11. Ellie #2
I could hear the devastation in her voice that matched the tone in my head. The idea of going anywhere didn’t appeal to me.
“Maybe we could just take a nap out here.”
“A bear might eat us,” she reminded me.
“I’m not sure I care right now.”
“Did you bring your phone?”
“No. You said no music. You said it would be a distraction.” I sat up on my elbows and glared at her. “You said it would be too easy to give up and call someone to pick us up!”
“I did say that, didn’t I?” She reached into her shorts and pulled out her phone, shooting off a text.
“You had your phone?”
“Well, in all fairness, I knew I wouldn’t be able to make it. I was just trying to make you feel better.”
I would have been angry, but she had a phone. She could call someone for help. We wouldn’t have to walk all the way back to town.
“How long?”
“JR said he would be here in a few minutes.”
“That’s good,” I said, closing my eyes as I tried to orient myself. The spinning sensation was easing, but dehydration was setting in. I was going to die if I didn’t get something to drink soon.
A car pulled to a stop in the gravel.
“Oh, thank God!” I cried out, my eyes still closed. “I hope you brought plenty of water and plan to carry us to the truck because my legs won’t move!”
“I’m not sure you want me to carry you after you tried to attack me earlier.”
My eyes flew open at the voice, and I sat up, the world spinning around me. “You!” I hissed.
Ryder grinned at me, shoving his hands in his pockets as he leaned back against his car. “I take it by the way you’re looking at me, you were expecting someone else.”
“My husband,” Josie answered, waving her hand carelessly above her head before letting it flop on her face.
“And you needed help because…”
“Because running is hard,” she answered for me.
“And you decided to pass out on the side of the road,” he surmised. “Good idea. I mean, I would have chosen someplace less deserted,” he said, glancing around the vast wilderness.
“We didn’t choose to pass out here. It just happened,” I grumbled.
“Well, lucky for you, I was just driving around and stopped. I can give you a ride back.”
“No thanks,” I snapped.
He actually looked taken aback from my refusal. “You…don’t want a ride?”
“We have one coming,” Josie said, sitting up. “That’s what she meant to say.”
“Actually, I meant to say I didn’t want a ride with him,” I said, glaring at the man.
He huffed out a laugh, running his hand over the back of his neck. “Did I miss the part where offering a ride was a bad thing?”
Josie leaned over and whispered, “I thought you didn’t want to be mean?”
Ryder snorted in amusement, which only earned him another glare.
“Thank you,” I said sweetly, “but we have a ride coming.”
“Um…”
I looked over at Josie as she winced down at her phone. “He can’t leave the bar.”
“What? But—”
“Lizzy had a problem with Willa.” She looked up at me and shrugged. “Sorry.”
Ryder chuckled to himself. “So, you do need a ride.”
My face flamed bright red. Why did I have to be such a bitch to him? Why couldn’t I have just politely declined?
He stepped forward like the bigger person and held out his hand for me to take.
Dammit, he was even a gentleman. I thought about telling him no, only because I wanted to get off the ground on my own, without him seeing all my wobbly bits shift as I stood.
It was one thing when I was dressed properly, but I was in skin-tight shorts and a tank top that showed off my rolls when I bent over.
That was not something I wanted him to see, but I wasn’t sure why.
But there was no way out of this. If I told him no now, I would just further my humiliation. So, I took his hand and sucked in a breath, hoping the worst of my fat was sucked away.
“Thank you,” I muttered, wiping the grass from my butt.
“You’re welcome,” he grinned.
He helped Josie up next, and while he was turned to her for two point five seconds, I pulled the shirt from my belly, hoping the sweat wouldn’t make every inch of it cling to me.
“So, where can I drop you ladies?” he asked as he walked back to his car.
I wasn’t paying attention as Josie shot ahead of me, getting in the back seat, sticking her tongue out at me. I glowered at her, pissed that she was putting herself in the back. If I sat back there, too, it would like we thought he was our chauffeur.
She snickered at me as she got inside, but I ignored her, opening the passenger side door, only to stop when I saw the leather seats.
“Crap,” I muttered.
“What?”
“You have leather seats.”
“And?”
“And I’ve been sweating.”
“Leather dries,” he grinned.
Yes, but it wouldn’t dry fast enough so that he wouldn’t see the sizable sweat print my ass left behind.
With nothing left to do, I sat down, cranking up the AC.
With any luck, I would dry out enough to prevent the worst of it.
Highly unlikely since my ass was pressed against the leather, meaning that would be the last place that dried, but a girl could hope.
“Drop me off first,” Josie said, smirking at me. “Then you can swing by Ellie’s place.”
“Sure. Where do you live?”
She gave him the address, but I was too busy staring at myself in horror in the mirror.
My mascara was running down my face from the sweat pouring into my eyes.
I quickly slammed the visor up, then turned away from Ryder and ran my fingers under my eyes, hoping to wipe away the worst of the black goop running down my face.
God, this was so embarrassing.
And he had to have seen it. There was no possible way on this earth that Ryder had helped me up and not noticed that I looked like a raccoon.
Then again, maybe he really hadn’t noticed. Maybe he was so disinterested in me that even a black mask around my eyes didn’t catch his attention.
I wasn’t sure which one was worse, and I was so busy trying to decipher what that meant that I hadn’t even noticed that Josie got out of the car or that we were now stopped in my driveway.
“This is the part where you get out,” Ryder said smoothly.
“Uh…right. Thanks for the ride.”
“Are you sure you can make it in there? Or do I need to carry you?”
The cocky grin on his face was devastatingly handsome. I wanted to smack him and kiss him at the same time. Except, kissing was bad. Very, very bad. Besides, he wouldn’t be interested in kissing me. I wasn’t his type. He probably went for leggy brunettes who hadn’t eaten more than an apple a day.
And now I was just staring at him. Sitting in his car while he waited for me to get out. My mouth opened to say something smart, but I just kept thinking about every second that passed, and how every nanosecond was making it even worse. And I didn’t even know how many nanoseconds were in a second!
“Did…you need something else?” he asked, his eyebrows furrowing in question.
“I—”
That was the extent of the vocabulary I could formulate at the moment. It wasn’t that he was hot. It wasn’t that I was shy. I just realized what an idiot I was being, and for some reason, I was now frozen in place.
“Maybe you have heat exhaustion. I should call a doctor.”
“N—”
N. That was all that left my mouth.
“Are you having a seizure?”
I shook my head, my cheeks flushing bright red. God, this was so mortifying.
“Hey, are you okay? You’re all red and—I think I need to take you to the hospital.”
Since words weren’t forming, I grabbed the handle and shoved the door open, falling out onto the driveway. In seconds, I was at my front door, shoving it open. As soon as the door was closed, I sank to the ground in mortification.
“Good job, Ellie. Today’s lesson. Learn words.”