14 #2
The offer silenced every response I could have made. His expression shifted slightly when he saw what the words had done to me.
“You heard me.”
“I did.”
“Sleep in my bed if you want.” His hand remained around my wrist, warm and steady. “You don’t need me standing in the apartment for it to be yours too.”
I stared at him.
He had spent years learning how temporary home could become, yet he was standing beside his bed and telling me his apartment belonged to me even when he wasn’t inside it.
I leaned forward and kissed him before the feeling could grow too large. When I pulled back, he looked suspiciously satisfied.
“You distracted me again.”
“You started it.”
“I didn’t.”
“You touched my hat.”
“That isn’t foreplay.”
“With you, apparently it is.”
I laughed and shoved him away. “Finish packing. I’m showering.”
“Need help?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
“We could save water.”
“You’re leaving eventually.”
Ryan grinned. “Go.”
I gathered the clothes I had brought and headed for the bathroom while he returned to his duffel. The door clicked shut behind me, and for the first few minutes, I let the shower drown out everything waiting on the other side.
Klein’s revision. Design studio. My mother’s messages. Wednesday night at the Westerly and the conversation I had promised Ryan I would finally have.
I stood beneath water hot enough to turn my skin pink and tried to imagine telling my father that Ryan was my boyfriend. I practiced the words silently, but Lance’s answers came faster than mine.
This isn’t like you, Charmagne.
You’re being impulsive.
We’ve given you every opportunity, and this is what you’re doing with it?
Charles would’ve understood what was at stake.
Pressure climbed into my chest until I couldn’t draw a complete breath. I pressed both palms against the shower wall and forced air into my lungs while the water struck my back. My heart beat too fast, and the room felt smaller every time I inhaled.
I counted the grout lines between the tiles. Six across. Eleven down. I started again when I lost my place, clinging to the numbers until my breathing stopped scraping painfully through my throat.
The panic eased, but the disgust it left behind remained.
My gaze dropped over my body. Water tracked across my stomach and hips, distorting everything beneath it. I turned slightly and looked again, searching for whatever Ryan had seen when he knelt in front of me last night and called me beautiful.
I couldn’t find it.
All I saw were places that curved too much, places that needed to be tighter, and a body that could betray me in the navy dress my mother had chosen. My fingers pinched the skin near my waist before I could stop them.
Ryan was twenty feet away packing for another road trip after spending last night handing me pieces of himself he had never trusted another woman to hold.
He had asked me to call when I panicked, yet I stood beneath the shower measuring my body with my hands and trying to decide whether I could get through the rest of the day without eating.
Shame twisted through me. I released my skin and forced my hands beneath the water.
The urge to check again remained.
I shut off the shower, wrapped a towel around myself, and stared at my reflection while droplets slid from my hair to my shoulders. My face looked pale without makeup, my eyes too large and my cheeks too full. I turned away before the mirror could give me another reason to hate myself.
The hot water had loosened muscles that had no sympathy for the fact that I needed to function like a normal college student. It hadn’t made me feel better. Counting, checking, and making rules about food had given me the temporary illusion of control.
I hated that my mind still reached for those things whenever fear became too loud.
Music drifted from somewhere beyond the bathroom door before I finished squeezing the water from my hair.
Country music.
I frowned. The song was familiar enough that I recognized Riley Green before I could place which one it was. After wrapping the towel more securely around myself, I opened the door and followed the music down the hallway.
Then I heard Ryan singing.
I stopped in the kitchen doorway.
Ryan was singing “Change My Mind” while making coffee.
He had apparently decided I was still in the shower because there was no self-consciousness in him.
His back faced me, black sweatpants riding low on his hips while the tattoos I now understood stretched across his shoulders and disappeared beneath the waistband.
His phone rested beside the coffee maker, and he sang along while measuring grounds like this was something he did every morning of his life.
He wasn’t quiet, either. Ryan could actually sing, which somehow made the discovery worse.
Last night, he had shown me wounds I was still trying to comprehend. This morning, I had seen him half asleep, watched him pack underwear, learned that he considered every book he owned partly mine, and now discovered that one of the most intimidating men I had ever met was secretly a country fan.
I moved quietly across the kitchen. Ryan never heard me approach, so I reached around him and pinched both sides of his waist.
He jumped hard enough to nearly launch the coffee scoop. “?A la chingada!”
I dissolved into laughter.
Ryan spun around, his eyes wide for half a second before he realized it was me. His hand shot toward the phone, and he paused the song.
“You fucking scared me.”
That only made me laugh harder.
His eyes narrowed. “Keep laughing.”
“Oh my gosh.” I pressed one hand over my mouth. “You sing.”
“Everybody sings.”
“You sing country.”
“That’s what you took from this?”
“You sounded personally betrayed when I caught you.”
“I thought you were still in the shower.”
“Clearly.”
Ryan reached for me, but I stepped backward.
“You stay over there.”
“Come here.”
“No, because now I know your biggest secret.”
His brows lifted. “That’s my biggest secret?”
“I said it might be.”
“You learned last night that I survived foster homes, homelessness, and enough fucked-up shit to fill three lifetimes.” He looked toward the coffee pot. “Today, you caught me listening to country music.”
I heard the warning beneath the humor and refused to let the moment drag him backward into everything he had shared.
“You weren’t listening. You were performing. That is a completely new level of information.”
He caught me around the waist before I could escape.
“Ryan!”
My towel held, thankfully.
His arm remained locked around me while his other hand restarted the music. I stared at him suspiciously.
“What are you doing?”
“Apparently exposing more secrets.”
Then he started dancing with me.
He was actually dancing barefoot in his kitchen while coffee dripped into the pot behind us. I laughed so hard that I had to grab his shoulders when he turned us, and the ridiculousness of the moment loosened the knot in my chest more effectively than counting tiles ever could.
I looked up at him. “Mi amor, are you a closet country fan?”
His smile changed. I hadn’t considered the endearment before saying it, but Ryan heard every syllable.
I knew because his arm tightened around my waist. “Say that again.”
“What?”
“You know what.”
I smiled. “Mi amor.”
“Better.”
Then the bastard dipped me.
I squealed and grabbed him tighter as my wet hair swung behind me. Ryan held me securely, looking far too pleased with himself before lowering his mouth to mine and kissing me upside down.
When he finally brought me upright, I was breathless and laughing.
“Yes, mi amor,” he said.
“You admit it?”
His thumb brushed water from my cheek before he answered in Spanish.
“A mi mamá le encantaban George Strait y Tim McGraw. Crecí escuchando música country con ella.”
I caught enough to recognize his mother, George Strait, Tim McGraw, and something about growing up.
“Translate.”
“My mom loved George Strait and Tim McGraw. I grew up listening to country music with her.”
The warmth inside me deepened. I pictured Juanita singing while she cooked, the woman Ryan had described so vividly that sometimes I could almost hear her voice threaded through his stories.
“So, this reminds you of her?”
“Some of it.” His eyes moved toward the phone. “She liked old country more than this shit.”
“Don’t insult Riley Green after I caught you giving everything to a private kitchen performance.”
“I wasn’t performing.”
“You were emotionally committed.”
Ryan laughed.
“Has this been a lifelong secret?”
“It was only a secret to you.”
I stared at him. “Everybody knows?”
“Not everybody.”
“Who knows?”
“Briggs.”
“That doesn’t count. Briggs knows everything.”
“Cade.”
My mouth fell open. “Cade knew before I did?”
“Cade knew me before you decided I was worth stalking.”
“I have never stalked you.”
Ryan looked pointedly at the towel around my body. “You’re currently naked in my kitchen.”
“Because you invited me here.”
“Technicality.”
“Who else?”
“Easton caught me singing George Strait when I was drunk once.”
I gasped as Ryan reached past me and poured coffee. “There are witnesses?”
“Unfortunately.”
“I’m telling Aura.”
“You do that, and I’m changing the locks.”
“You haven’t given me a key yet.”
His gaze flicked toward mine. Something about the look made me straighten.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Ryan.”
He handed me the Great Lakes mug. “Drink your coffee.”
It was already prepared the way I liked it. I looked from the coffee to him. “You’re evasive.”
“You’re nosy.”
“I’m curious.”
“You’re wet.”
My eyes narrowed.
“From the shower,” he added, his mouth twitching.
“Pig.”
“Drink your coffee, princesa.”
I took a sip while he grabbed his mug and leaned against the counter. For several minutes, Wednesday didn’t exist. Neither did Klein, Flint, the Frost bus, my parents, deadlines, or any of the things that could reach into a good moment and remind me that enjoying it always came with a price.