GRIND

by MEGAN MATTHEWS

  My mouth falls open at his playful and bossy tone, but it doesn’t mess with his smile. The man is unperturbed, which frustrates me. Rather than remind him I’m maimed, I move on to the next pressing topic.

  “What’s that?” I point to the table in question.

  He cocks an eyebrow in my direction and raises a hand like he’s about to check for a temperature, but I bat it away. “A coffee table.”

  “I realize it’s a coffee table, Ryland. Where did it come from?”

  “First, call me Ry. My mother’s the only person who calls me Ryland. Second, I bought the table this morning.”

  “You bought a table this morning?” My wrapped foot rests on the floor, the throbbing pressure increasing by the minute. It must be the reason I’m hearing his answers wrong.

  He slides the table a few inches closer. “Yeah, I stopped by to wake you up this morning and noticed you didn’t have one. I picked it up down the road and they delivered it an hour later.”

  My eyes rise to the ceiling as I work through everything he’s said.

  “When in the hell did you wake up?” And when in the hell did this furniture store open? It’s not even nine on a Sunday. The French toast we eat each weekend at our girls' brunch meeting is the singular reason I get up before noon this day of the week.

  He leans back on the couch with one arm stretched out across the back. “The correct thing to say here is thank you.”

  I lock my lips together and there’s no way my face doesn’t go a little pink. “Um, right? Thank you. Really.”

  “No problem. You needed a table to prop your foot up.” His eyes drop to my foot at its place on the carpet. “Which you should have up right now. Come on. Get it up here."

  Ryland grabs a loose pillow from behind him and places it on the table, arranging my foot to balance on top. It stings each place he touches, but I refuse to tell him for fear he’ll blame it on the lack of earlier propping.

  “There. I’ll get you an ice pack and another pill, but be a good girl and eat your breakfast.”

  I scowl at him but reach for the bagel as he hands it to me. The phone I’ve carried around vibrates with a low battery warning, and I send Aspen a text about missing brunch and promise to call and give her details later.

  We chew in silence for a few minutes as I try to think of an acceptable topic for conversation. He bought me a coffee table. I need to be polite, but my personal knowledge of Ryland Bates is nonexistent.

  Sure I read his wiki page and scrolled through the many search pages with pictures of him, a hot model type on his arm for every red carpet event. I even skimmed the newspaper articles about the various trouble he’s been in with the soccer league.

  Okay fine. I stalked him online. Is it so wrong? I refuse to fall into the same trap as Aspen last June. I won’t live next to a guy I haven’t searched thoroughly. Sure, it worked out for her, but the journey was hell on all of us.

  Still, research aside, there wasn’t much about Ryland’s personal life to be found online. Most of my information came from Finn. He went to Stanford with Finn, Trey, and Grant, but left to pursue soccer before graduating. Nothing I've learned about Ryland lends itself to acceptable conversation for breakfast in my living room.

  I pick a few pieces of fluff off my well-worn pony pants and prepare to discuss the oldest fallback imaginable, the weather, when Ryland beats me to it.

  “So, when do you go back to work?” At least it’s easy to answer.

  “Tuesday. The doctor wrote me a note for Monday, and I should be off the pain meds by then. I’ll keep my foot propped at work and ice any swelling if I go back.” I repeat back the doctor’s instructions to keep the conversation going longer.

  He chews the last piece of his bagel. “Well, tomorrow I’ll give you the code to the elevator and you can use it until you’re off the crutches."

  “What? No. I can’t do that. I’ll figure it out.”

  Ryland shakes his head at me and sighs. “You won’t figure it out, Marissa, because I already have. I’m being nice. Stop fighting me on everything.”

  “I don’t fight you on everything.” The words tumble out of my mouth before I realize what I’ve said. “I don’t want to bother you while you’re here.”

  It’s true. I don’t want to bother Ryland, but more importantly I don’t want to walk in on him and one of the many girls he's been pictured with. Voyeurism isn’t a turn on for me and he doesn’t come off as an only on the bed type of guy.

  “If you want to waste your breath, keep arguing,” he starts, “but since you’ll be in the elevator come Tuesday, let’s save the time.”

  “Excuse me?”

  He points a finger to my foot. “You can barely walk on crutches. You won’t make it up four flights of stairs, so unless you plan to stay with a friend or want me to carry you up them every day, the elevator is your option.”

  The corners of my lips tip up as I remember flashes of my dream. Then they twist into a frown as I realize he’s right. There’s no other way to get to and from my apartment once I go back to work. I hate when he’s right. His smug little smile as I work it out adds to my irritation.

  “Fine.”

  “You mean, thank you.” He takes the now empty plate from my hand.

  I blow a piece of brown hair out from my eyes. “Thank you, Ryland.”

  “Ry, remember?” he chastises me from the kitchen.

  I’m thankful. I really am. Ryland and I’ve come a long way since our first meeting. It’s more than I hoped for. With anyone else I'd maintain the acceptable amount of grateful, but there is this piece of Ryland that sets me off. His presence conflicts mine. In the kitchen the man in question flicks at the list of rules still stuck to my fridge and turns back to me.

  “If you didn’t want to rent this place out, why did you offer it so cheap?” I ask as I prop myself into a better position against the couch arm.

  “What makes you think I didn’t want someone to live here?” He takes his place back on his side of the couch.

  “Really?” My eyes widen in disbelief. “Have you read the list of rules you make people sign?”

  He laughs, but it’s humorless. “My dad. He didn’t want one of my places to sit empty. Kept making suggestions he and my mother could move out here. I needed a renter quickly, but I wanted a nice quiet tenant. The Commandments were my way of ensuring I wouldn’t be annoyed in my own home.”

  Now it’s my turn to laugh. “A thousand bucks for this place in the heart of the city? There isn’t a rule alive to keep someone away from a deal like this. People would sign over their first born to live here.”

  “Yeah, I figured out my mistake when the real-estate company called with an agreement within an hour of its listing.”

  “Did it work?”

  “Finding a tenant that doesn’t annoy me?” He raises an eyebrow and cocks his head to the side in complete dispassion. "No.”

  “Trust me. You’re a real peach to live with too.” The insult slips out and I immediately feel bad. He brought me breakfast…… and a coffee table. I look up to offer an apology, but catch Ryland suppressing a tiny grin. He’s not upset as I expected. “The lease. Did your dad stop asking?”

  “Yeah for a while. Then they kicked me off the team and now he has a new list of worries.” He smiles and stares at the wall like he’s lost in a memory.

  “What happened?” I question when I can’t think of a single reason to smile over being kicked off his soccer team.

  He sighs and leans back getting comfortable or settling in for a long story. I’m not sure which. “It was a long time coming. I’ve been trying to get kicked off the team for years. It took forever.”

  I lean back in shock. “You wanted to get kicked off?”

  “It’s a long story.” He adjusts his green basketball shorts. “Short version. Obreski, our goalie, mouthed off and called me a nickname he knows I hate. Shutting him up was the final straw for our coach. Worth it.” He’s smiling again.
r />   “What’d he call you?” I imagine a list of horrible names bad enough for Ryland to throw a punch or however he “shut him up.”

  Ryland stares at me for the longest minute known to mankind, maybe deciding if I’m worthy of his story. “You ask a lot of questions.”

  “You suck at answering them,” I retort.

  He tries to smooth his hair back, but it’s so short it doesn’t matter. It must be a tick from when he had a longer cut as in so many of his pictures online. “Fine, I'll tell you.”

  I wait, but he doesn’t start until I wave a hand in his direction to hurry him up.

  “He called me Ryland the Rhinoceros. It’s a stupid name from when I played in high school, Ryland the Rhino.”

  His serious face makes me snort at the nickname. “Yeah I can see that.” Ryland’s huge. Even in a room of soccer players, I imagine he towers over them. His body isn't weight lifter big, but his chest proportions fit with his overall build, adding to his size. Plus, he’s bossy. Rhinos are bossy. Probably.

  I lift my head expecting him to laugh with me, but his face is tight. His lips are a straight line and any earlier humor from our conversation left his eyes over the last minute.

  “I mean kids are mean and not very creative.” I try to backtrack.

  “Goalies are asshole. Obreski knew it’d piss me off, but he didn’t expect the left hook.” Now his lips turn up like he’s told his own joke.

  The room goes quiet around us until I can’t stand the silence. “So what is your plan now?”

  He rubs his smooth jaw for a moment. “Hmm, right now I will get you an ice pack and pain pill.”

  “Will you plug my phone in?” I’d try and get up to do it myself, but I still haven’t seen my crutches and I’ve given up my bravado. My ankle hurts. I’m ready for another dose of meds.

  Ryland wanders around my apartment more and I don’t fight it. I’m not capable of stopping him anyway. I’m a little shocked and confused about the man. On the one hand, he's a jerk soccer player with such an attitude and temper problem he gets kicked off his team. He has a list of outrageous commandments for living in his apartment because he didn’t want anyone here. And let’s not forget he left me a slew of sticky notes documenting my every transgression.

  Yet he’s also helped me immensely the last two days. He didn’t need to tuck me into bed. And then breakfast and allowing me to use his elevator until I’m healed. He's gone above and beyond. He doesn’t come off as a super nice guy. It’s easier to believe he took pity on the crying girl than the fact he might not be a douche. I’m sure once I’m walking again he’ll forget and we’ll go back to sticky notes on the door for communication.

  “Here you go.” He hands me the pill and I turn my head when I swallow so he won’t see the effort it takes me to get the horse pill down.

  Ryland sits on the couch and moves my foot and pillow to rest on top of his legs. He places a large professional-looking ice pack over my ankle and foot. This isn’t a cheap bag of ice wrapped in a white towel, the frozen bright green square is shaped in a half circle, perfect for wrapping around a leg or foot.

  “Where’d you get that from?” I point toward the ice as he repositions it to cover more of my foot, the cold biting into my skin as it seeps past the wrap.

  With an upraised eyebrow he shakes his head at me. “I’m an athlete. I buy them in bulk. I stuck a few in my freezer last night. Now get comfy. I’ll hold this until you fall asleep."

  Now it’s my turn to shake my head at him. “I’m not going to fall asleep.” He’s crazy. I’ve barely been up half an hour.

  “Uh-huh.” It doesn’t sound as if he believes me.

  “For real. Tell me about soccer. What position do you play?”

  On top of my pink pony pajama pants, Ryland rubs my shin above the bandage. His hand is moving the playful ponies as he talks. It seems a subconscious reflex, but my eyes won’t stop watching. Up and down his hand travels until my head falls back on the arm of the couch and the room goes dark as my eyes close.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I check my reflection in the elevator’s mirrored surface and smooth down the few flyaway hairs on top of my head. Yesterday Ryland worked for over an hour with me on how to use crutches. It’s difficult, but at least I’m not a total mess on them any longer. This morning as I prepped for my first day back to work, I dressed extra nice in my favorite black business suit with a slimming pink blouse. I didn’t dress nicely so Ryland would visualize me in clothes other than pajama pants with ponies on them. I did it for work.

  It didn’t matter. I fumbled out my door and was met by a Post-it note stuck to the front of Ryland’s. The man loves his sticky notes. His chicken scratch scrawl on the bright yellow paper let me know he’d started a morning run but left the door unlocked. I wasn’t let down or anything. It’s better I wasn’t forced to deal with his attitude so early in the day.

  Nine hours later and for unknown reasons, my nerves are ratcheted. I’m not sure what I’ll find in Ryland’s apartment. It looked normal the two other times I've been in it, but you never know with playboy athletes. What if there’s a girl with him tonight?

  The elevator ride takes forever, longer than I remember, and as the doors open, I slam my eyes shut. Balancing a crutch under my arm I hold out a hand to stop the door from closing and listen. Nothing. I hold my breath and listen harder but still don’t pick up any sound. There’s no girly giggles or man grunting.

  The Cubs have a better chance of winning the pennant than I have of making it home with crutches and my eyes closed, so with the expectation Ryland’s gone I peel them open. I blink to adjust and jerk back, but I catch myself before I fall. Ryland, in nothing but a bright blue towel, leans against the wall at the end of the hallway.

  His body glistens with drops of water on his exposed chest and thick arms. Holy crap. My lower lip falls a fraction as my eyes roam over his muscled torso. I try to count abs, but the towel disrupts my view and I’m forced to stop at six.

  Ryland laughs and I jerk my head to meet his bright blue eyes.

  “See something you like, Kitten?”

  “What?” I sputter and hobble down the hallway past him.

  He follows two steps behind me even though he could easily catch up. “Why are you flustered?” The man won’t leave well enough alone and let me leave with dignity.

  I refuse to be embarrassed by him. With my head held high, I stop before I answer. “This.” With a raised hand I indicate his toweled self. “Or there'd be a girl here, and I’d walk in on your freaky business.”

  He laughs. More with the damn laughing. What’s funny about this situation?

  “Marissa, I have no intention of having any woman but you here.”

  Ryland reaches his door before me and holds it open so I’m not forced to stop. My movements may be jerky, but they get me closer and closer to the safety of my apartment.

  I steal one last look at his chiseled chest before stopping in the hallway to yell out, “And don’t call me Kitten!” seconds before his door clicks closed. But he heard me.

  My steps slow the closer I get to my door as fatigue sets in. No one tells you how much coordination goes into using crutches. I’m exhausted from the small amount of walking I used them for today.

  I’m tired and my underarms hurt almost as much as my foot. But against the odds, there’s a smile stretched across my face by the time I unlock my apartment. The sight of my flower and swirl mat helps as it sits proudly right in front of my door in the hallway. It's been there since Sunday night. Neither of us has acknowledged it, and I refuse to ask Ryland why he moved it back.

  Maybe Ryland Bates isn’t such a playboy jerk face after all.

  **

  I balance a crutch on the wall and push the escaped hairs back into my loose bun using the elevator mirror. The entire scene reminds me of my trip upstairs yesterday. I haven’t seen Ryland today — he'd already left for another run this morning — and I can’t decide if I’d prefer a
repeat performance with his almost naked body or if it’d be better for him to be clothed this time. Clothed probably; although, naked towel sounds more fun.

  Arrogant.

  Playboy.

  Too tall.

  Jerk face.

  I mentally list off Ryland’s undesirable qualities as the elevator climbs floors. It helps to remind myself of the reasons I am not sporting a crush on Ryland Bates. He’s my landlord, and even if there’s a small part of me in the pro-Ryland camp, there are rules I must follow. One rule in particular. Number nine.

  I’m comfortable enough to step off the elevator with my eyes open today. It’s quiet as I walk into the large open area. As was the case when I assumed things about Ryland before, I’m wrong again. What I’m met with today is worse than yesterday.

  Smack dab in the middle of the area Ryland’s stretched out on a yoga mat in the downward facing dog position, his ass in my direction. I stop and gape at him unsure what comment’s appropriate in this situation. Is there one?

  His eyes open and he looks at me through his legs. They’re a nice frame to his pretty face, but I wouldn’t complain if his grey track pants were tighter.

  “What in the hell are you doing, Ryland?”

  “Yoga.”

  I groan at his simple answer. “Yes, I see that, but why?”

  He stands from his pose and walks to the kitchen, me close on his heels. This I need to know.

  “Yoga is good for muscle strength and flexibility.” He grabs a bottle of water from his stainless steel fridge and hands me one.

  I take a seat on one of his tall stools pulled up to the breakfast bar. “Do all soccer players do yoga?”

  “What do you know about soccer?” he asks leaning against the back counter.

  Hmm. I remember he talked about the sport this weekend after we ate breakfast, but pain and the meds muffled most of what he said. “Um, I know that David Beckham used to be hot.”

  “Really?” he asks with narrowed eyes.

  I sigh and toy with the lid to my water. “You’re right. Who am I kidding, he’s still hot.”