Over dinner Liz mostly prodded Ryder for stories, and he told them without complaint. Maisie told us fun facts about dinosaurs while Ryder took a break, and every now and again our knees bumped together under the table while we were laughing.
It wasnice. Like we were a real couple, really going to our friends’ place for dinner. Like Ryder was living my quiet, boring little life with me. Like he wasenjoyingit.
“You were so good with Maisie,” I said, opening the passenger-side door of my truck for Ryder to let him in. “She’s normally kinda shy.”
“I have that effect on shy people,” he said, reaching out to toy with the edge of my open shirt. “They like me.”
I snorted, but it was true. Something about Ryder made me so comfortable. Like I was always safe with him. I guessed Maisie had sensed it, too.
“You think so, huh?” I teased.
“I think so,” Ryder said, curling his other hand around my hip and pulling me closer, behind the open door so we were wedged between it and the truck. “Thank you. For tonight. It was nice to play pretend at being normal for once.”
“You? You’re the most normal guy I know,” I said.
Ryder snorted. “Flattery will get you anywhere you wanna be.”
“Yeah?” I asked, pressing closer to him, bending down to murmur in his ear. “Anywhere?”
I smiled as I felt a shiver run through him, impossible to miss when we were touching from hip to shoulder. “Got somewhere in mind?”
“I do,” I said. “But tomorrow. Tonight…”
Ryder’s thumb slipped under the hem of my t-shirt, brushing the skin just above the waistband of my jeans. “Yeah?”
I laughed. He was perfect.Thiswas perfect, right now, standing here in the dark cozied up together against the chill in the air. A perfect moment among dozens of other perfect moments we’d had.
Why couldn’t we just keep it?
“I know we have to talk about stuff,” I said with a surge of courage. “But I just want to go home and curl up beside you and kiss you good night and not… think about it. Just yet.”
Ryder looked up at me. I’d always thought he had the prettiest eyes, and even in the dark there was something about them. If he wanted to look at me just like this, forever, I would’ve stood in this spot letting him until the sun exploded.
“Kiss me,” he said.
I wasn’t about to argue with that.
Ryder clung to my shirt as I leaned in and gasped when our mouths met, melting against me. I pinned him against the side pillar of the truck, one hand on his hip and the other sneaking up under his sweater, hitching up the t-shirt he was wearing under it and splaying over warm skin.
A wolf whistle scared the hell out of me, and then made me laugh as I recognized it. But in the split second between hearing it and realizing it was just Liz, I’d shifted so no one would be able to see Ryder.
Protecting him.
All I’d ever wanted to do was protect him, and I hated the idea of him being out of reach again, where I couldn’t.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Liz said as she came over. “Maisie wanted Ryder to have her spare tiara. Can’t be a princess without a tiara.”
The look on Ryder’s face as Liz held the little plastic tiara out to him made my throat tight.
An image of life like this flashed through my mind. The two of us being favorite uncles to Maisie and Charlie, maybe even getting things rolling to have a kid or two of our own. Settling down. Ryder could run drama classes and maybe take to the stage here or in Portland, I could extend the cabin for the kids. I’d go to every performance and take him out after and then we’d go home, laughing and joking and happy. Tripping our way up the stairs because we didn’t want to stop kissing, because we were so in love we couldn’t pass up a single chance to.
I glanced over to the window to see Maisie peeking between the curtains. Ryder must have seen her, too, because he waved at her as he accepted the tiara from Liz. She bounced up and down, grinning like only five-year-olds could.
“Put it on for me?” he asked, holding the tiara out to me.
I laughed again as I took it, sliding it into his hair carefully so I didn’t scrape his scalp.
Maisie was watching, with her nose pressed to the glass, as I tilted Ryder’s chin up and pecked him on the lips.
