His mouth crashed into mine again and his hands worked at unbuttoning my pants.
Just as he made his way to my zipper, a voice boomed over the speakers, one placed right above the storage room, echoing through the small space. “Ryan, please report to the furniture section for customer support.” Jack’s tone held an edge of annoyance. Why did he always seem mad whenever he talked to his son? Shit. His son. The one I had my legs wrapped around, getting freaky next to a bucket full of bleach water and moldy mops.
“We’ll continue this later.” He nipped on my collarbone as I unwrapped my legs from his waist. He walked out of the supply room, the door shutting quietly behind him. I heaved out a sigh and banged the back of my head against a rung of the ladder. What was it about him that I couldn’t resist? I needed this job more than anything, but there was no way I could quit this now.
After taking a minute to compose myself, I headed back to the front, Courtney still manning the Customer Service counter. Her bushy brows furrowed as I slid behind the counter. Crap, was I still flushed? I must have been if she was giving me weird looks.
“Find everything you need?”
“Yeah. It was hot in back.” I fanned my face for emphasis. Please buy my bullshit, I thought, while pleading with my eyes that she should let it go.
She shrugged and went back to organizing the junk drawer. “Jack needs to put an AC back there.”
I blew out a silent sigh, thanking the gods that she bought my response. The last thing I needed was someone to tell Jack what Ryan and I did during store hours.
I peered across the store, where I caught Ryan and his dad arguing in hushed tones in the furniture section. Even without yelling, his body language screamed you, child of mine, piss me off just by breathing. I knew the look. Same one Mom gave me. Guess they were done playing nice with each other for today. What was their deal? How could he always be so mad at him when Ryan wasn’t doing anything wrong? Well, he didn’t know Ryan had done anything wrong, at least.
Definitely needed more information on the Ryan front. And I knew just who to go to for the 411.
Payton was mixing cookie dough in her red KitchenAid when I walked into the apartment after work. I threw my purse on the counter and ran my hand through my hair as I tried to decide how to ask her about Ryan. He said she thought he was the devil’s spawn. Why?
She stopped the mixer, took the blade out of the bowl, and handed it to me. “Convert anyone’s software into hardware today?”
If she only knew. “Ha-ha.” I licked off the cookie dough and with my mouth full, I said, “No, but I unzipped someone’s files.” I waggled my brows.
“Check them for malware first?”
“Virus report came back clean.” I licked another glob of cookie dough off the beater and asked, “So, what’s the deal with Ryan?”
Might as well shoot straight from the hip. With a Ruger.
Her brow shot up her forehead, but she kept focused on the task of balling up cookie dough and placing it on the cookie sheet. “What about him?”
“The night of the beach trip, before we left, you called him a douche. Just wondering why.”
“Because he is one?” She sighed, clutching the ball of dough. “Ryan’s just Ryan. He’s always been a little immature, although he seems to have gotten better since he went to Baylor. Too bad he failed out.”
“Failed out?” I thought he’d quit.
“Yeah, I don’t know the whole story. Didn’t even tell Blake until he got back to Spring Hill. Must’ve been pretty embarrassed if he withheld that.” She raised her hand, her index and middle finger intertwined. “Those two are like Thing 1 and Thing 2.”
“Oh.” I didn’t know how I felt about him flunking out. A lot of my friends from freshman year dropped out after first semester when they realized that partying every night wasn’t conducive to making grades. Not many people made it three years just to drop out. He seemed like a smart guy, didn’t scream marathon partier, so what was the deal?
“Why?”
“Nothing.” I kept my eyes trained on the cookie dough. “I just think he’s cute.”
“Don’t get me wrong. He’s a nice guy. Just has a lot of growing up to do.”
“What’s up with him and his dad?”
“Ryan’s dad is super controlling. They used to be…not well off. And now that he is successful, he wants to make sure Ryan is as well. Even if Ryan doesn’t want to follow in his footsteps. It’s been like this since high school.”