“I know, Alex,” I interrupt her. “Believe me, I know, but I can’t be away from him. I just can’t. He makes me feel…” I cover my face with my hands and fight the tears. Her arms wrap around me. She’s soothing me even though she knows I’m making a huge mistake.
“This can become dangerous, sweetie. You’re an adult and should know better, but I understand the feelings, sometimes they’re so strong you just can’t ignore them,” she whispers into my ear.
I nod because she’s right. If I ignore them not only am I denying myself happiness, but I’ll be hurt and sad and can see myself withdrawing from my life. “I have to have him in my life,” I mumble from behind my hands.
“How far did you guys go last night?” she asks as she steps around me, pulling my hands away from my face.
If it was anyone but Alex asking, I’d punch them. I know she’s asking because she’s my best friend and that’s what best friends do.
“Nothing at first, just holding hands and I fell asleep on him. I couldn’t help it. But in the morning, he kissed me and I wanted it so bad. I didn’t stop him, I couldn’t.” I want to look away from her, but don’t want her to think I’m ashamed of what happened with Ryan, because I’m not. If I had to do it all over again, I would. I wouldn’t hesitate.
“You need to be careful, Hadley. I’m not going to give you a tongue lashing because you’ll end up getting that from Ian when he finds out. Besides, I’m your best friend and I like seeing your face light up when you talk about him.”
I pull her into a fierce hug. “Thank you.”
She taps me on the shoulder, I look at her and she points. I turn and there he is, dressed head to toe in black with the black bowtie hanging loosely as if we were just returning home after a long night. Alex releases me and walks over to Ryan. His eyes go wide as she reaches for his neck.
“Let me fix this for you,” she says so sweetly that I want to hug her again. We could have a love-in and I’d be happy missing the party just for that. I stifle my laugh as she tugs and straightens the tie for Ryan. He stands there, stock still, probably afraid to move.
“There, now you’re perfect.” She turns to me and winks. “I’ll just be outside the door.”
Ryan watches me as I watch Alex leave. Once the door is shut, I move to him, faster than I mean to, but I need to touch him. It’s been under ten hours and I’ve missed him so much. My hand reaches for his, his fingers interlocking with mine. I pull him gently to me. He almost stumbles into me before he catches himself.
“Sorry,” he says. He’s biting his lower lip, trying not to smile.
“Were you trying to tackle me?”
“Maybe.” He shrugs and looks away before I catch the smile. I reach up and pull his face toward me so I can see him.
“I would’ve caught you.”
“You already did.”
I want to kiss him, desperately. My eyes go from his eyes to his mouth and back again. This time he does smile, but not the ‘I got a puppy’ smile, but the ‘Yeah, she’s my girl’ smile. And I definitely like being on the receiving end of that one.
“So what did you do?” I’ve been dying to ask him since earlier. All he said was to keep the plan as we had it.
“I snuck out. My parents, they don’t check on me, haven’t in years, so I figured why not? You wouldn’t happen to know how a car ended up in front of my house, would you? One that just so happened to have this tuxedo and invite?” Ryan pulls the ball invitation out of his coat pocket and shakes it.
“I haven’t a clue about the car,” I say while trying to fight a grin. “I can’t believe you snuck out. I don’t want you to get into trouble over me.”
Ryan leans in. “Hmm… I heard that you like bad boys so I thought I’d give it a try.”
I’m not sure if I should be happy or pissed off that he did this to be with me, but the thought of him being a bad boy is exciting. My heart and brain aren’t agreeing once more. The logical part is saying he shouldn’t be doing this, but my heart is screaming for me to jump in his arms and show him how thankful I am.
There’s a soft knock at the door, I look over his shoulder and move to answer. His hand finds my waist, holding me in place. Before I can say anything his lips are on me, soft and slow. He pulls away too soon, but his expression tells me that he’s happy he did that.
“I wanted to do that before we went out there.” His head motions toward the door.
“Yeah, we can’t do that out there with all those people. Listen, when we're out there, you’re with Alex. I don’t like it and I don’t expect you to either, but we can’t be seen together because there will be questions and we can’t have that. I won’t be able to do this,” I press my lips to his briefly. “Know that I want to.”