.”
“No?” She asked. “I’m so confused, Odette. What is happening?”
“CovertRetriever.”
The name lingered between us.
“What about them?” Jemma looked at me, confused.
“It’s Ryker.” I finally said after a few seconds.
“What?” Jemma’s eyes went wide. “What are you talking about?”
I took a deep breath, and she placed a hand on my knee. Jemma had been my solid rock for so long that I knew I couldn’t keep this in any longer, but once I said all of it out loud, it would all come crashing down around me, and I’d need to have answers for my next moves.
“I went to Ryker’s for dinner tonight.” I started. “He wanted to be open and honest with me. Not a lot of people know, but he showed me his office, his setup.”
I moved my legs and sat up straighter.
“Ryker is CovertRetriever.”
There it was. The full sentence of everything that had happened over the last few hours. The truth of it all. At least most of it. I knew Ryker had more to tell me, but I needed to get through this epiphany first before moving on to the rest of it.
“Shit.” Jemma ran a hand over her face and then got up. I sat alone in silence, but not for long before she came back with two glasses of water.
“You need to drink.” She held out the glass to me, refusing to sit until I started to drink. When I did, she sat back down next to me and downed half of her own cup.
“Shit, Odette,” she whispered between us.
“I know.” I set my glass down on the table next to us. “That’s how I’m feeling, trying to process it all.”
“Is it rude of me to ask if you are going to keep seeing him so soon?” Jemma’s face contorted into something, worry and confusion together.
She knew me better than anyone else and knew about my past relationships.
She knew how it was with gamers I’d tried to date after Parker, even ones I’d dated before him.
But there was something different about Ryker; that much I knew.
“It’s not rude, it’s a good question.” I paused, and she waved her free hand, wanting more of a response. “I’m going to keep seeing him.”
“Then why are we pouting, and why are you here and not there?” Another good question. Jemma put her glass down and jumped up, hands on her hips, foot tapping, impatiently waiting.
“Because I need to think.” And thinking is all I have been doing since I left his house. “I’m an over-thinker. You know this.”
Jemma frowned at me, and I looked down at my hands, wrapping my hands around my glass before putting it down and twisting my fingers together.
She knew all too well about my overthinking.
It took me three months to decide on a new laptop I wanted once I was able to afford a new one.
It was chronic in every part of my life.
“Is this about Parker?”
My head shot up, and my eyes met hers.
“Fuck no.” I gave back to her immediately. As much as my anxiety about being in a relationship was popping up from being with Parker, this decision to really consider what Ryker had told me had nothing to do with him.
“I had to ask.” Her hands shot up in defense. “As much as you’ve moved on from him, I know things linger with you.”
“Fair.” It wasn’t, but it was. Parker had played a big role in my panic attacks about making decisions in my life.
He’d fucked me up good, and it had taken so long to be able to just say that I wanted to listen to some of my favorite music when I was in the car with someone else.
I shook my head, knowing in my heart that none of this had anything to do with him.
“Then what is it about, hun?” Jemma sat back down next to me and grabbed my hand.
“Ryker is nothing like Parker. Nothing. But fuck if I’m not scared.
This is not something that I thought would come from him, yet here it is.
And I still want to see him.” I took a deep breath and continued.
“I’m worried that he might see me just as the game writer and not me, but I also know that’s silly, but he’s a part of this world I am in, and he will always be.
If something bad were to happen between us, he’d always be there, just like Parker is.
I’d never be able to run away from him.”
“Who said that you’d ever need to run away?” Jemma countered.
“I’m trying to be realistic.”
“And I’m trying to say, what if you just let your heart win on this one?”
Silence engulfed us again.
What if I just let my heart win on this one?
“I think I’m falling in love with him.” The words were barely a whisper, but Jemma heard them. I knew because of the smile that was plastered on her face. Like she knew all along.
“And I think that’s exactly what you need to tell him when you see him again.”
“You think?” My shoulders sank. I hadn’t taken this big of a leap in a relationship in forever. Telling someone I love them. Letting them have a chance at breaking my heart.
“You’ve been open with him, and he’s now wanting to be open with you.”
“That’s also what I’m worried about.”
“Explain.” Jemma requested.
“Last night I laid out my past, how we got here to Westfield, and then tonight he tells me this after barely wanting to tell me anything the night before or at the farmer’s market. I’m worried he feels guilty and that he might not be doing this because he wants to, but because he feels he has to.”
“Those are some pretty valid feelings.”
I took a deep breath and released. The room looked disheveled from my writing antics over the last few days. I probably should have cleaned this afternoon before heading over to Ryker’s.
“I see your mind spiraling.” Jemma waved a hand in front of my face.
“Isn’t this the point of the book where the reader is yelling at the pages because the girl is letting the guy off too easily for lying to her and hiding who he is?”
I scoffed. Oddly enough, this situation would probably work really well in a book. I grabbed my notebook on the coffee table and a pen.
“We are not doing this right now.” Jemma snatched the notebook out of my hand and placed it behind her back.
“You are not going to second person yourself into a real-life experience you are having. No matter how stressful this is, we are going to talk about it and get you back over to that man’s house. ”
“Maybe not tonight,” I said.
As much as I would love to see Ryker again so soon, I needed to sleep on this.
“Odette,” Jemma’s voice snapped me out of the trance I was in. “Ryker’s laid out a secret that hardly anyone else knows. It sounds like he trusts you.”
“He said he trusted me.” I had told him I’d trusted him too.
I still did.
My whole body relaxed at the thought. I did trust him. No matter the reason, he wanted to tell me all of this. No one was forcing him to.
“Beckett, however, didn’t want him to tell me.” I let Jemma know.
“Beckett,” Jemma grumbled and reached for her phone, rattling off a text. “I will fucking strangle that man.”
“What is going on between you two?”
“Oh, you know, just an enemies-to-lovers thing.” Jemma waved her hand to dismiss it before putting her phone on the coffee table. “But I really think you need to tell Ryker how you feel about him. If not now, then tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow night.”
“That works, too.” Jemma let out a laugh as she patted my leg.
I would head over to Ryker’s house and tell him that I loved him.
“I love Ryker.”
The words slipped from my mouth, and I knew in hearing them that they were completely true. I was in love with this man, and fuck, I hoped he was in love with me too.