Chapter Thirty-One
Maddie
Grocery shopping with Ryan is an experience.
A domestic experience, yes, but certainly an experience I wish to have again.
Because watching a determined Ryan Young guide the shopping cart around by the front of the basket while I push on the other end, grabbing things from shelves after only a quick glance and nod of approval, his classically handsome face painted with an expression I’ve only ever seen on him when he works, was a sight to behold.
There were more times than I can count where I got distracted by the veins in his hands and arms, and too many times I lost myself in the vision of him reaching for things on the top shelf I would have to climb to reach.
It’s such a mundane everyday-life thing, and yet my vagina had perked up so thoroughly I was actually worried it would start flashing like a beacon of need.
“I still don’t understand why you wouldn’t let me pay for my own groceries,” I grumble around a carrot stick, watching the man put everything away at his own insistence.
Something he’s done a lot of since we first got in the elevator.
All I’ve managed to do is untangle my hair after Hairstylist Laylah got her hands on it.
Every offer of help has been thwarted, every suggestion glared at.
I gave up after I asked him if he wanted me to help put the freezer food away.
Shutting the fridge door, he gives me a look that sends tingles through my entire body, and I wonder, not for the first time today, how the hell I’ve survived two months around these men without pouncing on them.
It’s almost like Rayne’s kisses have unlocked a whole new page of a book I’ve been reading, and I want to devour every single word.
Pretty sure Rayne’s kisses have turned me into a slut or something.
Yeah. Sure. Let’s blame Rayne.
I mean, it’s not like I wasn’t constantly ogling all four of them, thinking thoughts I had no business entertaining, and wondering things my slutty little mind would be curious about after they did something that sent me spiraling into a pit of filth.
But I don’t think it was as bad as it is now, especially knowing they all like me and are willing to try a relationship with me together.
“Because it was my idea to drag you to the grocery store, it’s me who will be using what I bought to make you dinner, and it’s me who is trying to get back into your good graces so we don’t have another week like the one we’ve just had,” he explains, a little more detailed than before when he only told me, “because I want to.”
I bite my lip, that horrible guilty feeling clutching my shoulders once more with the reminder that I avoided them all because of my own insecurities and misunderstandings.
Now that Rayne has confessed that he likes me, that they all do, and didn’t do it with a nonchalance that made me question my entire sanity and life, I realize just how badly I misunderstood everything.
As though he can see my thoughts on my face, Ryan sighs and leans across the island from me, linking his fingers together as he stretches his forearms along the counter in front of him. “That wasn’t a backhanded comment, so don’t feel guilty. If anyone should feel guilty, it’s me.”
Frowning, I look up from his distracting hands, my gaze colliding with his beautiful hazel irises that are filled with his own form of guilt.
“Why are you guilty? You didn’t do anything wrong,” I promise, running over everything in my head for any sign that he should carry that guilt. There’s nothing that comes to mind, so I shrug and tell him, “It was my issues, Ry. You have nothing to feel guilty about.”
“Don’t I?” he asks, looking like he might already know the answer but wants to hear it from me. I don’t give him the satisfaction, keeping my silence as my eyes narrow on him, and he sighs before he says, “I’m sorry for what I said when we last drove home together.”
What he said…
“I don’t understand,” I confess when I still can’t think of what he said that was so wrong that he feels guilty over it.
I remember he told me Caiden shared the whole email fiasco, and that they all agreed to keep me company more now than they had before.
It’s my own fault my mind took a nosedive into my personal issues.
“It was my fault, Ry. All mine. It seems it was a misunderstanding on my part, and a whole lot of overthinking and wallowing in insecurities I never used to have.”
Confusion paints his handsome face, and I smile a little, basking in the butterflies that take flight in my stomach.
Placing my chin in the palm of my hand, my elbow leaning on the counter, I say, “So, turns out when Caiden bluntly proclaims he likes someone and then moves on with a whole other conversation, it tends to leave someone a little reeling. I didn’t have a clue if he meant as a friend, a person, or more.
And then, on top of that uncertainty, you told me you guys were hanging around more because you were worried about what Toby might do.
I got in my head about it because of the shit Toby used to feed into my psyche while we were together. ”
There’s a small pucker between Ryan’s eyebrows, giving him an adorable quality, and I can’t help myself from reaching out with my free hand and smoothing it away. I catch his eyes widening slightly, but he doesn’t make a move to stop me, keeping his gaze locked on my face.
“Look, I’m a handful. I get that, and all my life it wasn’t something I was made to feel shame over.
My parents have always told me they signed up for parenthood knowing all possibilities, even if I exceeded them with some of my antics.
My best friends are all as crazy as I am, so we find it normal.
My cousins have always been on par with me.
The only time my personality ever seems to be too much for anyone is when it’s an outsider coming into my life.
And Toby made it very clear that I was always too much.
Too much drama. Too much chaos. I was too friendly.
I was too overbearing. I was too invasive.
I was too present. No matter what it was, it was too much for him.
I never really understood why he stayed with me if he felt that way, but I guess one puts up with things when there’s money, influence, and power involved, right?
” I explain, trailing circles over the marble counter.
I huff a laugh and look down at the patterned surface, feeling a little stupid for not seeing Toby for what he was sooner.
It was certainly a lesson learned, but I didn’t realize what a number he’d done on me until recently.
“The craziest part? Those things that were too much were things I always felt were just part of relationships. I was friendly to waitstaff when we went to dinner to celebrate things, and that was unnecessary and made him uncomfortable. Overbearing? There are a few of those. I used to sit on the bathroom counter while he showered just to talk to him because I missed him. I would send him too many videos and memes when I thought of him throughout the day. I wanted to hold his hand walking through grocery stores, but that was an instant nope for him.”
Scoffing a laugh, the stupidity only building, I wonder, not for the first time, how I even survived a relationship with that asshole.
“Then there were his complaints about taking too many photos of us or just him, as though it was wrong for me to want to capture moments together or appreciate how he looked at certain times. Wild, right? Telling a photographer she’s taking too many photos,” I huff a humorless laugh.
“And then he would complain that I was buying too many gifts for him when he didn’t buy me anywhere near as much, and it made him feel inferior.
I planned too many date nights. I danced too much in the kitchen.
I spoke too much through movies and TV shows.
And then, come the last six months, he was griping about me asking where he spent so much of his time.
I barely got to see him, and I wanted to spend time with him, but I was being too invasive, apparently.
Asking for reassurance was a no-no. Expressing my emotions was too bothersome for him. ”
I sigh, and the kitchen falls into silence while the reel in my mind runs through each of those scenarios he put me through, remembering with vivid clarity how I felt each time.
Not once in my life did I ever feel like what I did was too much, what I said was too much, or who I was was too much.
That was until Toby Moore came along and apparently screwed my head worse than I thought he did. So much for getting out unscathed, huh?
Shaking off the heavy feelings that have started pressing down on me, I take a deep breath and sit upright, flashing Ryan a smile. “You didn’t do anything wrong, okay? It was me. So please, whatever guilt you’re feeling, let it go. It’s not needed or warranted.”
After that declaration, I stare at Ryan, and he stares at me for a long moment until he finally nods. “Are you sure? I didn’t upset you?”
“I upset me,” I laugh, reaching over to wipe away the frown that has reappeared.
“I think icing you guys out was a byproduct of not wanting to get hurt again, you know? I’m apparently trying to deal with the shit Toby put me through and instilled in my head, and with all the confusion and uncertainty, it kind of blew up in my face. We’re good, I promise.”
To prove as much, I hold out my pinky finger toward him and, with a body-tingle-inducing chuckle, he reaches out and wraps his pinky around mine.
“All right. But if anything like that happens again, you’ll talk to us, right?” he pushes, raising a challenging eyebrow.
Nodding, I concede easily enough. “I’ll talk about it. You won’t believe this, but I missed you guys all week. I don’t think I could put myself through that kind of misery again.”