by Kaci Hart
“What, to finally wake up and have something in your life that gets you fired up? Something that you are willing to fight for and stand up for even when you know you should just shut up? That’s how love starts. Of course it’s scary. But it can be fun too.”
As she listened to Sasha speak, there was one statement that kept ringing in her ears like a warning bell.
“That’s how love starts.”
Love. She wondered if that was what was happening to her. She had never experienced it before.
***
One week after Ryder had left, Chelsea was sure of two things. The first was that she was completely and totally head over heels for him. The second, and equally concerning thing, was that she did not like how vulnerable being in love made her feel. She missed Ryder while he was away. That aching, hollow, and empty feeling. It was unlike anything she’d ever experienced before.
This two-week trip was longer than most of the ones he took. Typically, it would be one or two days, three at the most. It wasn’t until he was gone for a few days that she realized just how much a part of her routine he had become. An almost central part of it. She was also weirded out by the fact that she even had a routine at all, which was so completely not like her, or at least how she used to see herself. She had grown up a lot since she had been with Ryder.
She knew why though. Routines made sense. They made things easier and they were definitely that way with Ryder. He made her feel secure. They would go out two nights every single week with him taking her either to a nice restaurant or jazz club. A lot of the time they would just talk or laugh or even just enjoy each other’s company while taking in the ambiance of the place.
Now she got none of that while he was away and she found herself trying to figure out what she had done with herself all of the twenty something years that she had lived before she had bumped into him on the sidewalk. Without him, she felt like an essential component was missing. Not that they didn’t talk on the phone because he made a point to call her at least one to two times a day but she really missed being in his presence.
She sat on the park bench, looking up at the completely cloudless sky before reaching into her phone. She pulled up a number on her contacts list and hit dial.
“Chelsea?”
“Hey Ava.”
“Hold on a second…”
Chelsea heard the discussion between Ava and Corey about the upcoming wedding. As his wedding planner, it was almost crunch time with the wedding in four days. She was enthusiastic about it. She’d known Corey for as long as she knew Ava and she knew her best friend would make sure that his wedding was one to be remembered.
“Sorry about that Chelsea. Corey says to tell you hi by the way.”
“Tell him hi for me.”
“Alright. So what’s going on?”
“Not much...except I…”
Chelsea hesitated. She didn’t know if she should even bother Ava with it. She felt like she was having problems with something that every woman should already know about.
“...never mind. This is stupid.”
“Hold on now Chelsea. You called me so don’t go getting all flighty on me. What did you need?”
“I don’t know Ava. I’m thinking that I may be in over my head with Ryder.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean I’m scared Ava. I’ve never felt this way about a guy. I find myself thinking randomly about him. He’s gone barely a week and I miss him. I’m doing all kinds of stuff and acting ways that I wouldn’t have before I met him. I’m just worried that I’m changing into somebody I wasn’t before I met him and on top of that, he is so much of everything that I always said I didn’t want to be. Workaholic, routine, predictable. I mean you said it yourself, he is a stock broker. Dating him alone is making me a hypocrite. I just don’t know what to do anymore.”
“C’mon Chelsea. Get serious now. So you have grown up a bit and look at life a little more differently. So you are a little less all over the place and random. I’m sorry but those are good things. I don’t want to sound mean but I don’t see any issue here at all. There are at least a million women in America that would love to trade places with you. You have a really nice, handsome, and smart guy who just happens to be fully loaded financially. What should you do? Grab on tight and don’t let go. Oh, I’m sorry Chelsea but I have to go. I have a goofball on my other line that’s been calling me a few days trying to change prices on me a month before his wedding. Nobody is messing with my wallet. Now you, don’t be stupid. You know what to do. See you Saturday. Bye.”
Before Chelsea could utter a word, Ava had already hung up the phone. Either way, Chelsea had gotten what she needed from her anyway. And it’s not really like she never knew it before because she most certainly did. All she had to do now was fix the problem. That started now and would continue when she saw him again, which still didn’t feel like it was soon enough for her.
Ryder had told her that he was going to be back Friday and would pick her up for the wedding on Saturday. Every time situations required a little bit of commitment or offered the possibility of pain, she always retreated into her facade of wanting to be free. Ava had made it clear right away that she was just being scared and childish. Six months ago she would have said that her friend was being too overbearing. Now she just realized that Ava might have been right all along. Maybe she was the one with the problem.
Chapter 8
Chelsea was happy for Corey. He and his new wife had decided on doing an outdoor wedding and everyone was thankful that the weather worked in their favor. The rays from the sun beamed down on them, keeping everyone warm and comfortable. The wind did its complimentary part too, blowing a soft breeze that helped to cool her skin. It felt more like a tropical island than New York.
She admitted to herself again that Ava was easily the best wedding planner she knew. The woman cold probably plan circles around the so called experts on the television wedding programs. For Chelsea, the wedding was completed by the arm candy that was sitting beside her. In truth, she felt like she was luckier than the bride because she had the most handsome man at the party with her and she finally had the opportunity to show him off. For his part, he was decked out in his tuxedo and looked like he had just stepped out of some men’s clothing and style magazine.
She wasn’t happy about how everything had gone since he had been back though. Ryder was back in town late Thursday night and upon finding out she had hoped to see him then or at least some time Friday seeing that it had been so long. Unfortunately, the work never seemed to stop for him. In fact, it felt to Chelsea like it was getting worse, not better. At times it seemed to Chelsea like work wasn’t just the most important thing in the world to him. It felt like that was the only thing in the world to him. It was already hard to play second fiddle in his life.
Those were the worst times of course. But then there were times like just a minute ago. She had been looking away from him for a moment. When she turned her eyes back in his direction, she found his gorgeous smile and pleasure inducing gaze focused only on her. So even though it did bother her, she forgave him because the moments like this told her that he did enjoy her company. On some level she even felt bad for him. He didn’t have the chance to just enjoy life and that was a crime to her so even though he had been back two days and she’d done no more than talk with him on the phone since then, she chose to not let it bother her.
This was their moment and she was enjoying it for all it was worth. She looked around the table where she and Ryder were seated. They had been seated with Ava and her husband Ben. He was currently wiping tears of laughter from the corners of his eyes while his wife continued to tell a story of how he got his neck stuck in the handlebars of his bicycle when he was a kid. When she started paying attention to the story even more, she soon found her own belly cramping from laughter.
“You can’t be serious. I wish I had a picture.”
Chelsea spoke through giggles.
&n
bsp; “Oh but there are pictures. Quite a few actually. Apparently his aunt was the type that thought everything was funny. Before helping him pry his head out of the handle bars, she ran into the house and grabbed her camera. If you look in his mother’s photo album, you can see that big ol’ head poking through the handlebars, like one of those cut outs for photos. Tears all running down his face. It’s pretty funny.”
Chelsea was having a hard time containing her laughter at the story but out of the side of her eye, she noticed Ryder was checking his phone for what she figured had to be the third time in the last couple minutes. Yes, she had made herself a promise to not get upset about him and his phone today but this was getting annoying. And rude.
“Chelsea, Ryder. Excuse us for a second. Ben, honey let’s go say hi to Corey and his new wife. We’ll be right back.”
“Ok.”
Chelsea saw Ava roll her eyes a bit at the response before walking off with her husband. It seemed that Chelsea wasn’t the only one who took note of his preoccupation. By her count, that single word response was all he’d said to anyone in the past few minutes. He had been too busy checking his phone. Sure, he pretended to pay attention well enough to fool most people, but Chelsea knew. And she would have let it go if it wasn’t so obvious that Ava saw it too.
But this was bad. He was even blatantly looking down at his phone before Ava and Ben had even fully turned in the direction of the bride and groom. Chelsea slapped his shoulder . . . hard. She didn’t even care if anyone saw. He looked at her seemingly confused as to what was going on.
“What’s up?”
His surprised response only bothered her more and she gave him a look of death. She leaned into him, her voice low as she worked to control her frustrations with him today.
“Ryder I cannot believe you. She was actually talking to you and there is absolutely no way that she didn’t see you constantly on your phone. I don’t know why I even made you come. Do you need to leave? Because if you have somewhere you need to be or something else you would rather be doing, by all means go do it. With the way you are carrying on, I might as well be here by myself anyway. At least then you won’t look like such a jerk.”
She didn’t understand why he had such a surprised look on his face. He had to realize how important this was to her. She knew he hadn’t finished up his big deal just yet but surely he could spare one afternoon.
“No I don’t need to leave Chelsea. I was just checking a couple things at work.”
“You know, I was hoping this didn’t happen. Ryder, you were gone for the past two weeks and maybe I wrongly assumed that you would look forward to leaving work alone and spending this time with me, meeting my friends. When I met your family, I didn’t constantly act like I had more important things to do. The whole time you have been here you have been glancing at your phone or being downright rude. Quite frankly I’m embarrassed, which I never really thought you’d do to me.”
“Chelsea. I’m sorry. I guess that I have been a little standoffish and preoccupied today. I didn’t realize that this client would even take any of my time today but they are being a major pain in the you know what. I guess I let that interfere with today.”
That was all it took to get her features to soften somewhat. She smiled at him before brushing a crumb off of the shoulder of his jacket. She was completely sincere in what she said next. She knew what she wanted but she also knew who she had.
“I know you aren’t doing it on purpose and that for you to act that way, it’s got to be important. I want you to know that you can leave if you want and I won’t be upset. I’ll tell everyone that you got called off to work. Honestly, I know I should just be glad you were able to spend this much time from your schedule with me and it’s not that I don’t want you to do well at work. It’s just that I thought today would be a chance to get away from you always being called off to work. But this is even worse. To have you sit right beside me all day but be somewhere else the whole time is ten times worse than you just leaving to do what you have to do. I’m not telling you to stay or to go, but if you are going to stay, then you need to relax with me and focus on this day.”
“You’re right. I definitely want to be here with you. For the rest of the day, no more checking my phone. In fact, . . .”
She watched as Ryder turned his phone onto vibrate mode only and stuck it in her purse.
“Give it back to me when the wedding is over. Right now, Chelsea Warner, I’m all yours.”
She smiled, realizing that he had finally chosen her over work for once. That action meant the world to her.
“Good, because you’re all I really wanted today.”
She leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek as Ava returned to the table.
“So you finally got him to wake up, did you?”
“I’m sorry Ava. I have been rude to you and Ben. Sometimes work takes over.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice at all. I’m not only a guest, but I’m also the wedding planner. Work never stops. Still, this is my best friend so be nice.”
They both chuckled.
“Yes ma’am and thank you for understanding.”
They talked for a while more when Chelsea heard the sound of Ryder’s phone vibrating in her purse. She looked at him and he must have heard it to. As if to cement his decision to dedicate himself to her today, he smiled and shook his head from side to side. The wide grin on Chelsea’s face was evidence that it had done the trick.
“Alright. It’s time for you all to see the real Ryder Chatham. Let’s have a goodtime.”
Ryder pushed his chair out and stood up from the table quickly.
“Sorry to leave you two so abruptly, but I need to take my lady to the dance floor and get down.”
Chelsea listened to the upbeat dance music playing and tried to give Ryder an out.
“Honey, how about the next song. This one may not be quite our speed.”
“Excuse me? I’ll have you know that I was trained by one of the best dance instructors in the New York area. I’m pretty sure I can handle this.”
“Okay but don’t say I didn’t warn you. Excuse us guys.”
Chelsea got up with Ryder and hurried to the dance floor where his dance moves completely surprised her. A few songs later and she was exhausted but she didn’t care. She was having a great time dancing with the man she loved. Life couldn’t get much better than that for her.
***
Ryder hummed as he unlocked the front door to his penthouse condo. It was funny because he hadn’t hummed since…never. His mother did that a lot but he always thought it was silly. Now he understood why. He was more relaxed than he could remember. Maybe there was something to taking some time for himself. Chelsea definitely made him happy and he was sure of that.
He walked into the house, shut the door behind himself, removed his jacket, and headed into the bathroom to take a hot shower. It had been a long week with him having to travel to Japan, but he felt like he pretty much closed out the deal and just needed to finalize things with a firm agreement and then Moronobu could get approval from his own company’s board. Since Chatham Holdings was one of few companies this large that were still family owned, he had veto on any decision for the business. He only needed his father’s approval on the deal and it would close, and he already had that.
He stepped out of the shower and into his room and before he knew it, Chelsea began to consume his thoughts. Everything about her made him feel like he was living more than he ever had.
He took his phone out of his jacket pocket and went to turn it on, but the battery had died. Apparently his battery was lower than he realized. He plugged up the phone, then walked into the kitchen to grab a glass of water before going to sleep. He heard the phone buzz repeatedly.
That’s probably her calling already. Quicker than usual.
He had always thought it was cute. She would always call to make sure he made it home safely after he dropped her off from a date. He didn’t wan
t to make her worry so he stopped what he was doing in the kitchen and ran to grab it. When he swiped the screen to unlock it, he almost shrieked in shock when he looked at his phone. There were twenty-three missed calls, twenty-three voice mails, and a bunch of text messages with all of them but one coming from Trent. The lone outlier was his father. That one was over three hours ago.
Uh oh. This cannot be good.
His father was calling him on a Saturday evening was strange enough in and of itself. Compounding his worries was the fact that Trent called him over twenty times on the same day. It made his stomach turn and he was dreading listening to any of the voice mail messages but he knew he had to.
And fast.
Whatever it was had probably already been on the back burner for too long since the last phone call from Trent was over two hours ago. He dialed his best friend’s number immediately. He never would have thought that it was possible for a phone to be answered before it rang but Ryder was sure that was what happened in that instance. He heard the concern in Trent’s voice, and knew that he wasn’t going to like what he was about to hear.