Chapter 12
Club Regret
Ella
Regret.
Ryan Ryder and I were in the back of a cab, zipping through downtown Boston, heading to a club called Regret.
Hilarious.
I'm not one to be too superstitious, but it sure seemed like a bad omen. Like something out there was lurking in wait for us. Would we run into Lance at the club? Would he flip his shit, automatically assuming Radar and I were up to no good with each other?
Whatever. After what Lance did with Quinn, and the trouble he caused me? He didn't have any right to be upset just because I hung out with his teammate. Lance was the one who bailed on me in the first place, after all.
Besides, I knew nothing could possibly happen between Ryan and I. Especially after I told him I was a virgin; the look on his face all but confirmed it. He looked like all the other guys did when I told them, like I just hit them in the gut with a two-ton weight and their world had ended.
On one hand, I wanted to smack Ryan. Why would it matter to him? It shouldn't matter at all! We said we weren't interested in each other!
But on the other hand, there was a part of myself that was deeply satisfied. Especially when Ryan got all mad and huffy, with his giant chest puffing up, when I told him about Matthew. That made me so warm and happy inside …
That's when I realized it: I wanted Ryan to like me.
I wanted Ryan to like me, for some reason, even if he fit the cheesy, sleazy hockey player mold to a T. I didn't get it. In his favor, he was acting like a perfect gentleman all night, and I enjoyed getting to know the quiet tough-guy a little bit better.
Then again—I guess a perfect gentleman wouldn't be heading out to meet a one-night-stand. But that wasn't surprising, given what I knew about hockey players. And he was honest and upfront about it, so it didn't feel right to judge him for it.
And I guess, technically speaking, a 'perfect gentleman' wouldn't be stealing the occasional peek at my chest. That's right, Radar, I caught you looking—more than once.
Not that I minded too much. Because hey, he's a guy. A hockey playing guy, at that. And when a guy sees breasts, he's just not in control of himself. Right? When a girl offers even a hint of cleavage, guys just have this overwhelming biological drive to look. It doesn't mean that they're even attracted to her, really. He just has to look every so often to make sure that a girl's breasts haven't jumped off her chest and run off, or something. Because tits.
I don't know, I'm just rambling. I have no idea what goes through a guy's caveman brain when he sees a pair of breasts. All I know is that Radar said I'm not his type, and I'll have to take his word for that …
And I said that he wasn't my type, too. Actually, I said it first! Yet he's tall and devilishly handsome, broad-shouldered, sharply-dressed yet rough around the edges in all the right ways—
And I said he's not my type.
Somberly, I stared out my window, mesmerized by the hectic blur of busy traffic; long trails of red and green and yellow.
Did I lie to him?
Did I lie to myself?
I clenched my fists so tightly my nails began to cut into my palms.
I thought of Ryan's date for the night. Kara. I wondered what she was like. Probably like all the other puck bunnies I'd met over the years—girls that were obsessed with Lance and his buddies. Loud, gaudy, and with a penchant for putting all her assets on display. Credit where it's due, those girls knew precisely how to ensnare a jock's attention: leave absolutely nothing to the imagination, because they never had much of one to begin with.
“What're you thinking about?” Ryan suddenly asked.
His voice snapped me from my trance. I turned to see him, smiling at me, a small and curious smile on his lips.
“Oh … lots of things,” I said. “You caught me day-dreaming.”
His grin grew, and so did his desire to know more. “Well, what about?”
I couldn't hold his gaze, and I dropped mine to the floor of the cab. “Oh, fine. I was just wondering what this girl you're meeting up with looks like.”
“You wanna see? I'll show ya. Honesty policy and all, right?” He pulled his cell phone from his pocket. The screen lit the back-seat of the cab, and he showed me a picture of the girl that matched my mental image of her exactly: blonde, face heavily painted, too thin. Her orange skin tone told you she enjoyed baking herself on tanning beds. You could call her attractive, because she knew how to package herself and attract attention, but you wouldn't call her pretty.
Or maybe I'm just being a catty bitch …
He swiped to show me the next picture. Kara had pulled down her jeans, exposing her silly pink panties with a bow.
“Wow,” I laughed, a jealous lump lodging itself in my throat. “Straight to the point, isn't she!”
“Right?” Ryan chuckled. He stuffed his phone back into his pocket.
The grin he wore—I'd seen it before, with other guys from my past, when I ended up in a situation where I was 'the cool chick' in a group of guys. Grow up with a popular hockey star for a brother, always surrounded by sweaty, trash-talking boys, and you too might easily end up as 'one of the guys.'
To Radar, the novelty of having a female friend that he could share anything with was just, so badass, man. Even cooler that I was a girl who lived by an honesty policy that meant everything had to be laid bare.
The cab pulled over to the curb and slowed to a stop. The club's signage was lit in smoky red letters, Regret.
Ryan paid the cabbie and hopped out. He gave me his hand to help me out of the car.
Welp, let's see what this place is like …
***
I joined the end of the line to get into the club. I was digging through my clutch, in search of my ID, when Ryan stopped me.
“No need,” he said simply. He whisked us to the front of the line. The doorman saw Ryan, let the two of us in immediately, and welcomed Mr. Ryder back.
The crowded club was dimly lit and loud, thumping beats blasted from the speaker system. Ryan took my hand so we wouldn't get separated and led me through a mass of dancing people. The body heat was thick and sweltering, but we emerged on the other side at the bar and were able to breathe again. A bartender spotted Ryan and rushed over to take our order. He made our drinks in a hurry, and when Ryan tried to pay, the bartender reassured him that his money was no good here. Ryan stuffed the cash in the tip jar instead.
Ryan passed me my drink. The dance music was so loud, it forced two people together to be heard.
“Here,” he said, leaning in so close he nearly nuzzled me. Like prickly barbs, his whiskers scraped against my skin and sent a shiver down my spine.
“What do you think?” he asked. “Hoppin', right?”
I steadied myself on his arm and stood on my tip-toes, reaching for his ear. This close to him, the scent of his cologne filled my senses again.
“Sure is,” I yelled, “and I can see you're no stranger around these parts, either.”
“Yeah,” he answered.
I waved my hand like a wand over the club—the environment itself, with the ear-splitting music, the alcohol, the rolling clouds of competing cologne, the scandalously dressed women—and asked, “Do you meet all your girls here?”
“Some,” he answered with a shrug.
“So where is she?”
He checked his watch. “She'll be here in a little while.”
“You don't sound very excited,” I said. “You should be. You're about to get laid. And what if you met this Kara girl, and she blows you away in every regard? What if she's your dream girl? Would you want to date her? Like a steady girlfriend?”
Ryan chuckled. “I wouldn't count on that happening.”
“Why not?”
“I don't wanna think about all that right now!” he shouted. “And it's too loud in here to talk! Hey, c'mon, let's dance.”
I didn't even have a choice. His giant hand swallowed mine right up, and then a split second later he was leading me on a charge right to the dance floor instead.
God.
Just like that, he could shrug off any questions he didn't like, and skip right to what he really cared about: having fun. He was kind of charming in a horrible way—if you could look past the womanizing, anyway …