“I have?” What is she talking about?
Ryan grins. “Yep. I'm going to behave better. We'll see how long it lasts.” Ryan frowns as a thought flits her mind.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Nothing. Time to relax.”
She closes her eyes, leaning her head back on my shoulder once more. Her frown bothers me though. What is she thinking? I attempt to relax as well, even though that's still on my mind along with her body against mine. Twenty minutes pass in silence before I finally say something about it.
“Ryan?”
“Yeah?” She says without opening her eyes.
“Tell me why you frowned.”
Ryan sighs and turns her head to look at me. “I was thinking about how when I stop trying to behave, stop trying to be someone I'm not, it will count as me quitting because I would be giving up. That it will be added to my long list of failures.” Ryan sits up, moves forward, and then turns as she sits across from me in the tub. “Do you know that I've thought about changing my name? Countless times.”
“Why?” I actually like her name. Sure, I thought it was odd at first, but it grows on you.
“My parents wanted a boy. They got me, and I've heard about it every day of my life. That name, my name, is tied to me being what they never wanted. That's why it pissed me off when you said it was a boy's name. Once I started college, though, I mostly stopped thinking about it and decided to own up to it.”
Since she brought it up, I decide to ask. “Why are your parents like that? Explain it to me. Why didn't they have another kid if they wanted a boy that badly?”
Ryan shakes her head. “Believe it or not, I'm their miracle child. I'm the only one of my mother's pregnancies that didn't end in miscarriage. That's why they didn't have another kid and they stopped trying. Everything they've ever wanted in a child rests on my shoulders now. They have empty hopes for me though because they don't think I can do any of it.” Ryan cups some of the bubbles in her hands and glances at me. “You ruined my bath for me.”
I take a moment to absorb what she just said. No wonder she doesn't think she's meet-the-parents material. Her own parents have made her feel like this. It's terrible. This is why she keeps using words like disappointment and failure. It makes sense now. Although, I'm sure there is more I'm still missing. More that I want to find out, which doesn't mean that I'm going to turn into a savior.
“I'm sorry.” I move to lean towards her. “C'mere. I'll make up for it.” All I want to do is make her feel better before I leave. Ryan looks a little skeptical, so I curve a finger under her chin and lead her to me. “Close your eyes,” I softly order.
Ryan does, the corners of her mouth slightly moving up and down as she tries not to smile. For a moment, I take in her features. She's beautiful. Without waiting any longer, I gently press my lips to hers. They part, already eager for more. I slip my tongue into her mouth to play with hers. Ryan releases a quiet sigh into my mouth as her fingers grasp my face. Her sigh is like a small billow of air that makes everything tumble within me.
I kiss her with unhurried passion, as if the clock has stopped and we have all the time in the world. But the water soon cools to bring back bits of my senses, and I pull away from Ryan. The bubbles have all but disappeared to leave our naked bodies almost completely visible. She hasn't opened her eyes yet, and her lips are barely pursed. That look on her face right now is one I will never tire of. Goosebumps dot her skin, her nipples at attention. Those dark green eyes finally stare at me, a smile rising on her lips.
“Thanks,” she whispers.
“Any time.”
Her gaze glances downward at me and my hard, aching body. It's probably time for me to leave, but all I want to do is get off. I don't know what Ryan wants, though. I don't think I should sleep with her again just yet. This needs to be done right, and I need to resist the lure before I do something I regret.
“I, uh-” I stop to clear my throat. “I need to get going.” My eyes immediately snap to Ryan's moving hands underneath the water, coming towards me at a tortuously slow pace.
“Right now?” She questions.
I'm wound up too tightly for her to tease me today. Her hands land on my thighs, and I swallow hard, waiting for her to do something. My focus won't waver from her crawling hands, even when she speaks. I'm frozen by those slender fingers. She's paralyzed me.
“I would feel terrible knowing you left like this.”
The tips of her fingers ever so slightly brush along my shaft. Oh my God. She's going to kill me. Suddenly, her hands are too far away from me, and water is sloshing as she stands. Helpless to Ryan, I take my time looking as I travel along her legs, her hips, her stomach, her breasts. I look at every droplet of water on my way up until I reach her sexy grin. She holds out her hand, palm up.
“C'mon. The clock is ticking.”
I take her hand and stand, but wish more than anything I would have sex with her. I'm not going to do that though. She said herself she wanted to behave, and I should honor that for as long as possible. We step out of the tub, and I grab a towel off the rack, wrapping it around her shoulders. The corners of her mouth dip, her brows coming together in confusion.
“What are you doing?” She finally asks when I wrap one around my waist.
With a deep breath, I say, “You want to behave, remember?” Her frown deepens, and I swear she looks a bit disappointed. Then I add, “The next time I have sex with you, it won't be for the simple fact that I'm horny. There should be more than that, Ryan.”
I don't know how I'm expecting her to react, but for her to roll her eyes and shake her head like I'm being impossible and silly wasn't it. She doesn't say she doesn't think it's possible or that she thinks that's ridiculous. In fact, she doesn't fight me about it at all because she only says, “Fine.” Ryan doesn't budge when I go to walk past her, and I wish I could know what she's thinking. I kiss her temple before leaving her behind, going to her bedroom to get dressed.
The clock on her nightstand says I'll have enough time to go home, shower, and then go straight to my parents. I grab my almost dead phone from my stack of clothes, seeing a missed call from my mother. I'll call her once I leave here. As I'm walking out of the bedroom, the oldies music changes to rock, and the volume is louder than before. Is Ryan one of those people who listens to the music based on their mood, music that gives hints about them? Right now, “Bad Girlfriend” by Theory of a Deadman is playing.
Ryan has wrapped the towel around her chest and is leaning against the table where her sound system is. She lifts her head when she sees me, her face void of any emotions even with her small smile.
“Have fun with your family,” she says.
“Thanks. I'll text ya later.” I give her a kiss on the lips before I leave.
* * *
“Hey, Mom,” I say as I kiss her cheek.
“Hey, Gabriel. It's about time you came over for Sunday supper,” she teases.
“I know, I know.” I take a seat at the table because I ran late and they are already seated. “Hey, Dad, Owen.”
“Hey,” they reply.
Without a word, we fall into our routine. I grab hold of Owen's hand since he is next to me, and also my father's. Owen and Dad take Mom's hands. We bow our heads, and my father says prayer.
“Amen,” we say together when he finishes. Then we start piling food onto our plates.
“How's work been?” Dad asks.
“Good. I'm getting a partner apparently.”
Dad chuckles, but Mom speaks first. “We're not talking about work at the table. You two know that,” she chides.
My dad grins. “Is there anything other than work that you do, Gabriel?”
“He's dating someone,” Owen chirps in next to me.
I slap his leg under the table, but it's too late. It's not that my family doesn't ever know of who I'm dating, but my mother is always the last to meet her. That's not by mistake either. She's the hardest to please, but she is always
right with her opinion. After my last relationship and the apparent error of my ways, I don't want to make any more mistakes.
“Oh?” My mother's eyebrows shoot up.
“She's hot,” Owen adds again.
“You've met her?” Even though Mom knows I save her opinion for last, she doesn't like it.
“Yes, he has,” I say before Owen can say anything, but he still has to talk.
“How old is Ryan anyway?”
“Ryan?” My mother questions, confused by the name.
I sigh, glancing at my father who is smirking. He enjoys this too much. “That's her name, Mom.”
“Why on earth would someone name their daughter with a boy's name? It's strange.” She frowns, and I can already see her picking apart Ryan when she doesn't even know anything about her yet. With our family, our opinions matter. We try to be objective and look out for each other. Mom likes to take that to another level. She doesn't want any of us to get hurt and sometimes oversteps the boundaries. She means well, though.
To avoid saying anything just yet, I take a sip of my tea. “It's not strange, and I've only been on one date with her.”
Mom nods. “How did you meet this Ryan then?”
“Might as well get it all out, Gabriel. She's going to keep asking until she knows everything,” Dad inputs, telling the truth.
“All right. I pulled her over, gave her a ticket, and kept running into her. That's how I met her. She's something else, that's for sure.”
Dad laughs. “You gave her a ticket?”
I nod, smiling at the memory. “She was going to get off with a warning, but she asked for it. Ryan has a fiery personality. So far, so good.”
Owen nudges me with his elbow. “How old is she? She looked kind of young for you.”
“Only a little younger than I am.” If her age worries me a little, I don't know what my parents will say. “What about you? Where's your girl?”
Owen shrugs, the spotlight off me as my mother says, “He's focused on his schoolwork and football. Isn't that right, Owen?”
“Yes, ma'am.”
Mom won't let us talk about work, but she will let us talk about football, and that's where the rest of our conversation goes. It feels good to be home for Sunday supper, but in the back of my mind, thoughts of Ryan linger.
Chapter Six
Ryan
After Gabe left, I showered and started cleaning up the apartment, jamming to my favorite rock bands. I'm not so sure what to make of Gabe and the past forty-eight hours. It seems best if I don't put much thought into any of it. Overthinking is part of my rambling problem, and I don't want to do either. Even though I am by myself, that doesn't mean my mind and inner dialogue won't ramble. Besides, if I start thinking too much, I might change my mind altogether about seeing Gabe again. It's been interesting to say the least. Nonetheless, these thoughts are shutting down indefinitely. I'm planning to focus on having fun and nothing more.
Even when “Better Than Me” by Hinder starts playing, I ignore it. There's still plenty to do around the place like vacuuming and washing clothes and homework. I have two papers due this week, and I haven't started either. Today is full of nothing but busy work. Once I knock out one of my papers, I decide to text Viv and see if she wants to come work on this paper with me since we both have to write one. She is seriously abusing having a key to my apartment though. I only gave it to her for emergencies or in case she needed to borrow some clothes and I wasn't here. Nowhere does it say she can barge in unannounced.
About thirty minutes pass before Viv arrives and the first thing she mentions is Gabe.
“Spill all the juicy details, Ryan,” she says, sitting down next to me at the kitchen table with her laptop and textbook.
“Nothing juicy about it. He came over, spent the night, took a bubble bath with me, and left. No sex either.”
Viv's eyebrows rise. “None?”
“Nope. I rather not talk about Gabe. Are we going to write these papers or not?”
She squints her eyes at me. “I've never known you not to want to talk about a guy.”
“Always a first time for everything.” My phone vibrates loudly on the table, so I pick it up.
“Is that him?” Viv says with too much excitement.
“That it is.” I can't help but laugh when I read his message. Apparently, Owen thinks I'm hot. A hint of apprehension runs through me. Does this mean he talked about me with his parents too? Or just Owen? Owen, I can handle. I text him back.
Can't say I disagree with him, haha.
“Well?” Viv questions when I put my phone back down.
“He just said something about his brother. Time to get down to business, Viv.”
And that's what we do. My phone goes off again, but I ignore it. I don't want to get too distracted. We work for about an hour in silence before we're done. I order a pizza online for us, and Viv leans back in her chair.
“I'm guessing that you'll be seeing Gabe again?”
“Looks that way. I know it's at the end of the month, but when are we going shopping for Halloween? You know there will be parties, and we have to celebrate my birthday somehow. Might as well do it by dressing up and going to a party.” I don't know why she keeps bringing the conversation back to him or why I keep changing it when she does. But Halloween/my birthday is a legit question because it is coming up soon. I don't really celebrate my birthday, but it would seem odd if I told Viv that, so I keep it to myself.
“Whenever we know what we want to be. Do you know yet?” I shake my head. “Me either. What happened to you never going on second dates?”
I shrug. “I didn't intend to, and it's not like he's about to be my boyfriend. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think I'm a phase of sorts for him.” I'm not so sure that I believe the things Gabe said to me. There's a knock on the door, so I leave her to go answer. Once I've paid the pizza guy, he hands over our pizza and leaves. We eat it right out of the box and after Viv's first bite, she asks a question.
“What are you talking about, Ryan?”
“Gabe's a good guy, and I'm not the type of girl he would want to take home to his mother. I'm younger than him, still in college, and not good in any sense of the word. So wouldn't it make sense that he's just having a little fun with me for a bit? We need to stop talking about it. I'm overthinking it as it is, and I rather let failure take its natural course without any help from me. Besides, my mom told me I need to make a decision on my major in two weeks. Will you help me think of something?”
Viv doesn't know much about my parents because I never share much about them and she knows better than to ask. After she takes a sip of water, she nods. “Well, I'm going to major in linguistics, but the college has tons to choose from.”
“Like what?” Okay, so I never looked at their academic programs when I was applying. I just wanted to get away from my parents. I didn't care what degrees they offered, so I don't know all of their programs.
Viv opens her computer again and pulls up the school website, reading off some of the programs, one from each letter. “Applied Physical Sciences, Biomedical Engineering, Communications Studies, Dermatology, Economics, Family Medicine, Genetics, blah, blah, blah. Ooh, Marine Science or Physics and Astronomy? What about Spanish? You speak that, right?”
I nod, but everything sounds boring, and I tell her so.
“Life isn't supposed to be fun 24/7, Ryan. You need boring moments too.”
“Yeah, well, I don't want to be bored for the rest of my life. I'm good with math, but who wants to solve equations for a living? Genetics sounds interesting, but no thanks. If I had,” I say it like it's a despicable thought, “to pick any that you mentioned, it would be Communications Studies or Spanish, since that can't be all that hard, and I know a lot already.”
Viv nods, happy that I picked something. She clicks a few times and then counts. “There are one, two, three, four, five areas of study for Communications.”
I groan as she tells me
what they are. “Fine. Spanish. I pick Spanish. Those sounded horrible.”
“Why are you settling if that's not what you want?”
“Because it doesn't really matter to me anyway. There's nothing I would love to do. Everything is just eh to me.”
“What about Marine Science or even Dermatology?”
Sinking into my seat, I sigh. “Stop giving me choices, Viv. I'll change my mind and then we'll be back at square one. As long as I can get a job and make money, then I'm happy. Every single working person isn't working their dream job. Since I don't have a dream, anything will do.” Maybe I should let my parents pick my major. I can't disappoint them if it's their decision. But then they would probably send me to medical school, and that's not going to work for me. Everyone in the medical field is amazing for what they do, but I can't do it. Viv shakes her head at me, apparently doing some thinking of her own. “What?”
“I can't believe that nothing appeals to you. At all.”
“Believe it. The only thing that appeals to Ryan Kavanaugh is sex and men. I don't think my parents would be happy with a career as a hooker or sugar baby though.”
Viv laughs. “You're crazy. You should work for Sunkist as much as you drink it.” She nods to the bottle in my hand as I take a sip.
“I wonder if I would get free drinks for life. That might be worth looking into, Viv. Good idea.”
She chuckles, shaking her head. “Well, I should go. There's some more work I have to do. See you in the morning.”
“Bye.”
Spanish wouldn't be my first choice, but let's face it. Nothing would be my first choice. Still, I feel accomplished. I've made a decision for my major. I pick up my phone to see what Gabe texted me back.
Gabe: I don't either. How's your lazy day going without me?
Me: Good. Homework is done & house is clean. Just need to wash clothes.
While I wait for his response, I put the rest of the pizza in the fridge and get started on those clothes. Panic clutches my stomach and rises like bile within me. I. Picked. A. Major. Spanish. That's what the rest of my life will involve. Is that what I want? What if I decide that I hate it? Or should I pick another language? It could be more fun and a challenge to learn a new language. There's French, Chinese, Japanese, or maybe Portuguese. Maybe I should do one of those instead.
You Before Me Page 7