“No. But I don’t know if I’m ready to jump into another relationship. I don’t want to give you false hope.” He scuffed his shoe across the slate tile, still refusing to look at me.
I lifted his chin, staring into his eyes. “I’m not asking for a label. But I refuse to get involved with someone who’s still hanging with his ex. It’s too complicated.”
He let out an exasperated sigh. “Trust me, she’s the last person I’d want to be hanging around. In fact—” He brushed his hand down my arm. “—the only girl I want to be around right now is right here.”
“Okay… What do you want this to be?” I motioned between us.
He breathed out deeply through his nose and kept his gaze trained on the floor. “Can it just be fun? I need fun.”
That had been my original intention. There was a reason for keeping it purely physical in the first place. He was leaving, and I just needed a good summer, no strings attached. But he needed to sweat a little bit if he was going to get any more fun out of this deal. “I don’t know. I think I’ve had my fill.” I couldn’t help the twitch in my lips. Giving him a hard time always sent a little thrill through me.
“I know I suck at this whole hooking up thing, but I think you’re really cool,” he trailed off, flustered. “If you’d give it another chance, I promise there won’t be any more ex-girlfriends calling.”
Yes, yes, yes. “Hmm. I’ll think about it.” I went toward the door and said, “See you at work on Monday.”
He grabbed my arm before I put my hand on the knob. “Wait. Can I make it up to you?” His baby blues pierced straight through my core.
Making up with Ryan sounded a whole lot more fun than moping at home. This time I’d keep my heart under strict lockdown.
I stayed silent for a few moments, really soaking in the glory of making him work for it. Finally, I said, “What’d you have in mind, DeShane?”
Ryan rocked back on his heels, his hands shoved into his pockets, giving him this incredibly sexy boyish quality. He jutted his chin toward my handbag. “We could start by putting your purse up in my room.”
I forced my lips into a smile as I looked into his eyes. This was the right choice. No use giving up something really great just because of a little snafu. He may never be mine long-term, but why ruin my chance for fun on some nonexistent future with him? Keep it fun. Hopefully, that would be worth the impending ache in my chest when he left at the end of the summer. “Sounds good.”
His shoulders relaxed, and he pulled a hand out of his pocket and took mine, leading me up the stairs. The walls along the staircase were covered with pictures of Ryan, most of them soccer portraits. Some of Boy Scouts. I recognized a younger-looking Blake with a really bad bleach job. I’d have to give him crap about that later. None had Ryan’s mom. Only a few contained both Jack and Ryan in the same pic.
We finally made it up to the second story and took a right at the banister. His room was the first on the left, across from the bathroom. He pushed open the door and I stood in the doorway, taking in the room. I didn’t know what to expect when I envisioned Ryan’s room, maybe what typical college guys had in their rooms—posters of half-naked girls and beer pong. Or big screen TVs and the latest game console. Ryan’s lacked all of this. Instead, soccer posters, soccer awards, medals, and trophies coated every available inch of wall space. Soccer galore. Blake had told me that he was into the sport when I first met him, but this—this took it to the whole next level.
“So you like soccer, huh?”
He let out a hearty laugh that liquefied my insides. “Yeah, I guess this looks a bit…obsessive.”
“Nah, I was the same way with Beanie Babies.”
He slowly turned to me and blinked. “You did not just compare soccer to Beanie Babies.”
“David Beckham, Chocobear, same diff.”
“I don’t know whether to kiss you or kick you out.”
“I’d go with the first one.”
He walked up and his minty breath caressed my cheeks. I closed my eyes and waited for him to lean in, for his warm lips to meet mine. After a few moments of the kiss disappointingly not happening, I opened my eyes. His mouth hovered inches from mine. “Does this mean you forgive me?”
“Depends.” I shot back.
“On?”
“How good the kiss is.”
He leaned in and raked his teeth down the column of my throat. “That’s up to you.”
I tamped down the shiver bubbling through my chest like freshly popped champagne. A loud boom sounded outside Ryan’s window, and I jumped, turning toward the noise. A shower of blue and purple rained through the night sky.