His hand snuck under the hem of her shirt, fingers tracing along her spine. The collective thudding of their hearts drowned out the blaring car alarm outside, the barking dog upstairs, the ringing cell phone.
Okay, maybe not the cell phone.
“Hey, Lewis.” Peter leaned across the opposite counter, pinching the bridge of his nose. Ryleigh was left reeling, still wrapped up in his scent and taste as she watched him take the call. He manufactured concise responses. “What’s the situation?” A shallow sigh. “Text me the address. I’ll handle it.” Finally, as he disappeared in the hall, “Not a problem.”
“Do you have to leave?” Ryleigh called. She pressed her kiss-swollen lips together and shut an eye while awaiting the dreaded response.
He re-emerged, stuffing a mustard shirt into his slacks. Peter fumbled with his belt. “Shit. I’m sorry. They need me. It’s a breaking story and they want to put it to press tonight. I’ll only be gone for an hour, maybe less.”
Be cool about it. Don’t act like a kid.
“You’re just doing your job. You don’t owe me an apology.” She leaped from the counter, bare feet smacking the chilled tile. Ryleigh poured a mug of coffee and assaulted the dark roast with a generous splash of creamer. “I’ll be here when you get back.”
Peter kissed her forehead in parting and, without so much as a word, he was gone.
The clicking of the front door struck her like a sharp slap across the face. She wanted to believe that they could pick up where they left things upon his return, but Ryleigh knew him better than that. Peter could not handle disruptions. He would need time to recalibrate.
They would have to wait. Yet again.
The crinkling sound of paper bags gave Peter pause when he returned to the apartment with a sack of Chinese takeout in tow.
“Ry?” he called, moving through the hall.
Warmth spread throughout his body at the sight of Ryleigh moseying about the kitchen, unloading brown bags of groceries. Bare-faced, hair pulled back and clad in an oversized sweatshirt, she was as beautiful as ever.
Setting the takeout on the breakfast bar—aka the dining table—he teased, “I’m gone for an hour and you go grocery shopping.”
“Peter, all you had in your fridge was coffee creamer and half a sleeve of bagels.”
“You didn’t know? Those are the Rosenfeld staples.” She did not laugh, and her expression became pinched as she continued unpacking the items. Is she annoyed with me? The thought constricted his throat. Peter tried again. “How much do I owe you?”
“Not a thing. I just want you to—” Ryleigh stopped herself. Palms planted on the counter’s edge, her glossy eyes landed on him. “Sorry.”
He hated that she had to see him that way: weakened and defenseless under the thumb of his depression. Though he was ashamed for dragging her into this aspect of his life, one, she already knew about it, and two, it felt good to have someone so concerned about his well-being. Someone besides his mother.
Pointing to the Chinese food, he joked, “I’ll eat, but I’m going to need some help. I think they gave us 10 pounds of lo mein.”
A small smile tugged at Ryleigh’s lips. “I’m a little worried about you. That’s all.”
“Don’t worry about me. You’ve got enough going on.” He wriggled out of his coat and laid it across a barstool before going over to her, hand instantly finding her hips as if they both had opposing ends of magnets embedded in their skin. “I’ve been taking care of myself long before you came around.” Brow wrinkled, Peter asked, “You didn’t go in the bedroom, did you?”
“No. Why?”
“Because,” he mumbled, pressing a trio of kisses onto her lips, “I have a surprise for you. Close your eyes.”
To his surprise, Ryleigh obliged without a single complaint, permitting Peter to guide her to the bedroom.
“Keep them closed,” he said once they were inside. An adrenaline rush raced through him as he plugged in the fairy lights and turned back to her. “Alright. Open them.”
Her lids fluttered open, ocean eyes gleaming under the glow of the strung lights. Peter’s pulse quickened knowing that he would get to wake up to those bewitching eyes all weekend, and if he was lucky, every weekend thereafter.
“You did this for me?” Her voice trembled, hand moving to cover her mouth. Ryleigh migrated toward the shelf, spying the many used editions it housed; primarily chapbooks and some other known favorites. A tear-choked laugh escaped her lips when she stumbled across the series of vampire books he had given her grief over. “This is the sweetest thing anyone’s ever done for me.”
His mouth quirked to one side. “Sweet isn’t exactly my brand, but I believe I’d do anything to make you happy.”
She edged closer to him, casting her gaze at the bed. “I can think of something that’d make me incredibly happy right now. Ecstatic, even.”
Peter went quiet. He ached to be close to her, to show her that his love was unyielding and all-consuming.
While he had made peace with being Ryleigh’s first, something else had come along to indefinitely suspend their intimacy. He was tortured by the thought of what she would say or how she might react if she were to see his body in its current state. It was not like he was emaciated, but Peter could hardly stand to catch a glimpse of his present nude form in the mirror, and he was not about to subject the woman he loved to such a ghastly sight.
“Let’s eat dinner, yeah?” Scratching the back of his neck, he limited his focus to the carpet as he exited the bedroom.
His chest tightened like the taut skin of a drum as he fidgeted with the knot in the takeout bag. Ryleigh was indisputably the best thing that had ever happened to him in his, for the most part, uneventful existence. Peter knew he would not be able to live with himself if he fucked up their relationship, especially over something like rejecting her physical advances.
Ryleigh claimed a barstool. She propped her elbows on the counter and rested her chin on her palms. “So, you still don’t want to sleep with me, huh?”
“Look, I—”
“No, you look. You told me that you’ve never wanted anything more in your life, and that when it came time, you wanted it to be my decision.” Aiming a finger at the hall, she went on, “We were just standing in your bedroom, and you declined my very obvious invitation for sex in favor of dinner. How do you think that makes me feel? I’m ready, Peter. I’m ready to take that step with you.”
He did not intend to raise his voice, but his decibel levels took off without a signed permission slip. “Maybe I’m not.” Softer, he said, “Maybe I’m not ready.”
Ryleigh rubbed her nose, sniffling, and stared down at her feet. “Why didn’t you tell me that? God, I feel like a bitch.” She blew out a concentrated breath. “You have to be honest with me. This isn’t going to work if we don’t communicate.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t more forthright about it.”
The apology felt dirty on his tongue, because he was ready. But it could not happen like this.
“A pot of fondue? Merci beaucoup,” Ryleigh said through gritted teeth, punching the order in on the register. The dinner rush had reached its peak, and of course Reyes had the audacity to waltz in and add gasoline to the fire.
Daniel’s body quaked with laughter as he wiped away fake tears. “Man, that never gets old.”
What she would have given to skewer him with one of the metal fondue spears. Daniel had become a regular patron of the cafe, and he had developed the irritating gift of showing up when it would most annoy Ryleigh. As if his presence was not nuisance enough, a band of his student newspaper cronies always tagged along. She found it mildly humorous that every guy who had ever been outwardly attracted to her was attached to journalism.
The truth was, Daniel was not as immature as the other freshman guys, and while she tried to deny that fact, it was hard to outright ignore. Ryleigh feared the timid acceptance would serve as a gateway to rationalizing herself smack dab into an uninten
tional crush. Forget that.
“Just take your number and clear out. I’ve had a long day.” She slid the placard and receipt toward him.
“My buddy Nick said he saw you macking on some old dude a few weeks ago. What’s up with that?”
“That old dude is my boyfriend. I’ll mack on him as I please. To be honest, Daniel, your endless stream of questions regarding my personal life is getting old. Are you conducting a drawn out, undercover expose about me? If not, I’d wholly appreciate it if you chill with the third degree.”
Ryleigh’s seething speech attracted the attention of a couple raiding the condiment bar, who paused mid-reach in favor of the developing tension. She threw up a hand at them as if to demand, ‘what?’ and they went about their business.
Man, Peter was starting to wear off on her.
Pinching the bridge of her nose, she squeezed her eyes shut, remembering Min-ji’s request. “This is horribly incongruous with the tone of our chat, but I sort of promised my roommate I’d get her your number.”
He arched a square brow. “Who’s your roommate?”
“Min-ji Yang.”
Daniel produced a single, throaty laugh that was anything but genuine. “That girl from our algebra class last semester? The one who hummed Poison songs and doodled zodiac constellations all over her notebook?”
“Oddly detailed way of pointing her out, but okay.”
He waved a hand. “She sat like, two chairs down from me. Hard to miss.”
“So you say.” Ryleigh pressed her lips into a flat line.
“Whatever. Give her my number. Doesn’t mean I’m picking up if she calls.”
“Scram, Reyes. Go tend to your ragtag table of aspiring journalists. Someone else will bring your food out.”
“By the way,” he said, sliding her poetry journal across the counter, “you left this in anthro on Monday.”
Rather than crouching to cower behind the register, Ryleigh stood with her shoulders back, putting out a stoic front despite her speechlessness. She had been swamped the past few days between coursework and shifts at the cafe, completely oblivious to the missing journal. Dread turned her stomach to stone, wondering whether Daniel had the gall to read any of the personal lines etched into those precious pages.
“You’re really talented, Branson. I don’t even like poetry and I couldn’t stop reading.”
“They’re private. You shouldn’t have read them.”
“Private indeed. Skeleton Hands was my favorite. Sexy stuff. I could just visualize…” His dilated pupils traveled from her face to her torso, and back up again. Creep. “Was that one about your mystery boyfriend?”
Flames of choler lit up her cheeks. Ryleigh had written the poem to memorialize the first night Peter had dared to put his hands on her—really put his hands on her. It was a memory she could not bear the thought of losing.
“Enough, Daniel.”
He swiped the placard and raised his hands in surrender. “Alright. I’ll catch you later, sweets. I know when I’m not wanted.”
“Oh, do you?” Ryleigh mumbled to herself as Daniel retreated to his table. She glanced toward the register on the opposite end of the counter, where Ezra was trying too hard to pretend he had not overheard the exchange. “Hey. I’m going on my 15 now that it’s starting to settle down. Will you be okay on your own up front until then?”
His hazel eyes widened, magnified by the thick lenses of his glasses, as if he could not believe she was talking to him. “Me? Yeah, it’s not a problem. I mean, I’m trained on front of house stuff, so it—”
“Okay. Great.” Cutting people off was not in her wheelhouse, but after the run-in with Daniel, she performed the offense like a trained professional.
She snatched a broken-down pastry box from beneath the counter and assembled it on the short walk to the bread room. Ryleigh had been bringing Peter treats a couple of times a week, hoping his reluctance to bulk back up could be swayed by his sweet spot for carbs. While he thanked her on each occasion, she would often return to his apartment the next day to find them buried in the kitchen trash.
It seemed that, since his arrival, he had lost more weight, and that worried her greatly. Peter’s t-shirts hung looser on his wasted frame, and his work clothes were ill-fitting, giving the appearance that he had acquired them at a thrift shop that lacked offerings in his size. Ryleigh knew for a fact he slept shirtless, but since she started spending the weekends at his place she had not once seen him without a shirt, and that sharpened her fear that the situation was perhaps more dire than she initially believed.
She had half a mind to reach out for help locally on his behalf, or ring his mother and have her give him an earful.
But she was well versed on Peter’s history, and the strength he carried as a result of having narrowly defied the tightrope of life and death. Ryleigh had made a concerted effort to refrain from pressing him on the subject because she knew he had been dealing with his illness for the bulk of his adulthood, and she had no right, not even as his girlfriend, to suddenly butt in and demand that he manage it in a certain way.
For now, she resolved to stick to subtle gestures, like sweet treats.
As Ryleigh swept into the pastry room, a curious display stopped her dead in her tracks. Ivan and Kayla stood close together, too close, next to the containers of uncut loaves. More curious was the shy smile and demure look on her face. Had Ivan drugged the iced coffee she was never seen without in the afternoons? Ryleigh could conjure no other reason for their proximity, other than Kayla playing along with their manager being a total creep in order to keep her job. That, she could see.
Her focus stayed glued to the tiled floor as she booked it toward the bins that housed croissants. The shallow act of avoidance did not hold up for long. Ivan and Kayla ceased their conversation upon noticing Ryleigh stuffing croissants into the to-go box, and she cursed herself for walking into whatever mess this was.
“Ms. Branson,” Ivan said, “just what do you think you’re doing? Why aren’t you manning your register?”
“On break, Ivy.” Other managers might not have agreed to a nickname, but despite his eccentricities and endless annoying qualities, Ivan was only 30 and seemed to be indifferent about the title.
His fingers formed a steeple and pointed at her. “And, you know, your frequent pastry raids have been coming out of your paycheck, right?”
“Yeah. I know how this works. Such a great employee discount, too. 10% off. You’re so generous.”
He leaned into Kayla and spoke in a delicate whisper, far too quiet for Ryleigh to have heard. Not that she was sure she wanted to hear whatever creeptastic thing had rolled off Ivan’s tongue.
Once he left, Ryleigh asked, “What was that?”
Lips pressed together, Kayla smoothed out her striped shirt and headed for the door. “Nothing.”
Nothing my ass. Let’s go Evan Rachel Wood on this lowlife.
She peeled one of the cafe’s logo stickers off the roll, sealed the box, and pulled out her phone to text Peter for the remainder of her break.
Peter sat among the rows of reporters who occupied the lower section of retractable bleachers. Everything about the scenario turned him off, from the questionable number of people in attendance—which he was sure exceeded the gymnasium’s suggested maximum occupancy—to the nauseating co-mingling fragrance of floor wax and buttered popcorn. The greatest offender, though, was the event itself, a regional cheerleading competition. As the Willow Park squad carried out their routine, he was at a loss for what to take note of, looking on in indifference.
He thought the whole institution of high school cheerleading was largely perverted and existed solely as a way to hypersexualize insecure girls who sought attention through their distastefully mature dance moves.
Not that it mattered what Peter thought.
Ms. Reyes had been jerking him here, there and everywhere, slamming him with one random piece after the next. It was almost enough to make him beg to be
assigned a beat. Was this what he had worked 15 years toward, to have his fluff pieces skimmed over breakfast by crotchety octogenarians and 30-something executives?
Maybe the time had come to commit to his career, to take on a beat and build a meaningful, single-faceted body of work. The sort of legacy his father had griped about evermore but Peter had dismissed.
His dedication to Ryleigh urged him to re-evaluate these static corners of his life; with her by his side, he believed these changes were possible.
Then again, he also believed he would gain his weight back now that they resided in the same city, but he had only lost more. Sometimes, Peter felt guilty for keeping her out of the loop where his suffering was concerned. But, his depression had become his mistress, and hiding the details of that internal affair from Ryleigh seemed necessary to maintain peace in their relationship.
The Willow Park squad held their final poses for applause, which Peter refused to join in on. Clapping and whistling rang out, echoing off the pipe-lined rafters. He seized the brief intermission to check his phone. There were two new messages.
R: daniel is trolling me at work. i wouldn’t mind if you swung by to kick his ass.
P: I’ll have a word with this guy the first chance I get. Excuse me while I finish watching these peroxide ponytailed girls stumble around on gym mats so I can head back to the office.
The second message was from his mother.
M: Hey, sweetheart. How are you settling into your new place? Your father and I were tossing around the idea of coming down for a weekend. What do you think?
P: You guys are welcome anytime. Hopefully our visits won’t be as infrequent now that I’m a little closer.
The words were a bit forced, but he sent the text before he had a chance to change his mind and delete it. His father had defied death in his 60s and yet this failed to implant some need in Peter to mend their broken relationship. He feared that, somehow, his father’s health and its burden on his mother would lead to an endless string of fights whenever they came into town. It brought him some degree of relief that he did not have to fret over Ryleigh being exposed to the drama, since she was already acquainted with his family’s dysfunctionality.
Having Rosenfeld (Rosenfeld Duet Book 2) Page 5