I smiled back. “Don’t tempt me.”
The truth was, he inspired me with every single syllable that passed his lips, and with the way he smiled at me, and the way he laughed at my terrible jokes. I wanted to write him a thousand songs and make sure, as the world loved them, he understood that it was also the world loving him.
The moment between us settled, and after a beat, I sobered. There was a weight to what he was asking—one I didn’t know if he was actually aware of.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen with my career, but you need to understand it might turn into a lot for you.”
He frowned. “For me?”
“People are invasive. There are going to be fans who, for whatever reason, are overly fixated on me and Raleigh, and they will hate you simply for getting in the way of that.”
He wrinkled his nose and sighed. “That’s…ridiculous, but I also get it. I teach high school kids,” he clarified when I frowned at him. “I know about fandom.”
I shuddered at the word, but only because of the shit I’d been subjected to over the years. There were days it felt like strangers were trying to rewrite my reality with my ex, and I hadn’t looked in those spaces since the accident and had no plans to ever look again.
But I was also afraid that those strangers would have some kind of power over my future with Ryan, and that gutted me.
“Don’t look like that,” Ryan said quietly. He stood up and extended his hand. “Come with me.”
I let him pull me to my feet, and he tugged me back into my room—though it felt like ours now. Since he got here, his suite had been nothing but a space for his suitcases. Our bed together was a mess still, the impressions of our heads on the pillows, and the lingering scent of us being together that afternoon hung in the air.
Tugging me close, he set his hands at my waist and kissed me, soft and slow. “I don’t want you to be afraid.”
“I…” I wanted to say I wasn’t, but I couldn’t lie to him. “I wish I could explain what it feels like.”
“I get it, but I need you to trust me. I’m not walking into this completely ignorant. We can keep as much privacy as we can manage. We can move houses if it gets ugly. I can delete all my socials if I need to. Trust me,” he added when I sucked in a breath to tell him he shouldn’t have to do all that, “I won’t miss them.”
I leaned against him, letting my temple rest against his.
“I think we’re probably both a little, you know, nuts for jumping in like this,” he murmured softly against my ear. “It’s so fast, and we met in such a weird fucking way.”
I burst into laughter. “Yeah, we really did.”
He pulled back and looked at me. “Maybe, for us, it had to be weird. If it wasn’t for that night, I would have kept going in a job I hated until I burned out and…I don’t know, crashed my ambulance into the side of a Taco Bell.”
“That is very specific.”
He grinned, but he looked a little bit sad, which I understood. “I’d given a lot of scenarios a lot of thought. I was in this horrible place where I didn’t want to actively, you know, die? But I also wouldn’t have minded not waking up in the morning.”
“Ryan. Sweetheart,” I whispered. The truth was, I knew how he felt. After too fucking many hard PT sessions where I couldn’t get my legs to move the way I wanted, I’d had similar thoughts. It had been a long time since I was plagued by them, but the memories were fresh.
“I’m okay now,” he said, then kissed me. “I really am.”
“Me too.”
His smile was a little brighter this time. “I can tell. I can feel it. And the thing is, if I can deal with the weight of that bullshit, I can deal with the weight of strangers who don’t like me just because I exist. They don’t matter to me. They won’t. The only one who does is you, and I know you’ll be coming home to me every night you can.”
I wanted to believe him. I needed to trust him because I couldn’t let what-ifs ruin something good. What-ifs had controlled me in the past, and that had led to nothing but pain.
“My ex will probably write songs about us,” I told him.
Ryan rolled his eyes. “I’ve listened to their new stuff, and it’s garbage anyway. You can’t insult me with garbage.”
I laughed, yanking him so hard we both toppled onto the bed. He straddled me as we attempted to move into the center of the messy blankets, and he pinned my arms above my head before leaning in to take my mouth with his own.
“I like you so much,” he murmured against my lips.
When he pulled back, I stared into his eyes. “I more than like you. But we can revisit that later. When we’re not here in this little fantasy.”
