“Sounds right.” I laugh. “Go, I’ll be watching from the audience and cheering you on.”
Jacob reaches down and brushes a piece of hair behind my ear. “I’ll be watching for you.”
Why does it feel so wrong when he touches me? Why am I so overcome with relief when he walks away? My heart pounds in my throat as I instinctively turn to search the crowd for dark messy hair.
Ryan has made it clear that he only wants me in a physical way. So why does it feel like I’m betraying him, even though there’s nothing to betray?
The rest of the night goes by in a blur. I drink more wine as I watch Jacob fumble the words to “What Makes You Beautiful.” I catch flashes of Ryan in the crowd, always with a woman, always looking back at me. I let Cat and Brinley pull me onto the dance floor to sway under the disco ball. The music is so loud, I don’t have to speak or think.
Then, in the middle of “Toxic” by Britney Spears, Ryan’s body collides with mine. He looks down at me, his expression dark and forceful.
For a second, it feels like we’re the only people in the room. When I nod and walk off the dance floor, he follows me. Even though there are only ten minutes to midnight, I find a door off the main room. I take Ryan by the elbow and yank him through.
We walk into a thin hallway lit by emergency lights, lined with more doors, each with a window and a name plaque. Offices, clearly. The noise from the party dampens as the heavy door swings shut. I think I see a flash of movement from one of the offices, but before I can investigate, Ryan whirls toward me.
“You’ve been looking for me,” he says roughly.
“So were you,” I snap.
“Your date bored you already? You needed me to step in and give you what you need?”
“Are you even ready for that?” I demand. “You’ll have to give me more than some dirty talk and kinky sex. Because that’s what I need, Ryan. I needmore.”
He glowers down at me, his thick brows furrowed and doesn’t say anything.
“So?” I prompt. “Can you give me that?”
His lips part, and he sucks in a breath. My heart stops, the world suspended as I wait for him to say something. Anything.
Instead, he just shoves his hands in his pockets and stares down at his shoes.
Tears of frustration burn at the edge of my eyes. “I don’t know what you want from me, Ryan.”
He laughs, low and cold. “You don’t.” I don’t know if he’s saying it as admonishment or in disbelief.
“No, I don’t!” I shove him, my hands on his unmoving chest. “I don’t understand what you’re doing here, Ryan. You kiss me, then you give me the silent treatment. You take me to Puerto Rico and buy me the exact shoes I broke, then you tell me to go out with somebody else. You’re messing with my head.” I shove him again, because I don’t know how else to get out the storm of emotions inside me. “I don’t know why I expected anything different from a playboy like you.”
“How do you thinkIfeel?” he hisses. Suddenly, he’s inches away from me, crowding me against the other side of the hallway. “I have to watch you go on all these dates with these guys you picked at random off the internet. I have to watch that fuckingdogput his arm around you all night, like you belong to him. It’s not exactly my idea of a good fucking time, Pips.”
“That’s not fair.” My tears are threatening to spill over, and I’m afraid to blink and make them fall.
Ryan shakes his head, making a messy strand of hair fall over his forehead. “I can't do it anymore, Pips. If you’re going to keep dating other guys, then whatever we’re doing, it’s done. It’s over.”
It feels like all the air has been sucked out of my lungs. I’m in some kind of vacuum, where everything is cold and dark and unforgiving. “What, so you’re giving me an ultimatum?” I ask quietly.
Ryan takes a step away from me and leans back against the other side of the hallway. “Yeah. I guess I am.”
A few tears fall, and I brush them away. My make-up’s ruined, just like the rest of my night. “So you just want to sabotage my chances of finding real love. Because you don't actually want me. You just don't want anyone else to have me, either.”
“Yeah, well, it doesn’t matter if I want you,” he says bitterly. “It’s not like I could ever have you.”
“Why not?” The words tear out of me before I can decide if I even want to know. The land of denial is so much more tolerable than the land of reality.
Ryan shakes his head. “You fucking know why, Pips.”
Silence falls. In the distance, I hear glasses clinking as everyone gets champagne for the new year. A few overzealous people have already started counting down from three minutes. Somewhere out there, Jacob is probably looking for me.
“I should go,” I murmur.
