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“Why’d you stop working there?” “Got fired.” “No!” Sienna is outraged on his behalf. She’s only just met him, but it’s clear she can’t fathom a reason an edgy bar like Vibe Check would let a face like his go. In fairness, she does have a point. “Why’d they fire you?” Ryan blinks and looks down his nose at her. “Something about an attitude problem.” Oh God, he’s not just hot. He’s complicated and rude.
“I’ve been doing some research, and I have a proposal.” His mouth drops open ever so slightly, so I up the ante. “Admittedly, it’s an indecent proposal of questionable legality, but in my defense, what I’m offering is well above market rate.”
“What’s stopping you from having fun?” “Um, it’s called anxiety, Bev.” “Yeah, I know, and I get that. You know I do, but you’re not doing it right. You’re letting your anxiety take over your life, and you’re only taking on the bad parts. You’re not letting the good parts in.” Good parts? When has anxiety ever had good parts? “That shit makes you funny as hell, Ryan. It makes you interesting. It makes you real, and you’re supposed to let people see that about you. You’re not supposed to hold it all inside you. No wonder you’re like this.”
“I’m a dog person,” I lie. “Can’t stand cats.” He chuckles tolerantly. “Hmm, that’s weird because you, Ryan Haraway, throw black cat vibes in a very big way.”
Shit, I’m losing my mind. I’m going to beg soon. I can feel it. It’s awful. It’s a horrible feeling. I’ve never begged anyone for anything before, but I can tell I’m going to do it. I felt the words on my lips this morning, dancing across my tongue. I could almost taste them.
“I-I just don’t like big crowds, that’s all. I’m not all that great in big groups of people.” “Eh, don’t worry about it. You’re not all that great one-on-one either.”
“You have girls dripping off you like sweat, you know that?” God, he’s exhausting. “What? You jealous?” “Yes, I’m jealous.” He looks at me like I’m an idiot. “Of course I’m jealous. I told you. You’re mine.” I’m not even going to touch that.
“Let me guess. You were a weedy little kid, and you didn’t get contacts till junior or senior year in high school.” It was senior year, but I don’t think he needs to know that. “What’s your point?” “My point, Ryan, is that you’re such a dumbass you missed your own glow-up.”
“You know what, bud—” He cuts me off. “Don’t call me bud.” “Can I call you baby instead?” “Definitely not.” It gives me the same good-bad feeling I always get when he rejects me. My insides spark and start quivering. I love it.
“I think I have a thing for you.” He doesn’t skip a beat. “No, you don’t. Don’t be ridiculous.” “Yeah, I do. I have a huge thing for you. I think it might be serious.” “You wouldn’t know a thing for someone other than yourself if it hit you in the face.”
“What the fuck?” I say, not for the first time today. He tilts his head and takes in the mark he made on my neck. It makes him smile. A slow, sexy smile that makes me feel like the floor is caving in under my feet. When he doesn’t answer, I wave wildly at my neck and demand an answer through extreme overuse of my eyebrows. “Had to do it,” he says with one of those careless one-shoulder shrugs. “Want everyone to know.”
I love how much he hates it that with every day that passes, he’s having a harder and harder time hating me with his whole chest. I mean, don’t get me wrong, when the sun’s up, he’d still push me from a moving vehicle the first chance he got, but I think there’s a chance he’d regret it. Not deeply or anything like that. But probably a little. And I think that’s called progress.
He’s one of those people who needs space now and then, and as the future love of his life, I think it’s important that I’m sensitive to that.
He’s different tonight. More beautiful. More wild. Tamer too. Much, much tamer. Tamer than ever before. His walls are down, and there’s nothing or no one who’ll ever convince me this is an act. He’s right here. He’s with me. He’s where I am. He wants this too. It isn’t something I’m doing to him. It’s something we’re doing together.
“Say it.” His lips drag up my neck and down again. “Whatever you want. Say it, Ry, and I’ll give it to you. Anything you want. Anything at all.”
I hate that he knows me like this. Inside and out. And motherfuck, I hate how some stupid part of me likes that someone finally got through my walls. An even stupider part likes that it’s him.
“You can’t actually buy people. You know that, right?” There’s a pause. “Yeah, I know.” “You say that, but I’m not sure you do ‘cause you act like…” “I do know that!” Miller says with more heat than I was expecting. “Of course I fucking know that! I know because if it was possible, I wouldn’t have a cent to my name, and you would be mine.”
He’ll buy pieces of me, and I’ll happily let him. He’ll buy them and keep them forever because that’s how buying things works. He’ll smile and say, I bought it, so it’s mine.
