I quietly take a few steps away, then hustle down the side of the building back to our room.
My phone vibrates in my hand, alerting me to an incoming call just as I’m opening the door. Ryan’s picture fills the screen.
I don’t answer until I’m inside. “Hey.”
“Hey, what’s happening? Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Freaked myself out.” My voice is frazzled but I’m hoping it plays to what I’m telling him, not because of what I’ve discovered.
“I’m coming back. Hold on, I’ll be right there,” he says, and ends the call.
I shuck off my shoes and jeans, then move into the bathroom. I cut on the water in the shower before wrapping one of the thin, white towels around me. I give myself a moment to take several deep breaths in and out to slow my racing heart.
Then I hear the door opening.
“Evie!”
I poke my head out of the bathroom. “In here.”
He’s by my side in seconds. His arms pull me in and close around me like a vise. I force mine to do the same to him. “What happened?” If I didn’t know who he had just been talking to, I would be flattered by his concern.
I squeeze my eyes closed and count to five. Another deep breath in, deep breath out.
“It’s nothing, I swear. Heard something outside. Ended up being one of the janitors banging around out there.”
Opening my eyes, I see our tight embrace reflected in the bathroom mirror behind him. And papers rolled up like a tube shoved in his back pocket. Those must be what George handed him.
I watch the mirror disappear as steam from the shower fills the tiny space. I count the seconds between the drops of water as they leak from the faucet.
Because I have to separate myself from this moment. Need to focus on something other than the desire to react to what I just heard. Need some space between him and me if only in my mind.
Ryan’s mouth is next to my ear. “You okay?” His actions are exactly as they should be, and I mentally scroll through each and every moment we’ve shared, starting with the first one in the parking lot with my flat tire, scrutinizing them with the certainty of his involvement.
I nod, not trusting myself to speak.
He met with George. He talked to George with the same familiarity that I would.
There were so many times when it felt like Ryan was a whisper away from telling me every secret he’d ever had. He even talked openly about his business in Texas in the car. There were many times I teetered on the edge of confessing everything.
But he was playing me, while I was ready to risk everything for him.
The sorrow clouds my vision. My thoughts. Everything inside of me.
His hands slide up my body to my face. He pulls back so he can look at me. His eyes search mine as mine search his.
“It’s not like you to get spooked,” he whispers. He’s right.
Did he study me the way I studied him? Was there a sheet that saidShe enjoys sweet potato fries and two sugars in her coffee?
“I’ve been fighting a terrible headache all day. Then I heard a loud noise and it got the best of me.” I look toward the shower. “I better get in before I run out of hot water.”
He runs his hands down my back once more, then steps away. “I gave the cashier an extra twenty to deliver the pizza to us, so it should be here by the time you get out.”
I can’t lock the door when he closes it behind him because that’s notsomething his girlfriend would do. I step into the hot water, and it’s the jolt I need. Like a punch in the face. It clears the haze but does nothing for the grief that has settled in my veins. I am gutted.
I give myself five minutes to mourn the possibility of us. Five minutes to grieve what could have been. Five minutes to destroy the idea that it was possible that I was the kind of girl who could live in a perfect house with a perfect guy on a perfect street.
And I remember this is not my world.
