The Right Move (Windy City, #2)

by Liz Tomforde

“I’m taking you home. You’re sick, Blue.” “I’m fine, and your sister is a little snitch.” He chuckles a warm laugh. “Yeah, well her stubborn best friend wouldn’t listen to her.” “Who says I’m going to listen to you?” I don’t know why I’m acting as if I have the energy to put up a fight. I’m about two seconds away from falling into his chest from exhaustion. “You don’t have to.”

I shrug. “It’s nothing you haven’t seen before.” Typically, I’d add some humor in my tone, but my feelings are hurt over last night and I’m too tired to try to hide that. Ryan exhales as if the words punched him in the gut. He lifts my dress up and over my head, before pulling off his own t-shirt, leaving himself bare-chested. He slips his worn tee over my body, enveloping me in his warmth and scent.

“I don’t have a fever.” “Actually, you do. You’re burning up and I’m fairly certain you have some kind of flu.” Without hesitation, Ryan slips his hand under my back and unclasps my bra with a single motion, sliding it out from under the shirt. I watch his backside as he hangs my dress in his closet, draping my bra over the hanger, and before he returns to me, he places my shoes neatly by the door. My little clean freak.

“If I was looking for convenience, I wouldn’t have gone years without touching a woman. Waking up and thinking of you, falling asleep and wishing you were there, it’s been distracting, tiresome, and goddamn infuriating, but I wouldn’t give you up for the world.”

“Stay with me, Ryan.” Indy’s hands bracket my face, her thumbs fluttering over my cheeks. “Stay with me.” I wrap my arms around her back, pulling her chest into mine, sniffing away any lingering emotion. “I’m with you, Blue. You don’t have to worry about that.”

“Do you want me there?” “I want you there.” I want you everywhere. “Then I’ll be there.”

“Unfortunately, Indy’s old friends are your friends. You’ll be around, I get that. But if you ever, and I mean ever make her cry again, I will do everything in my power to make your life a living hell. My face will pop up everywhere you go. You will see me in your goddamn nightmares. I will make myself a daily reminder that you fumbled the best thing you’ll ever have in your fucking life. Got it?”

“You know that jersey you’ve got with my last name on it? When you see it hanging there in your closet, let it serve

as a reminder to you, that soon enough, it’ll be her last name too.”

I clink my glass with his because sometimes I’m an asshole, and the...

“Ryan?” I call out. “Yeah?” “When did you start learning sign?” He peeks out of the bathroom, half the door frame covering his tall body. “Your mom texted me to check in on you a couple of days after I met your parents. I asked for her advice on the best way to start learning since she was an adult when she learned too. We’ve been video chatting once a week ever since, and they’ve both been teaching me.”

“Why?” “Why what, baby?” “Why are you learning sign?” I’m fairly certain I know the reason, but I want to hear him say it. “Because they’re your family and you’re mine, and the fact you even have to ask is mind-blowing to me. Learning to communicate with your family is the bare minimum, Ind.”

“Ry, I’m heading to Michael’s.” Sitting on the couch with a book in his hands and his feet propped on the coffee table, Ryan stiffens before slowly lowering his book to his lap. “Say that again for me.” “I’m heading to Michael’s.”

“And who the fuck is Michael?” Huh? As realization hits me, I try my hardest not to laugh. Jealous Ryan is hot, so I’ll let this play out before admitting that Michael’s is the craft store where I buy my embroidery thread to cross-stitch. “Don’t worry about it.”

“How else would you get to live a thousand lives in the span of only one? The beauty of fiction is that it makes you feel things on a visceral level. You can cry with those characters, laugh with them.

“I don’t want a life without you either, Ryan, but sometimes it’s not as simple as that. Life isn’t black and white.” “You don’t think I know that? I haven’t seen black and white since the second you walked into my apartment. Now it’s pink-painted toes, purple clothes, green plants, and those goddamn yellow curtains.” He shakes his head. “And so much fucking Blue. All I see is Blue.”