by Amity Cross
“You wanted to take advantage again?” he asked. His expression was completely passive, and I didn’t know how to take him.
“I never… I didn’t take advantage of you back then, did I?”
I sorted through a plethora of memories that flooded to the surface. He’d always been nice, talking to me when Hunter had broken things off for the second time in whatever month and making me laugh when I was on the outs with Margaret. We didn’t go to the same school, but nonetheless, he was always around. Making me laugh, boosting my confidence…
Oh, shit. He was right.
I slapped my hand over my mouth and backed away, completely mortified. I was doing it again, wasn’t I?
“We were kids, J,” he said, his lips pulling up to one side. “We’re all grown up now.”
“Did I really…”
“Did you want something?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
“I, uh…” The words stuck in the back of my throat.
He tilted his head to the side. “Did I make that much of an impression on you the other day?”
“I… I don’t know what to do,” I blurted. “About anything.”
“C’mon,” he said, brushing off my comment. “Let me shout you lunch.”
“Lunch?”
“Yeah, lunch.” He smiled and nodded back toward the gym. “Give me ten to shower, okay?”
“Right…” I stared at the sweat beaded on his forehead.
He chuckled again, this time disappearing back through the door of no return as my mind went straight to the proverbial gutter. Shower, soap, muscles… I was in trouble.
Ryan took me to a Chinese restaurant on Victoria Street.
It was a little hole-in-the-wall, the floor covered in white linoleum, the tables and chairs a mismatch of furniture they’d likely picked up from a secondhand store, and the menu above the counter had been altered with a black permanent marker. This place was totally Michelin starred.
I ordered a large bowl of special fried rice with extra special, and I watched on in horror as Ryan ordered plain, unsalted, un-sauced, un-fun, vegetables.
“Steamed vegetables?” I asked, my lip curling.
He patted his stomach. “I’m in training. Can’t afford any extra padding.”
I snorted. “You’ve got more willpower than I do.”
He sat at an empty table by the window, and I took the chair opposite, sitting my bag in my lap.
“So?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
“So?”
He waved a hand, gesturing for me to start talking. Searching for the words, I triggered a tsunami.
“I feel like I’m on one of the world’s largest roller coasters with the dips and the screaming and the stomach in the throat thing, and it’s all endless. The ride keeps going and going, and I want to get off,” I blurted, staring at him desperately. I could feel the waterworks opening for business and silently pleaded with him to say something, anything, to make it stop before I blew disgusting amounts of boogers into a serviette in front of him.
“Then get off, J,” he said.
“How?”
He frowned, glancing out of the window. He didn’t know, either.
The food arrived, and we ate in silence, the air palpable.
“What about Margarine and the one with the brown hair and that other girl?” he asked after a while. “They’re still your friends, right?”
“They laughed at me behind my back,” I replied, flinching at the memory of brunch-ageddon. I didn’t even care when Ryan called her Margarine on purpose. “I’m pretty sure Margaret knew about Hunter and didn’t tell me. I don’t know what to do about that, either.”
“You need different people in your life,” he said with a humph. “People that give a shit about stuff besides social status.”
Boy, was he right, or was he right?
“The people at the gym where I train are good,” he went on. “They have their different personalities and have been through their own struggles, but they’re good people, Jade. You could use a different world perspective.”
“Fighters?” I asked warily.
“And their girls.” He raised an eyebrow.
“So it’s not a sausage fest?”
Ryan snorted, his lips quirking. “No, not a complete sausage fest.”
Oh, God, I just didn’t know.
“What’s on your mind, J?” He’d been watching my silent existential crisis unfolding, and I felt like climbing under the table, sticking my fingers in my ears, and screaming ‘la, la, la, la’ until everything went away. Even if it took the rest of my life. “C’mon. Spit it out.”
“I’ve been chained to my desk for so long I’ve lost sight of life.” I threw my hands into the air. “I can’t remember the last time I took a holiday that didn’t double as a work trip. I can’t even tell you the last time I did something just for fun.”
“Well, let’s make a list.”
“What do you mean?”
“Write down all the things you want to do just because you want to do them.” He shrugged. “It’s to do with manifesting or some shit.”
I cocked my head to the side. “Manifesting?”
“Some new age bullshit my coach told me once,” he replied. “You’re more likely to do something if you have a physical representation of it. Or at least, that’s what I think he meant…”
The pieces were beginning to fall together in my mind.
“No wonder Hunter fucked around behind my back,” I muttered. “I was too busy working to notice, let alone give him what he needed.”
“Don’t you dare say that shit to me again,” Ryan snapped, making me flinch. “You might be a workaholic, Jade, but you didn’t deserve to be treated like you did. Hunter deserves to have his balls ripped off. I told you the other day, but you have to start believing it.” He gestured toward my bag. “Do you have any paper? A pen?”
“I, uh…” Stunned, I fished through my bag and pulled out an old receipt and a pen, placing them on the table.
“I want you to write your own list,” Ryan commanded. “Think of all the things you wished you could’ve done but were too busy to do because you were working.”
“A list?” I repeated.
“A bucket list.”
“But I’m not dying…”
He laughed, his expression softening. “You don’t have to be to write a bucket list, J. Stop being your argumentative self and humor me, okay?”
“I’m not argumentative!” I exclaimed.
“Case in point.”
“Fine.” I rolled my eyes and picked up the pen.
Sitting in that little Chinese restaurant across from Ryan Harper, blast from the past, I contemplated my life’s work and all the things I’d wished I’d had the courage and time to do. What had I missed that would’ve meant something to me? What were some of the things I’d gushed about seeing on the Discovery Channel with Harper that we’d never ended up going to do? What had my life lacked while I was working twenty-four seven at Slattery?
Putting pen to paper, I scrawled a few things that came to mind. I supposed they were okay, but I had no idea what I wanted out of life anymore, let alone know if my list was lame. Which it probably was.
“Are you going to share it with me?” Ryan asked with a grin. “I’m dying to see what you think is worthy of being on a bucket list.”
Placing my finger on the receipt, I edged it across the table. He picked it up and scanned the meager list I’d scrawled, his expression completely unreadable.
“Experience the world like a child.” He raised an eyebrow.
“I was always studying and working,” I said in my defense. “Get good grades, and you’ll go far, Jade.” I mimicked my dad’s voice. “At the expense of going to the zoo, eating ice cream at the beach, getting my face painted, riding carousels and Ferris wheels. You know. Kid stuff.”
“You never went to a zoo before?” Ryan asked, looking shocked. “Not even on a school excursion?”
“Nope.” I shook my head. “Sad, right?”
“Kinda.”
“I was always working extra shifts to pay for school and keeping my grades up to qualify for scholarships.”
“You were a scholarship kid?” he asked, sounding surprised. “I always thought you were rich like all the others.”
“Far from it, actually. I suppose that’s why I was so desperate to belong.”
“Fair enough.” He made a face and read the next item on the list. “Go hot air ballooning.”
“Self-explanatory.”
“Free fall.” He glanced at me. “Skydiving?”
“Too cliché,” I replied with a flick of my hair. “Something different. That one’s still a work in progress, I suppose.”
“Pull an all-nighter.” He laughed. “All those parties in high school and you never went the distance?”
“Never. See item number one for the explanation.” I rolled my eyes.
“What does this one mean?” He turned the piece of paper around and pointed to item number five. “Three question marks.”
“I don’t know,” I replied with a shrug. “Once I complete the first four, I’ll know what to put in there. Or at least, I hope I will.”
“So tell me,” Ryan began, the list still clutched between his fingers. “Are you actually going to do all these things?”
I was feeling passionate about it now, but who knew how lazy I would be in the morning when I had to get up and drag myself to work—aka, reality.
“I don’t know. Maybe.” I snatched the list back and shoved it and the pen into my bag.
“Are you still staying at that hotel?”
“Yeah. I haven’t had time to think about finding a place, let alone get all my stuff from Hunter’s place. I’ll have to get one of those storage sheds and hire a mover… Hunter’s going away on Wednesday, so I can get in without seeing his cheating ass.” Glancing up, I frowned when I saw the look on Ryan’s face. He was scowling, his brow knitted together with an intensity that made me worry about the integrity of the vein in his forehead. “What?”
“How much is that shit costing you?”
“What? The hotel?”
He nodded.
“A hundred and fifty a night, I think. I have no idea what one of those crappy little sheds is worth. I’ll have to get my assistant to check it out for me tomorrow.” Thinking about Juliette, I knew she would have my back, but Slattery paid her to.
“How much time do you need. A week? Two?”
“Yeah, about that, I suppose.” I wasn’t sure what he was getting at.
Rising to his feet, he held out his hand. “C’mon. Let’s go pack up your shit. You’re going to stay with me until you find a place.”
“Ryan…” I stared at his hand, then at his face, then at his hand again. “I—”
“Shut it for once in your life, Jade,” he snapped. “You don’t need room service, you need a friend.” He shoved his hand further across the table. “C’mon.”
I was completely shell-shocked, and it took me a full minute for his words to sink in. Stay with Ryan? At his place? Ryan Harper? It felt daring, dangerous, and completely fucking nuts…and totally something I would do.
Shoving to my feet, I slipped my hand into his. “Then let’s go pack up my shit.”
6
Ryan
“Tell me why we’re here again?”
I glanced down at Jade and smirked. She’d been complaining since the moment she’d gotten up, all through breakfast, and all the way to Pulse. She was definitely not a morning person.
“I told you,” I replied, nudging her toward the doors. “You need new people in your life.”
“But why does it have to involve six a.m.?”
“Free rent.”
Her shoulders sagged, and she shuffled forward, her trainers scraping across the concrete, her rolled-up yoga mat dangling behind her. Despite myself, I glanced down at her ass, which was clad in a thin layer of Lycra. I didn’t need an imagination to know what was underneath, and I resisted the urge to rearrange my cock. She was about to go inside and get all flexible, after all.
Shit. What had I gotten myself into?
Yesterday, I’d gone with her to the hotel she was holed up in, helped her pack her things, and brought her back to my place in Richmond.
To say I was nervous for her to see the four walls I called home was an understatement. I was a minimalist, but it was more from never having money to throw around on frivolous shit than the desire to own a bunch of stuff. The sentiment was still true because now that I could afford it, there was nothing I wanted unless it was essential to my survival in the asshole-ish, first world kind of way. Like a microwave. Or a blender.
Basic essentials, check. Fancy floor rug, what the fuck did I need that shit for?
I lived alone in a renovated apartment building just off Church Street—which was pretty much a straight shot up to Pulse by tram—the top floor, one-bedroom palace was more than I’d ever had in my entire life. Stainless steel appliances and underfloor heating weren’t things I thought I would ever have in my lifetime, yet there I was.
When Jade had stepped across the threshold, I’d expected her to turn her nose up at my attempt at keeping a home, but she didn’t have anything to say about it. Instead, she went straight to the fridge, opened it, and grunted when she saw the contents. A bottle of tomato sauce that was past its expiration date, two eggs, half a head of lettuce, and a rotten tomato.
When I offered to sleep on the couch so she could take my bed, she’d declined. Jade camping out on cheap Ikea furniture. Never thought I would see the day, but there she was, her overflowing suitcase jammed against the wall, her makeup case beside the basin in my bathroom, and her shoes—all ten pairs with fancy designer names inside them—lined up by the door.
Following her into Pulse Fitness, I swiped my security tag at the inner door and let us inside.
“So how much time do you spend here?” Jade asked, looking around. “That woman yesterday—”
“Lori.”
“Lori… She said you trained six days a week. That seems like a lot. Is it a lot?”
“Yeah, six days.” I grinned, kind of happy she was showing an interest in what I did. “I come in at seven and usually leave by three.”
“Eight hours, six days a week?” Her mouth fell open. “What do you do all day?”
I shrugged. “Weights, cardio, skills.”
“Do you fight?”
I pointed to the mesh cage at the back of the warehouse. “Yeah. Can’t be a fighter without training hands on.”
She made a face, and when she saw Ash messing about with some equipment, her eyes widened again.
“Do you fight him?”
This time, I laughed, slapping my hand against my stomach. “First, that’s my coach, and yeah, he’s decked me a few times, and second, there are weight classes. When I’m pro, I’ll only fight guys of similar size.”
“When you’re pro?” She tilted her head to the side. “I thought you already were?”
“I am, it’s just… I’m not really until I front up for my first fight.”
“When’s that?”
“What’s with the cross-examination, J?” I asked, her line of questioning hitting an inevitable sore spot.
She rolled her eyes and sneered. “Just asking.”
“Yoga is through there.” I pointed to the first room along the right wall. Inside, the lights were on and several women, including the instructor, were already setting up.
Jade craned her neck. “So how does this work? Who do I pay?”
“I’ve got you,” I replied.
“I’m not poor, you know.” She let out a little humph, and I was surprised she didn’t put her hands on her hips and stamp her foot. Looked like her cushy life with trust fund wanker Hunter Ballinger had softened her edges.
“Are you always this prickly, or are you hangry?”
�
�Hangry?” she repeated, her voice becoming almost an octave higher. “What’s that mean?”
“So hungry you’re angry.”
“Ugh,” she declared with a pout. “Some things never change, do they, Harper?”
“Doesn’t look like it. You still have a little princess in you.”
Her mouth fell open, and she slapped me on the arm, her palm cracking against my skin.
“You’re too easy,” I said with a laugh. “Besides, you’ll have to hit harder than that.”
“Maybe I’ll take a boxing class and use your ball sack to practice my right hook on.”
My lips curved, and I shook my head. There she was. The Jade Forsyth I remembered with the face of an angel and the mouth of a devil.
“You were baiting me!” she almost shrieked.
I shrugged and turned, striding across the gym and leaving her hanging.
Changing into my training kit, my mind went over the night before. Sleeping one room away from the woman who’d ruined me without even knowing she’d had the power to save me. Jade had never looked twice, and now I’d gone completely insane and offered my home to her. To this day, she still didn’t know.
When I reemerged on the gym floor, Jade had disappeared into the studio where a dozen women were setting up their brightly colored yoga mats. Cracking my knuckles, I watched as she made herself at home, rolling out her mat and stretching her arms over her head. The movement made her tits stick out, and my gaze dropped. Fuck me…
Cole stood beside me and followed my line of sight right into studio one.
“Dude, that’s Jade Forsyth?” he asked, watching her mingle with the other yoga-loving women. “The redhead?”
“Yeah,” I muttered.
“Damn.” He whistled. “What’s she doing here?”
“She’s going through a hard time,” I replied. “I’m helping her out.”
“Helping her out, you say?”
“I’m not helping her on my cock, so shut it.”
Cole snorted. “If you say so. I’m guessing you’ve seen her little waist, round ass, and perfect palm-sized tits?”
“This isn’t about sex,” I said irritably. “That was a long time ago, and she never knew, and she still doesn’t, so keep your fucking mouth shut.”