Tomorrow night, I was going to bare my whole soul.
“I’m here!” Jemma yelled, her footsteps echoed on the wood floor as she ran through the house, trying to find me. “What happened?”
“Living room,” I mumbled from the couch with a pillow over my face. I came home from Ryker’s house and lay on the couch while waiting for Jemma. My breaths came out in a one, two, three pattern as I worked to steady my heart rate.
“Fuck.” Jemma lifted my feet, sat down at the end of the couch, and sat them back down on her lap. I pulled the pillow away to see her still in her purple silk pajamas and hair up in her bonnet. My heart sank at the fact that she had jumped up and come over. “I don’t know what is going on, hun.”
I stared at her, words not really coming to the surface.
“Beckett messaged me to be prepared for you to need me, and I have no idea what that means, but if it means that Ryker fucked up, then fuck him and Beckett.”
“No, not ‘fuck them’.” I tried to assure her, but it felt more like I was trying to reassure myself. I knew, in all of this, I wanted Ryker. I wanted to go back to him, but fuck, he was CovertRetriever. A gamer who’d playedLeague of Witchessince it came out. Who’d won awards for playing that very game.The same man whom I’d spent months talking to, watching his games, and had no idea because he hadn’t told me.
I sat up.
“I looked him in the eyes when that award was given,” I whispered.
He knew who I was when he met me. I mean, others knew who I was; it wasn’t a secret online, but had he sought me out? Did he plan to meet me? Had he been at other events, and I was just oblivious to him? Having a stalker trope in a romance novel was one thing, but in real life, that was something I was trying to figure out if I was okay with.
My head was spinning with all the questions, not just the ‘what ifs’, but the why now? Because I’d let him know everything last night? Did he feel guilty? Did he actually want to tell me?
My head was starting to spin. I placed my hands on the sides of my temples and kept taking in deep breaths.
“Who? Ryker?”
“Yes,” I pulled my feet off of Jemma’s lap and pulled my knees to my chest. “And no.”
“No?” She asked. “I’m so confused, Odette. What is happening?”
“CovertRetriever.”
The name lingered between us.
“What about them?” Jemma looked at me, confused.
“It’s Ryker.” I finally said after a few seconds.
“What?” Jemma’s eyes went wide. “What are you talking about?”
I took a deep breath, and she placed a hand on my knee. Jemma had been my solid rock for so long that I knew I couldn’t keep this in any longer, but once I said all of it out loud, it would all come crashing down around me, and I’d need to have answers for my next moves.
“I went to Ryker’s for dinner tonight.” I started. “He wanted to be open and honest with me. Not a lot of people know, but he showed me his office, his setup.”
I moved my legs and sat up straighter.
“Ryker is CovertRetriever.”
There it was. The full sentence of everything that had happened over the last few hours. The truth of it all. At least most of it. I knew Ryker had more to tell me, but I needed to get through this epiphany first before moving on to the rest of it.
“Shit.” Jemma ran a hand over her face and then got up. I sat alone in silence, but not for long before she came back with two glasses of water.
“You need to drink.” She held out the glass to me, refusing to sit until I started to drink. When I did, she sat back down next to me and downed half of her own cup.
“Shit, Odette,” she whispered between us.
“I know.” I set my glass down on the table next to us. “That’s how I’m feeling, trying to process it all.”
“Is it rude of me to ask if you are going to keep seeing him so soon?” Jemma’s face contorted into something, worry and confusion together. She knew me better than anyone else and knew about my past relationships. She knew how it was with gamers I’d tried to date after Parker, even ones I’d dated before him. But there was something different about Ryker; that much I knew.
