In the evening stillness of the Ryan’s office, I drifted back to consciousness to find myself wrapped up in his jacket and tucked up under his arm. I felt warm, safe, and happy. I had zero regret about what we’d just done. Ryan was gently running his fingers through my hair, working out the tangles with expert, slow strokes.

“I think I’m going to cut it,” I mumbled, leaning into his chest.

“Hmm?” he replied. He sounded a sleepy and content as I felt.

“My hair. I think I want to get it cut.” I yawned. “I liked Victoria’s suggestion of going blonde. But I don’t think it will survive the bleach if it’s so long. So I’m going to cut it.”

“Ok,” he said after a moment. “I know the salon and the stylist she uses. I’ll text you the name. The stylist sees a lot of big-name clients. It would be good for you to become one of them.” I could almost hear the wheels turning in his mind about how the meeting might benefit me.

I blinked. “I can do it myself.”

“Bleach your hair?” his voice was doubtful. “Ok.”

I thought about it for a moment. The last time I’d bleached my hair, it hadn’t been great. I’d looked a bit like a carrot until I put the electric purple dye on top of it to cover it up. “Maybe I should call the stylist.” I mustered the will to prop myself up and look down at Ryan’s handsome face. He opened his eyes and I was struck again by the incredible color. Would seeing it ever get old? I hoped not.

Ryan cupped my cheek in his warm, big hand. “It’s going to be complicated,” he said after a long moment. “Dating you and representing you. It’s a conflict of interest. I need to find you a different agent as soon as possible.” Then he sighed. “And your dad is not going to be happy.”

I flopped back down and buried my head in the soft fur on his chest. “My dad is never happy.” Talking about him while I was lying naked on top of Ryan’s desk felt transgressive. “We might as well both give up on trying to ever please him right now.”

“I have to tell you something, Rosie.” Ryan turned a little on his side, so he could look at me again. “I should have told you earlier, but at least I’m telling you now.” He took a deep breath and his eyes widened. “Your dad didn’t just call me to help with your flooded apartment.”

I froze, blinking in surprise. “What do you mean?” Was there any chance that my dad might have actually connected me with Ryan to help my music career? The hope swelled inside me. It was almost painful. But it didn’t last very long.

Ryan hung his head. “Your dad wanted me to convince you not to pursue a career in music. The plumbing thing was just a weird coincidence that got me in the door.” He pulled away, sitting up on his desk and leaning over to retrieve a file that sat upright and leaned against the wall. “I’m sorry.”

I took the file from him and slipped off the desk to put on my panties and sit down in the chair before opening it. It wasn’t my most dignified moment, but at least I wasn’t the only naked person in the room. With trembling fingers, I lifted the cover. On the inside of the file, atop a stack of papers, was a photograph.

It took a moment of me to understand what I was seeing. The photo was from my senior year of high school, when my dad had given me my pride and joy, my acoustic guitar. That had been the best Christmas of my life. I remembered the exact moment that the photograph had been taken, and the feeling I’d had when I first rested my fingers on the strings.

I’d been so filled with excitement and joy that my dad was finally listening to me about what I wanted to do. Little did I know at the time, he thought giving me the guitar would do the opposite of encouraging me. He assumed that I’d quickly get bored and move on when presented with an instrument I didn’t play. He was dead wrong. I taught myself to play from videos online, and practiced until my fingers bled until I didn’t sound like crap.

My heart had begun pounding in my ears again, and I looked up to see Ryan pulling his boxers back on and watching me carefully. I was too stunned to react just yet, so I looked back down and started thumbing through the file. There was a copy of my transcript, my schedule for the semester, a copy of my electricity bill at my apartment, my bank statement…

“How did he get all this?” I asked.

“What do you mean?” Ryan looked confused. “Why wouldn’t he have those things?”

I bit my lip. Ryan didn’t realize what he was dealing with. “Before yesterday, my dad and I hadn’t talked since April. I totally cut him off, tried to keep him out of my life and my finances. I even got student loans to support myself.”

Ryan frowned. “I didn’t know that. All I was told is that it was my job to convince you to go to law school. And that you should give up trying to pursue music.”

Irritation rose in the back of my throat, thick and toxic. Anger followed, blinding hot and boiling. It took serious effort not to snap at Ryan. I wanted to take my anger out on someone, and Ryan just happened to be nearest to me at the moment. Although I hated that my dad had engineered a plot to discourage me, it wasn’t exactly a surprise. This was right up his alley. Still…

“You haven’t been doing a very good job discouraging me. About anything.” I was absolutely certain that if my dad could see us right now, he’d be furious. From the perspective of my father, Ryan was the world’s worst influence on me.

Ryan looked down at our respective nakedness and laughed. The tone in his reply was bitter. “I’m not really in the business of destroying a young woman’s dreams just because Calvin Ross says so.” He shook his head in apparent anger. “Besides, it’s obvious that I want you in more ways than one. There was no chance I was ever going to help your dad with his little scheme, Rosie.” He sighed. “I might not be perfect, but I’m not that awful or manipulative, either.”

I smirked at him. “You couldn’t have discouraged me if you tried. Trust me, my dad’s been trying to discourage me from pursuing this since the first time I ever mentioned it.” Although this was his most sophisticated attempt to dissuade me, it was not the first, or even the most successful. My dad was fighting a losing battle; he just didn’t know it yet.

Ryan exhaled. I thought I sensed relief in the soft sound. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier.”

Perhaps I should have been irritated at Ryan, but I was still filled with sex endorphins. “You weren’t totally honest with me," I told him carefully, “and I don’t appreciate that. But at least you didn’t lie to me, either.” I thought through everything he’d said to me so far, looking for overt deception. I couldn’t find any. Ryan’s overall motivations might not have been as altruistic as they could have been, but I knew he worked for my dad. Whenever my dad was involved in anything, it was complicated. This was no different.

Maybe it was proof that I’d been around manipulative influences for too long, but I wasn’t angry. Well, angry at Ryan, anyway. I was angry at my dad. But it was the same old, dull anger I’d been nursing for months. Nothing new.

“You really were my punishment,” Ryan said, seemingly encouraged by my reaction. “Because I ‘allowed’ Axial Tilt to break up, your dad gave me this assignment to save my job.”

Well that was somewhat sadistic. It sounded just like my dad.

“But you still have Jason Kane as a client,” I argued after a second.

Jason smirked. “Sure, but Jason Kane is retired. The other members of the band aren’t nearly as famous, or as lucrative.” He ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “Your dad showed up here a couple of weeks ago and demanded that I help with his little ‘side project’.”

“So, get some new famous clients and then tell my dad to fuck off,” I suggested.

“I’m working on that,” he replied. “I’m actually relatively close to getting one. But in the meantime, I lack bargaining power with your dad.”

“I have to say, you’re doing a terrible job so far. He’s going to figure it out soon.”

He reached out to me and I rose from the chair to hold his hand. I was wearing his suit jacket and my underwear. Nothing else. “Thanks,” he said with a little, accompanying eye-roll. “Again, I’m not trying to discourage you. I never have been. I almost told your dad to fuck off this afternoon when he called.”

I nodded. “It’s good that you didn’t.”

“Oh?” he looked surprised.

“Now that you and I are on the same page,” I told him, thinking quickly, “maybe we can turn this all to our advantage.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, my dad’s whole plan revolves around me not knowing you’re discouraging me, right?”

“Right.”

“But now I know what you’re supposed to be up to. We can use that. Buy ourselves some time.”

“You’ve lost me.”

“You said you were about to land a new, famous client, right?”

He blinked. “I think so, yes.”

“How long will you need to do that?”

He shrugged. “Maybe a month.”

It would require some scheming of our own, but maybe, just maybe, this situation could be turned around. Looking at Ryan, and feeling like I finally had an ally, a friend, and a lover, I wanted to believe it could work.

“I know what we need to do.”