Feel My Love (5 page)

Chapter 7

Brynn

Oh shit.
  What in the hell possessed me to invite Ryan into my house?  Although I’m pissed off at myself for inviting him in, I know why I did it.  I still love him and I want him to be a part of my life again, but I’m just not sure he can be anymore.  Maybe he’ll just decline and say he has to get going. 

But even as I think this, I turn around and see him walk in and shut the front door behind him.
He walks through my open living room, glancing around. It’s a light blue color that gives the open area a light feeling.

To his right he notices my
small, all white kitchen with an island and barstools tucked under.  He decides to turn left into my living room where he walks past my now parked bike and around my cream colored couch toward the giant white built in bookshelves that lines the far wall. 

The only thing that breaks the large
bookshelves apart is the two doors in the middle of the wall. The door to my master bedroom is on the left and the door to the guest room on the right. 

He starts walking around, eyeing the collection of books I’ve acquired, all of the knick knacks on different shelves, and the many different framed pict
ures I have.  The room is quiet for a few minutes while he browses my pictures, but the silence is slowly tearing me apart. 

“Would you like something to drink?  Water? Soda?  Beer?  Anything?”   Ryan turns and raise
s a brow at me.  “Beer?” he questions.  “Since when did you start drinking?  I’ve never seen you drink a drop before in your life and you polished that drink off at the bar like you were an old pro.” I laugh inside while he’s saying this, but outwardly shrug. 

“Things change, Ryan.  I’ve been drinking since I moved out here.  I’m not a raging alcoholic or anything
, although there have been a few fun nights of over drinking.  It just tastes good so I keep it handy.  You want one or not?”  I ask with a bit of a snarky edge, tired of having to defend myself to him.  “Sure.” Ryan says.  So, I walk toward him with two beer bottles in hand and notice that he’s eyeing a few different pictures very closely.

“Who’s this?” he says, pointing to a picture of a chubby little boy
in a sailor suit with light brown hair and enormous green eyes, sitting in my lap.  I smile, remembering the first and only time I’ve ever met my handsome nephew in person. 

“That’s
my sister Becca’s little boy, Milo.  That’s the first time I got to hold my handsome little man.  He’s just a little over a year in this picture, but he just turned four a few months ago.”  That’s the only time I’ve ever seen him, so the picture is a bittersweet reminder of the family I never see. 

Ryan bobs his head up and down a few times and then says
“He’s a cutie.  Do you see them very often?”  I clear my throat and hand Ryan his beer “Not very often, no.”  I say and start looking at other photographs, hoping he gets the hint that I don’t want to talk about my family.  He takes the hint and moves on to another picture.  He raises his eyebrows, turns his head to look at me and points at a picture of me on the side of a rock face, rappelling down.  I have my hair piled up in a messy bun, sunglasses on and a huge smile on my face.  I grin recalling when that photo was taken. 

“That was the first time I went rock climbing
when I was a sophomore.  A guy I was kind of seeing at the time was big on rock climbing and dared me to try it.  I did and fell in love with it.  I go climbing every chance I get, now.  Have you ever done it?”  I ask.  He just shakes his head side to side and studies the picture closely.  “You should try it.” I say “It’s quite a rush.”

Ryan skims over a few more pictures of me
-with all of my sorority sisters at a party, me singing at the bar on an open mic night before I joined the band, and me coming out of the ocean during my first triathlon. “And this one?” He says finally stopping at a picture of me and a few of my friends crossing the finish line of my very first marathon. 

“That” I say with a smirk
because I hated running when I was younger and Ryan knew it, “was me crossing the finish line at the San Diego Marathon my junior year of college.  I ran it with a few of my sorority sisters and I’ve run seven marathons since that one.” Ryan is quiet for a few minutes, but I decide this time I’ll just let him look without interrupting him. 

When he finally turns, he looks so confused and says “Who are you, Brynnie?  You are a totally different person than you were when you lived at home.  I don’t se
e a trace of that girl anymore.”  I shrug, and then take a pull from the beer bottle and move to sit down on the couch.  “I’m not a different person.  It’s just that no one ever cared to know the real me at home.  I lived my life for other people at home, so everyone saw the agreeable, quiet, shy girl that they wanted to see instead of asking me who I really was.”

“That’s bullshit, Brynn.”  Ryan says,
slight agitation rolling off of him, which startles me a bit. “I’ve known you since third grade.  I knew things about you that no one else knew and not once did you tell me that you wanted to run marathons or sing in bars or get your degree in music.”  At first, I’m ready to defend myself, but then I get confused. 

“Music? Who
says I got a degree in music?” I ask incredulously.  Ryan shakes his head and says “No one said it.  I was just guessing.  You are awesome at singing, so I thought that was what you majored in.”  I shake my head, but smile at the compliment.  “Okay, so if you didn’t get a degree in music, what did you get your degree in?” 

I set my beer bottle down on the wooden coffee table in front of my couch and cringe a bit.  He’d never guess what I actually majored in.  “Uh, it was chemistry with a
double minor in criminal justice and art.” I smile slightly, and glance up waiting for Ryan to say something, but he has a dumbfounded look on his face like I just told him the moon was made of cheese. 

“Chemistry?
  What the fuck, Chuck!” he blurts out “You hated chemistry when we were in high school! You even needed a tutor to pass the class.  Lucky for you I was a great tutor or you never would have made it.”  He smirks.

I laugh
lightly and then say “Well, not to rain on your parade, but I was really good at chemistry.  I always wanted to work in a crime lab, like CSI stuff, and latched onto chemistry when I was really young. So I worked really hard and got my degree in chemistry and then started working in a lab right out of college, but it was a bit too tedious, so I quit.  My boss loved me so much though, that he told me a job was waiting for me whenever I wanted to go back.”

He shakes his head and puts his beer on the coffee table so he can throw his hands around in the air for his rant.
“So, all that time I spent trying to tutor you and thinking you were never going to understand it; all the time I spent worrying about your mom hating me because you were going to fail that class, was for nothing?” Ryan says, luckily he’s smiling so I know he’s joking with me. 

“Well, uh” I don’t know how I’m going to say this without it being awkward, so I just decide to get it out. “I kind of had a major crush on you back then and wanted to spend more time with you, so I pretended I needed a tutor in a subject I was really good at so I could ogle you while you tried to teach it to me.” I grimace and look down at my hands in my lap
and then smooth out the front of my dress, not daring to tell him that I still had that major crush on him.

Ryan just starts laughing, so I
smile and look up at him.  “Oh my God, Brynn! You are killing me! So, you’re telling me that you knew chemistry better than I did, and you had me tutor you so that you could check me out the whole time?” he chuckles. 

Well that reaction is certainly better than what I was expecting. 
“Yeah, I felt bad for a while.  There were a few things that you tried to explain to me that were completely wrong, but I had to play dumb, so I couldn’t correct you.  Sorry about that.” I giggle. 

Ryan walks over to the couch and sits down next to me and we stare at each other for a few seconds, as if we’re trying to figure each other out all over again.
  Ryan looks down at my hands, reaching out to rub his index finger along my tattoo, and then back up to my eyes, and asks “So, where are the rest of graffiti marks on your skin, Brynnie?” 

Oh no,
even though I have an electric shock running through my body where he’s touching me, I’m definitely not showing him those.  I made sure that the majority of my tattoos weren’t visible so most of them are in spots that clothes can cover easily. 

I sh
ake my head at him and say “Most of them are hidden and not many have seen all of them.  We’d have to be a lot closer than we are for you to see them.”  I smile, but then realize I’ve made things a bit awkward because we aren’t close anymore.  If we were in a friendship like eight years ago, I would show him every single one of them, no hesitation, but we aren’t even close to where we were eight years ago. 

I push my loose brown hair behind my ears and think of something to say that won’t make things more uncomfortable than they already are, but Ryan beats me to it.

“So, how about a movie?  We can try to catch up a bit and laugh at a stupid silly movie for a while before I leave.”  I look at the clock on the wall and it says 1:15 a.m., but for some reason I am not tired.  “Sure” I say.  “Why don’t you pick a movie and I’ll make some caramel corn.”  I point to one of the shelves he was just standing by to show him where my DVD collection is and make my way into the kitchen. 

On my way in, I think of something to talk about that shouldn’t be too conflicting.  “How’s your kid doing? Is it a boy or a girl?”  I ask, just realizing that I hadn’t talked to him since he and Amber found out
she was pregnant.  Then I wince when I think of Amber.  If they’re divorced, she probably has the child more often than he does and this could end being a stickier conversation than I hoped it would have been.

Ryan pulls Three Amigos
, my all time favorite, from the DVD selection and makes his way to a bar stool at my kitchen island.

  “Well, I have two girls.  They are doing well, thanks for asking.”  Wow, two kids.  Wait- I thought he
said they got divorced right after I left.  Did he have another baby with her after their divorce?  Or did he knock someone else up?  “Two?” I ask, and he must know what I’m thinking because he chuckles. 

“They are twins, Brynn
; two girls. Just turned eight a few months ago.”
Huh.
Two girls.  I chance asking him more about his girls. “So, how often do you see them?  Do you get them on weekends or something?” His brows pull together in confusion, but then he nods once, as if he remembers that I know nothing of his life now. 

“Uh, Amber left us all right after the girls were born.  She’s ne
ver even seen them.  So, I get to play daddy and mommy to the girls by myself and a ton of help from our babysitter.”  Ryan smiles nervously which confuses me, but spins around to hop off of the bar stool and put the DVD into the player next to the television that sits on the bookshelf, effectively cutting off the conversation.

I finish making the caramel popcorn and take my place on the couch next to Ryan, putting the bowl of goodness in between us to create a barrier
so that I don’t try to jump his hot bones while we’re sitting here. 

W
e watch the movie in silence, laughing occasionally while I try my damndest not to look over at him, because every time I do, I fall under his spell a little more.  About twenty minutes into the movie, when he doesn’t laugh at a particularly funny part, I look over at Ryan.  He is passed out with his head thrown back on my couch, so I grab a pillow and blanket out of my guest room closet, take his flip flops off and help him lay down on the couch. 

I stare at him for a moment after he rests his head onto the pillow, and realize that there is so much more to this man than there was the boy I left behind; and I want to know everything about him.

Chapter 8

Ryan

I wake up on Brynn’s couch alone. 
Shit
.  I was a total loser and passed out on the couch while we were watching her favorite movie.  I lay there for a minute, trying to replay everything we talked about last night.  I remember the last thing I said was something about my girls and their babysitter.  There is no way I’m going to tell her that her sister Becca is my kids’ babysitter because it seems like she isn’t close to any of them anymore, and I might hurt her feelings by telling her that I have such close contact with her sister. 

I sit up slowly and listen for any noises to tell me where Brynn might be, but I
don’t hear anything.  I stand up; straighten out the blue t-shirt and khakis I was wearing yesterday as best as I can, and make my way to one of two doors in the middle of the enormous built in bookshelves. 

I knock once on the door to the left “Brynnie? 
Are you in there?”  I crack the door open and see that this is her bedroom.  The walls are painted a light purple color, her favorite color when we were younger.  It’s nice to see that not everything has changed about her.  Her white sheets and a dark purple quilt are thrown around the mattress and there are pillows on the floor. 

I smile and remember her telling me when we were younger why she hated making her bed.  “
What’s the point?
” she said “
You’re just going to get back into them and mess them up later that night, so why waste your time
. “ 

I know I shouldn’t, but I’m curious, so I walk in and look around the room. 
There is a small nightstand next to her bed that holds a simple white lamp and a phone charger.  She has a small vanity against the wall by her bed that holds a bunch of jewelry and a little make up. She has artwork on her walls that looks like music notes and looks like it was painted, possibly by her because she studied art in college. 

I spot
more pictures of Brynn on her walls and on the top of her dresser and glance at the different frames- her with Becca, who looks like a shorter version of Brynn with shoulder length brown hair and dark blue eyes, when they were younger, Brynn in a red bikini with a giant group of friends in the sand next to the ocean, her hanging from the side of a cliff by a bunch of ropes and kissing a guy. 

I make it to the end of the pictures and stop.  I hear my sharp intake of breath and it takes me a minute to get my heart rate back down.  In a heart shaped frame at the back of her dresser is a picture of
the two of us at our high school graduation.  She is holding her diploma in her hands and we both have our caps and gowns on.  I have my arm around her shoulders and I’m kissing her cheek while Brynn looks a bit shy and is biting her lower lip. 

I take a step back and realize that I need to find her so that I can see what she’s doing today.  I want to spend more time with her, but
I remember that she has another job and I’m not sure if she’s at work or not. I don’t have a phone number to call her and find out where she is.

I start walking back into the living room and reali
ze that I know someone who might have her number; Becca.  After two rings, Becca answers.  “Hey Ry Ry.  How’s San Diego treating ya?” 

“Oh, it’s interesting.  Hey
, you’ll never guess who I ran into out here.” I say, wondering if Becca even knows that Brynn lives out here.  I know that her parents don’t talk to Brynn anymore and I would have figured if Becca talked to her, that she would say something to me about it. 

After a few moments of silence I know I’m wrong and that Becca did know that Brynn lives here.  “So, you’ve found Brynn, huh?”  Becca finally says.  This infuriates me.  After Brynn left, I talked to Becca about her constantly.  I tried so hard to find out where she went to so that I could make things right between us again. 
Once Amber left, I realized I really needed my best friend back for some emotional support, but Becca told me over and over that she had no clue where Brynn went to and that she never talked to her.

“What the fuck, Becca!  You knew she was out here the whole time and never once thought I would like to know that information?  Even after I asked you about her f
or years after she left?”  I am pacing back and forth in front of the couch.  Becca takes a long breath before she answers me. 

“
Did you know how much Brynn was in love with you when you guys were younger?” 
What?
  This question stops me in my tracks. It never crossed my mind that Brynn loved me.  She never acted differently around me, or flirted like all of the other girls in school. I was so in love with Brynn, but never thought she felt the same way and knew that if I ever did anything with her and it didn’t work out I would lose the best thing in my life; even though I lost it out of my own stupidity. 

“No, why?” I say wanting her to finish, even though I know this conversation is going to hurt.  “Before Amber got pregnant, Brynn thought you would eventually
come around, dump Amber and be with her.  She was so in love with you.  Even I could see it and I was two years younger than you guys.  Before she moved out there, she told me what happened between the two of you and how you told her that Amber didn’t want you to talk to her anymore.”

Son of a bitch!  That damn text message.
Becca sighs and continues, “She told me that she needed to start fresh and didn’t want anything to do with the hurt she experienced here.  She made me promise that if anyone asked me where she was that I would just tell them I didn’t know, and that included you.”

Ouch
.  That hurts. I can’t even speak.  All I can do is nod my head while I try to fight back the urge to punch something in Brynn’s house.  I change the subject and ask her how the girls are doing and if they got off to school alright this morning.

After I hang up with Becca, I’m not sure what to do.  I know that I should go find Kyle and see if they need any help with the wedding, but I can’t talk myself into walking out of Brynn’s house.  Even if she isn’t here, it’
s nice to just sit in her space and absorb as much about her as I can. 

I decide to look around for a bit before I can talk myself into leaving.  I enter the door to the right of her bedroom and notice that it’s a guest room. 
It’s very simple, with a full sized bed and a dresser with a television on top of it being the only furniture.  The yellow comforter and the two paintings of daisies, her favorite flower, that hang above the bed are the only splash of color in the room. There is also a giant tangle of rope and some tennis shoes on the floor next to the bed, which I’m guessing is Brynn’s rock climbing gear. I shake my head and sigh just thinking about her rock climbing now. 

I shut the door and go back into her bedroom.  There is a door that leads into a
large jack and jill bathroom in far right corner, so I walk in.  The bathroom is clean, but it isn’t anything special. The walls are white and have a few old Norman Rockwell pictures next to each door.

I look into the
large mirror, which has been drawn on with a black dry erase marker.  There is a giant star outlined in the center with the words
Superstar
written in sloppy handwriting across the top.  I wonder if Brynn put that there for an extra boost of self confidence, or if someone else did it for her.

Shit
! 
I hear the front door open and shut and then realize I’ve been caught snooping around.  I walk back toward the living room and see Brynn standing next to the island with her legs crossed at the ankles and her body easily bent over to touch the floor. 

Her
dark brown hair is pulled back into a sloppy bun and she’s in a black sports bra, very short purple spandex shorts, and purple running shoes.  While she’s bent over and I can see her back, I notice something written in black between her neck and her left shoulder and another different black design on the right side of her upper back and realize they are a few of her other tattoos.  I glance at her tan, slender body again and realize she is drenched in sweat; and I’ve never seen her look sexier. 

She stands up and immediately jumps back, finally noticing that I’m still here.  She pulls her ear
buds out of her ears and says “Holy shit, I didn’t know you were still here.  I thought you would have left to go help Kyle with his wedding stuff.”

I just shake my head because I’m still stunned from how hot she looks right now. 
Her body is definitely more toned than it was when we were younger.  Finally, I close my mouth and clear my throat. “Did you go for a run?” I ask then roll my eyes, looking like an idiot because it’s very obvious she did. 

“Yeah,
nothing big. It was just a quick seven miles.” She smirks and then turns toward the kitchen. “Are you hungry?  I can make us some breakfast if you want.” She says, opening the fridge to grab a bottle of water and an orange. She sounds a bit glad that I haven’t left yet; that’s a good sign.

“Let’s get a few things straight.  First, seven miles is big and would take me half a day to run that far” I raise a brow at her as she giggles and peals her orange.  “Second, you just got back from a
quick run
.  How about I make us breakfast so you can have a rest.”  Brynn plops down onto a bar stool, and then says “Well, I’m not going to argue with that.  Alright, Geeves, get cooking. I’m hungry.”