Over the past week, Annie had achieved Penny-level status, no doubt. She’d spent every free minute with me, staying by my side while I worked through the experience of my heart being ripped out with a claw hammer. There had been no judgment as she provided tubs of ice cream and Kleenex by the boxes. There was no question as to where her friendship loyalties lay. She’d even contacted my professors and gotten my assignments for me, saying that I was out sick.
Right now, however, I wanted to throat punch her.
“No,” I told her while shaking my head.
“Ash…” She placed her hands on her hips and gave me a look. I knew that look. It was the same one she gave her difficult tutoring clients. The ones who were being stubborn and not listening, even though they knew she was right.
“Annie,” I responded with the same tone while shooting her a warning look
She pointed at me and opened her mouth to say something. She must have changed her mind, though. The hand dropped and she heaved a sigh. “Ash, enough is enough.”
I snorted. It was far from enough. It wasn’t even close.
“It’s been a week, hon,” she said. “You can’t stay holed up in here forever.”
“Yes, I can,” I mumbled. I rolled over in my bed and pulled the covers back up to blot out the sun. Annie had taken it upon herself to open the blinds and curtains. Bitch.
The blanket was ripped away without warning and I was blinded by the sunlight I’d been avoiding. “What the hell? Annie!” I sat up and glared at the blonde who now held my covers at the foot of the bed. “Give those back.”
“Nope,” she said calmly. “I’m not letting you wallow another minute. You haven’t showered, you haven’t changed your clothes, and you’ve been ignoring calls from everyone. Life moves on.” She gestured toward the bathroom. “Get up, get in the shower.”
I scowled at her. “Last time I checked, I’m an adult. If I want to wallow, I can, thank you very much.” I held out my hand. “Give me the blanket.”
“I don’t get you,” she said. “You broke up with him.”
The fact that she was right just pissed me off more. I took a breath to tell her off when she held up a hand to me.
“Don’t bother. Stop now, Ash. You aren’t going to win.”
“Wha—” I started to ask when she stalked over to the door and flung it open.
“I need you. She’s being difficult,” she said to someone on the other side and stepped back so they could enter.
My anger turned to alarmed embarrassment when Ryan stepped into my room. Instinctively, I reached to pull up the covers in an attempt to hide. I swore under my breath when I remembered Annie had taken them from me. Shit! A frantic look around showed there was no way to disappear.
“Won’t work, sugar, there’s no place to run.”
The dirty look I shot him was received with a chuckle. “Why are you here?” My voice was all acid dipped in a good dose of whine.
He shrugged and put his hands in his pockets. “Eh, just seemed like the place to be.” He wandered around the room until he came to the dresser that held my framed photos and picked up the one of Teagan and me after our first hike together. He studied it for a minute then turned and looked at me with his brows raised. “So, what happened?”
I stared at him for a moment, debating replies. He met my gaze steadily, not looking away. I gave in first and looked down, twisting my hands together. I shrugged. “Reality happened,” I muttered.
I heard him place the photo back into its place and start toward the bed. I kept my eyes firmly locked on my fingers, even when he stopped right beside me. Even when he sat on the bed, one leg cocked toward me, my eyes didn’t move. I could feel his burning into me, however.
“Reality sucks, doesn’t it?” he said out of the blue.
I snorted. “Yeah, you could say that.”
“You know he got into a fight with your brother, right?”
My head shot up so fast I winced as I pinched a nerve. “What?”
He nodded. “Last week. Connor did most of the damage.”
I glanced at Annie who was hovering by the door. “Did you know about this?” I already knew the answer, though. She nodded, confirming my suspicions. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because, honestly, that’s not your problem anymore.” She waved a hand. “The news would have just upset you more. You didn’t need that.”
I opened my mouth to argue with her when Ryan reached out and tugged on a lock of my hair. I turned my attention to him, agitated. “What?”
“What would it have done, telling you?”
I paused as I mulled it over. What would it have done? As much as I hated to admit it, Annie was probably right. All of my anger deflated.
“That’s what I thought,” he said. “Look, sweetheart, the way I see it, you have two options here. You can continue to wallow in the choice you made, or you can pick up and try to move on. Chalk it up as a learning experience.”
I stared at him, shocked at his callousness. “It’s not that easy, Ryan.”
He titled his head. “It’s not?”
“No!”
“Why not?” He shrugged and continued. “It seems pretty cut and dry.”
“Because I love him!” I burst out.
“Ash,” he said with a pitying tone. “Do you really think you’re the first person to get dicked by love?”
“Well, I’m pretty sure you never were, Mr. Manwhore,” I shot back, sarcasm dripping so heavily it was nearly visible.
He shook his head. “I dated the same girl all through high school, Aislinn. We were engaged.”
My jaw dropped at his bombshell of information. Ryan had been in a relationship? He had been going to get married? My mind almost couldn’t process the magnitude of information. He smirked at my loss of words.
Feeling pretty small, I shook my head. “What happened?”
“She slept with one of my teammates a few weeks after we got here.”
I sat back and blinked at him. “Wait. Wait, what?”
He nodded. “Yeah,” he said with a humorless laugh. “In Brian’s defense, he didn’t know she was my fiancée. They hadn’t been introduced. I don’t think he’d have done it had he known.”
I rubbed my forehead. This was huge. “What happened to her?”
“Carrie? Yeah, she denied it, then said it happened because she was drunk.” He paused and shook his head. “Problem was, she never drank.” He rubbed the back of his neck and shot me a rueful look. “Guess she thought that would pass by me.”
“Did she ever tell you why she did it?”
“Eventually. She said things had changed, and we were too young to have that kind of commitment.” He huffed a breath. “Of course, she was also getting a lot more attention in college than in our little Alabama town,” he said wryly. He looked up and met my gaze. “So you see, sugar, you’re not alone.”
My mind reeled at the information he’d just given me. Without being told, I was sure this was a story not many people knew. And he’d willingly shared it with me. That was big. I felt a lump in my throat as the sensation of desolate loneliness filling my body subsided a little.
“Thank you,” I croaked out, sniffing as a new wave of tears threatened. “I appreciate what you told me.”
Seeing the tears in my eyes, he frowned. “It’ll get easier, sweetheart. I promise.”
I nodded, but the tears spilled over despite my efforts. My head down, I tried to hide them, but I forgot Ryan was a lot like Teagan; he saw everything.
A warm hand cupped my chin and forced me to look up. I met his hazel gaze through watery eyes. “It’ll be okay. But you gotta get back into life.”
I sighed and shook my head. “I’m not ready,” I confessed.
He laughed. “You never will be. That’s why you just have to do it.” He scrunched his nose at me. “You can start with a shower.”
My cheeks heated and my hand flew up to my hair. My face started to burn when I discovered all I could feel were snarls and knots. Sweet Jesus! I could only imagine what I must have looked like. A sewer rat probably had a neater home.
Ryan started to laugh when he saw the look on my face. “I’ve seen worse, trust me.”
I looked over at Annie, preparing to chew her out, and saw that she had disappeared. She’d abandoned me, hair disaster and all. The little traitor.
“Why don’t we do this?” Ryan began as he stood up. “Why don’t you go take a shower, get cleaned up? Then we’ll go and get some food other than ice cream in you, okay?”
I eyed him suspiciously. “How do you know I was eating ice cream?”
He sent me a sneaky grin then glanced meaningfully at my trashcan. “Call it a hunch.”
I narrowed my eyes and looked down at the can. Once again, my face went up in flames. There in all their glory were the many empty containers of ice cream. Despite my wishing it, the floor didn’t open and swallow me whole. Therefore, I held up my chin up high, looked him in the eye, and said, “Oh.”
His laughter continued even as I stalked into the bathroom and slammed the door.
***
I paused as we started up the walkway toward a local pizza place. Ryan had made sure he brought me to a place I’d never gone with Teagan. The realization that Ryan wasn’t a total douchebag made me stop in my tracks. He continued for several steps before he realized I wasn’t beside him then turned around to face me.
“Something wrong?” he asked.
I tilted my head and considered him for a second before I asked him what had been on my mind since I’d stepped in the shower. “Why are you here?”
“What?”
I looked down at the ground and shrugged. “You’re being really nice. You’re taking me out. I’m just wondering why.” I glanced back up and met his eyes. “I don’t understand.”
He broke my gaze and glanced around as he rubbed the back of his head. “I consider you a friend, Ash. So I’m trying to be a good friend, keep your mind off of things.”
I studied him closely. His body language told me that he was uncomfortable with the question. I wanted to push and get more answers because I felt like he wasn’t telling me the whole story. But the clear unease he displayed made me put it off for later. I flashed what I hoped was a reassuring smile. “Okay, thanks.”
“Yeah?” He didn’t quite buy my easy acceptance.
I nodded. “Yeah.”
Hand still on the back of his neck, he jutted his chin toward the restaurant. “Ready?”
“Yeah.” I smiled again, this time actually feeling it. “I am.”
“Okay,” he said while he dropped his hand down. “Let’s go, I’m starving.”
“Wow.” I laughed as I moved past him. “Shocker, that one.”
“Hey, now, I’m a growing boy,” he protested. “Besides, it’s mid-season. Gotta keep the carbs up.”
“What about the rest of the year?” I teased as we walked in and waited to be seated. “What’s your excuse then?”
“Oh, well, then I’m just being a fat ass,” he said with a serious face.
I busted out laughing at the unexpected answer.
“What can I say? I like food, I like to eat,” he said with a shrug. “Luckily, I play a sport where it pays to be a fat ass.”
I leaned against the podium where the wait staff kept the menus and eyed him. “Yeah,” I said as I rolled my eyes. “Because you look like such a lard ass.”
He shot me a knowing grin. “I know, right?”
“Whatever,” I said with a laugh. I had to admit, it felt good to laugh.
“Just the two of you?” I heard a female voice ask beside me. I turned to find the waitress looking at me expectantly.
Ryan chuckled at my surprise and nodded. “Could we get a booth?”
“Sure,” she responded as her eyes swept over him up and down with a gleam of female appreciation. I rolled mine with a sigh. It wouldn’t have been too bad, but she looked like she was close to Mom’s age and married…ugh.
We followed her through the restaurant and the smells reminded my stomach that food had been non-existent lately. As we sat down, I eagerly snatched the menu from the waitress. While perusing the items—all of which sounded amazing in my current condition—I saw Ryan give the woman a wink and a grin. Really?
After she walked away with our drink order, I glanced at him and shook my head. “You just don’t stop, do you?”
“Huh?” he asked as he looked over the menu.
“You and the waitress.”
He pulled his attention from the food items and looked at me, puzzled. “What are you talking about?”
“You know she’s probably old enough to be your mother, right? And she’s married,” I pointed out to him.
He looked at me in bafflement for a moment, then I saw the understanding dawn in his eyes. “Oh! Okay. You mean the wink and shit?”
I shot him a look at the ‘and shit.’ “Yes, the wink and shit.”
“Yeah, I didn’t mean anything. I just wanted her to feel better, is all.”
“Excuse me. What?” I had to have misheard him.
He nodded with a small smile. “She’s an older woman on her feet all day, tired…a wink and a smile from a younger guy makes her feel better, gives her ego a boost. There’s no harm in that.”
I blinked at him over my menu. For once I couldn’t dispute what he was saying. There was a strange logic to it. Just as I was going to say something, she returned with our drinks and took our orders. I watched as she left and noticed that after being exposed to Ryan’s smiles and teasing remarks, she did seem to have a perk to her step.
“Okay,” I said grudgingly. “You might be right.”
“Of course I am.” He leaned back in his booth and ran his hands down his chest. “Everyone wants a piece of this.”
I shot him a look through narrowed eyes. “Don’t ruin it. You’re not that awesome.”
His shout of laugher could be heard through the restaurant.
***
“Feel better?” Annie asked as I closed the door to the room. I looked up in surprise and saw she was sprawled out on the floor with books all around her. I frowned at her.
“A little,” I admitted. “But I still have a long way to go.” I sighed. “I should be pissed at you for calling him.”
“I knew you weren’t getting out of that bed without help. He was the only other person I figured could get you moving again.”
“You could have warned me, you know. I looked like shit.”
Annie snorted a laugh. “Yeah, I don’t think he cares.”
I frowned. “What does that mean?”
“It means,” she said as she picked up a book, “that you could be in a burlap bag with straw in your hair and he wouldn’t care.”
I was confused. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I know.” She flipped a page. “That’s what makes it so entertaining.”
“What are you…?” I held up a hand. “You know what? Never mind.” I turned and headed to my door. “I’m going to bed. I have class tomorrow.”
“Hey, Ash?” Annie called out.
“Yeah,” I said as I looked back at her.
“Welcome back to the land of the living.”
I nodded and went into my room. There was still a deep ache in the middle of my chest. I had a feeling it would be a long while before that eased. But at least now I knew there was a light at the end.
I could get through this.