A laugh rolls through me, completely delighted by this turn of events. Ryan, Mr. Michelin Chef, is a fast-food lover just like me.
After scarfing our meals in the food court, Ryan takes my hand as we both roll our suitcases behind us to the parking lot where a 4Runner truck is parked. But not just any ole 4Runner truck…it’s a nice one. He’s clearly had a lot done to it. It looks lifted, has big tires and blacked-out windows. It fits him. Still something I could 100 percent picture Ryan driving in high school, but with a much cooler twist. (An expensive-looking twist.) It’s a simple thing, but I love that I get to know what he drives. What his guilty pleasure food is. That he wears socks with his PJs.
I’m high on delight by the time we load into his truck and make our way toward his place, feeling so joyful I could bust.
And that’s why I rotate in my seat so my back is against the door and curl my legs up in the seat.
“What are you doing?” Ryan asks, glancing at me and then back to the road.
“Staring at you.”
This amuses him, but I’m dead serious.
“That’s creepy.”
“Maybe I’m a little creepy then. Get used to it. You’re too pretty not to stare at.”
Ryan just shakes his head slightly as he moves his hand to my knee and keeps his focus on the road. We don’t talk the rest of the drive, and he lets me stare at him the whole time. I lay my head against the seat and watch the interstate lights flash behind his head, something soft and folky playing on the radio.
I catch myself thinking something that I haven’t thought in a long time.
So this is what happy feels like?
Chapter 24 June
“Oh, I see now! You’re loaded,” I say as soon as Ryan and I walk through the front door of his“apartment.” And I mean apartment in the most sarcastic way possible, because this place is bigger than my house. And I have a pretty good size house.
He laughs. “Something like that.”
I give Ryan some serious side-eye before walking deeper into the apartment. My eyes bounce from the exposed brick wall to the six-foot windows and then draw a line all the way up the enormous ceilings more fit for a cathedral than a home. There’s a black slate fireplace against the exterior wall, and exactly the kind of kitchen you would expect to find in a famous chef’s home just beyond the main living room.
The thing that strikes me the most, though, is his apartment doesn’t smell like him. There’s not a hint of his cool, spicy man scent anywhere. Maybe it’s because every surface in this place is made from brick, or wood, or slate, or steel, and his scent has nothing to grab on to. I mean, don’t get me wrong, this place is INCREDIBLE. But it’s the kind of incredible that makes you want to just hover by the door and snap a photo while passing by instead of going inside and getting comfy.
It’s sterile and a little cold. But then again, maybe that’s just because Jake was right and it’s freaking cold outside here. How anyone survives with that wind chill is beyond me.
“You hate it,” Ryan says without even the slightest bit of offense in his voice.
I gasp and dramatically cover my heart. “Hate it? No! I’m just…taking it all in, and ohmygosh what is this thing?!” I rush into the living room and point an accusatory finger at the couch (if you can call it that).
Ryan isn’t surprised. He’s smiling. “My couch.”
“No!” I say, taking great offense. “This, sir, is an oversize brick covered in uncomfortable leather.” I tap the metal armrests. “A couch should not be reflective.”
“I agree.”
“Then why do you have it?!”
“It came with the apartment. All this did. I bought it fully furnished.”
I’m sure I look as if I’ve just witnessed a grisly murder. “Ryan. No. Tell me that’s not true. How do you manage to live here with it so…uncomfortable?”
His smile fades a little as he walks over to drop our bags by the kitchen island. “I don’t. Not really. I sleep here maybe five hours a night, and then I go to the gym, and then to work. Rinse and repeat. It’s how I’ve lived my whole adult life.”
My heart tugs for him. “That must be exhausting. How do you keep that up?”
He gives me a no-big-deal shrug and heads into the kitchen. I follow him, watching as he pours a glass of water and takes a long drink. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and then sees that I’m still waiting for him to expound. “I haven’t had a choice. That’s what it takes to be successful in my industry.”
I don’t know how to feel about that. Something is prickling at me, but I can’t figure it out.
Ryan sees my furrowed brows and comes to stand in front of me. He takes his thumb and runs it across the area between my brows and then smiles when my face softens. “Better.”
He kisses my cheek and then my jaw and then my neck. The slight scruff of his five o’clock shadow tickles the sensitive skin on my neck, and chill bumps erupt down my arms. Just as I’m ready to melt in his arms and gear up for an all-night kiss fest, he pulls away. “I’m going to get a shower. Make yourself comfortable.”
He moves around me, but this time, I’m the one to catch him by the arm and pull him back to me. “Ryan…” I started this sentence, but I don’t know the exact words to finish it. I want to tell him how I feel about him. How he scares me and comforts me at the same time. But I can’t say it yet, so instead, I wrap my arms around his waist and squeeze him tightly.
“If you’re going to miss me that much, you can come with me into the shower if you want.”
It’s like he knows I’m going to retaliate and preemptively tries to block my assault by clenching his arms down. Doesn’t matter; my fingers are tiny, and I’m able to wiggle them past his muscled arms to dig them into his sides, making him laugh until he’s dying for air. But I’m ruthless and don’t care if Ryan breathes, so I keep going until I think he has dislocated a rib from laughter.
After I’ve sufficiently tortured him, he goes to get a shower, and when I hear the water turn on, I briefly contemplate taking him up on his offer. But then I shake off the thought, because I’m not quite ready to take that step with him yet. I still don’t know exactly what will happen with Ryan and me, and I want to wait until I feel more secure about what we are.
The second reason I don’t want to go in there is because I get a few minutes of uninterrupted relaxation (read: snooping) time without Ryan. I didn’t really do that much snooping, though…is what I will tell him if he catches me. But really, I go through EVERYTHING. It’s so ridiculously boring, though. This man has no skeletons in his closets. His drawers are empty. The desk has never been touched. Not even a single dust bunny under his bed.
Huh. He really doesn’t live here. I think he left more of a footprint at my house than in his own, and I’m not sure what to make of that.
Since playing Sherlock ended up being a bore, I go to my luggage and start to unpack into his guest room drawers (they are empty too). I unzip my bag, and my eyes immediately zero in on something that I know for sure I didn’t pack. It’s the pile of applications Stacy gave me to look over. There’s something new, though. A yellow note is stuck to the top of the pile.
You don’t need these.—Ryan
One second ago, I was fine. Now, a knot is forming in my throat, and I think I’m going to sob.
You know that moment where you use an old hair tie, and you think you can squeeze one more loop around your ponytail, but then, out of nowhere, it snaps and shoots across the room? I’m the hair tie. Ryan’s confidence has me launching across the room to my phone, tears leaking down my face.
I’m so glad he’s still in the shower right now and not here to witness this breakdown. Because that’s what it is: my final breakdown. The one I’ve been putting off for five years.
I look around for somewhere private, but Ryan’s whole apartment is like one giant co-working space where everything echoes and no one can sneak any funny YouTube videos without alerting the whole office. But I need to make this call, so I stuff myself into Ryan’s closet and shut the door. After sliding to the floor and leaning back against the wall below his dress shirts, I call the one person I need to talk to most right now.
“Stacy!” I say when the call connects.
“June? What’s wrong?”
“I’m in Ryan’s closet!” I sound hysterical.
“Did he put you in there?!”
“What? No. I came to Chicago with him because I love him, and now I’m sitting on the floor of his closet while he’s taking a shower.” I say it all like Stacy is the dumbest person in the world for not assuming that first.
There’s a long pause followed by Stacy starting to say something, but then pausing again, and then starting over. “Okay, Junie, you’re gonna have to start from the beginning, because I tried to catch myself up, and the dots just aren’t connecting. Why are you in his closet?”
