Preservation (13 page)

Your biggest fan,

Ryan

I lifted my chin to watch him speak, my heart sinking a little deeper into my gut. Why did he have to be sweet and disloyal, all wrapped up into one big frustrating dichotomy? The day he’d given this paper back to me was the same day he’d given me the cold shoulder at the pool. I didn’t get it.

Class ended and I booked it to the door, slipping out into the hallway to meet Carter.

“Why hello there, love. Still avoiding him?” He took my arm in his, exchanging a quick nod with Ryan through the doorway.

“Will you stop that? You can’t be Team Ryan now. It’s wrong.”

“I can be on whatever team I want, thank you very much. Since you never told me specifics about what he did to make you kick him to the curb in the first place, and because you won’t talk to me about what happened with those girls at the club that night, I reserve the right to be unbiased until further notice.”

“Fine.” We rounded the corner to head into the lunchroom. “It turns out you were right about him. He’s no good.”

“Define ‘no good.’”

“I was no different than the other students he messed around with. He admitted to me that he told them all the same thing, that he wouldn’t pursue them unless they dropped his class.”

“But you
were
different, Kate. He told you this and you’re punishing him still. Keeping him at a distance. What you do best.”

“Different? How? And just because he told me I was, what, I’m supposed to buy it? You stormed out on me when I decided to give him a chance, remember? I don’t need all this drama, Carter. That’s why I keep shit like this at a distance.”

Carter stepped around me in the lunch line, intent on picking up the greasiest slice of pizza he could get his hands on, while I stood still in disbelief that he was still siding with Ryan.

“Kate, it pains me to say this because I’m hopelessly in love with you and all—but it has to be said. The guy is crazy about you. And...he’s not half bad.
You
were right for having faith in him. I was the one who judged him according to nothing but rumors. But you shut him down the minute you had reason to doubt.”

Steam must have been coming out of my ears at that point, because I could feel my insides ready to explode. I shoved a slice of pizza on my tray and nudged him forward with my hip. “This is all beside the point, anyway.” I huffed and handed the cashier the money, watching my last few dollars pass from my hand to hers with unease. “I didn’t tell you that I ran into him at the pool last week. With Alisha. She was meeting him.”

“What?” His eyes popped out of his head.

“Yeah. Exactly,” I gave him my very best I-told-you-so look. “I’m talking the
day
after he got back from Portland, the day after I broke up with him. Apparently she works here, too, which I somehow missed...”

“There must be some explanation,” Carter shook his head adamantly, lifting his tray to stroll toward our favorite table. “He wouldn’t do that to you. I talked to him over the weekend and he told me all about...” His eyes became distant as he stumbled off into thought.

“All about what? You
talked
to him this weekend?”

“Yeah, well, he’s just been asking about you, that’s all. He’s concerned about you...knew last week was your first Thanksgiving without your mom. When I told him you chose to stay home by yourself he sounded crushed.”

“You told him
what
?” My voice dropped to a low, deadly tone. Oh, yeah. The steam was there. And it was searing my ears off.

“Chill, Kate. I spent a lot of time with the dude over those few weeks, you know. Just trying to stay on friendly terms with him.”

“Screw friendly, Carter! Whatever. He wanted nothing to do with me last week when I ran into him. So this discussion is over.” I shot up from my seat and dumped my full tray of food. “I’ll see you later.” Making my way to my next class early so I could sit and get some writing done, I spotted Ryan eating alone outside in the cold. He froze mid-bite when he noticed me passing by.

“Kate,” his voice was barely a whisper. He slowly stood from the picnic table, his knees half bent in uncertainty. I breezed right past him and didn’t bother glancing over my shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he said, right before I dashed through the doors of the science building.

Sorry.
I was, too. For ever letting my guard down.

11. RECESS

Mrs. Meyer’s writing workshop was great for getting my mind off of rent, the tuition money I didn’t have for spring classes, and my traitorous best friend. I felt bad for storming out on Carter at lunch earlier, but I couldn’t grasp his reasoning, no matter how well he got to know Ryan. It just didn’t make any sense. I wouldn’t deny I had trust issues—clearly, I had a whole shitload of them. I knew I was damaged goods.

But regardless of what my motives were or what factors contributed to my chaos, nothing changed the fact that I worked hard for that orderly mess. I fought tooth and nail to create a comfortable cocoon for myself and I’d be damned if I was going to let some young, hotshot prick come along and screw it up for me.

Scratch that.

An incredibly sexy prick who was an amazing lover, who turned out to have a great sense of humor, and who cherished good writing and music like it was air to breathe.

Bloody hell.

The sound of Mrs. Meyer stressing the need for proper pacing in a short story reeled me back into the present. And Carter kept bumping my elbow every time I started to scribble in my notebook, no doubt acting like a child to pay me back for my behavior earlier.

“Excuse me, Kate?” Mrs. Meyer moved to the front of my desk and gave me some handouts. “I didn’t get a chance to copy these earlier. Would you mind running around the corner to make six of each so everyone has one to take home tonight?”

“Sure, no problem.” I stood and clunked Carter on the back of the head with my pencil, then stuck it into my hair as I brushed past him and out the door.

I ducked into the empty administrative lounge area around the corner, flipping on the light. It turned on with a soft flicker, a low hum filling the room from the copy and vending machines.
Kind of creepy in here at night.

Separating the handouts into piles, I began feeding the first page into the copy machine, jumping when I felt the door swing open behind me. It sent a swift breeze up my back and neck, causing goose bumps to spring up over my arms.

“Kate?”

I shuddered from the cold air that blew in through the door and swung around, red swarming my cheeks when Ryan stepped in. He shut the door behind him. The low hum of the machines stretched between us, closing the short distance with a pulsating energy.

“Wh-what are you doing here?”

“I have twenty more minutes until my last class. I teach one at night, remember? I wanted to grab a soda before.” A small grin twisted his lips and he brushed a hand over his jaw, letting himself fall backward to lean on the door. Oh dear God. That stubble. Those eyes.

“I know you teach a night class. I mean what are you doing
here
.” I leaned on the copy machine, gripping it for dear life. “A soda? Are you stalking me now?”

“You didn’t give me a chance to talk to you today at lunch, you just walked right by.”

“You didn’t give me a chance to talk to you at the pool last week.”

“Well you cut me off at your place last Sunday without letting me speak my piece. You want to keep rattling off our track records for dodging one another? Because I’ve got all night, baby.” His eyebrows raised, he crossed his arms and stared me down with eyes that were warm pools of melting, caramel fire. Why, why, why, did his honey-brown hair have to sit so divinely disheveled?

Shit, Kate. Pull it together.

“You only have twenty minutes.”

“I can cover a lot of ground in twenty minutes.” His lips twitched into a devilish curl, and I wanted to rush forward and smack that smug look right off his face. Then jump his bones. Not necessarily in that order.

“I’m not in the mood for games, Ryan. I’m busy, if you don’t mind. I have to get back to my workshop.” I let out a deep, sharp breath and twisted around to feed the machine again, smashing buttons and doing God knows what. I was all flustered and shaky, unable to think straight. My stomach clenched and I lifted my chin when I heard the lock on the door click.

I spun back around to deal with whatever ammunition he was ready to throw at me.

Bring it, Mr. Campbell.

Our eyes locked and something passed between us, a palpable electric current. That same current that raced around us the first night I’d gone out with him, the one that got me into trouble.

“Ryan, unlock the damn door and get out.” I crossed my arms and cocked a brow, tilting my head to the side. “Fine, you want to speak your piece? I’d love to hear you talk your way out of the fact that you’ve been cheating on Alisha with me. Or how you managed to get back with her less than twenty-four hours after leaving my house that Sunday morning. Please, be my guest. I’m all ears.”

“No, we’re going to have this out right now,” he stationed himself against the door. “First off, I’m not
with
Alisha. And I sure as hell haven’t been with her since I’ve been with you.” He pushed himself off the door, muscles tensing. “And second, I didn’t get back with her at all, let alone twenty-four hours after I left your place. She showed up at the damn pool unannounced. She knows I swim there Monday nights and she works in administration now. She’s been calling me, trying to get back together. That’s it, nothing more.”

“You told her you’d let me down easy.” My shoulders stiffened and my jaw clenched, my iron grip nearly crumbling the edges of the copy machine.

“She was referring to what I said back when I had to convince her I wasn’t seeing you.” When he pulled at his tie, I knew he was livid. And his anger should’ve made me angrier, considering
I was the one who had the right to be angry, but it only made me go crimson. It was hot. Smoking hot. I resented it with a passion.

“You’re not with her.”

“I’m not with her!” He threw his hands up in exasperation. “In case you haven’t noticed, Kate, I want
you
. But you’re stubborn, manipulative, brazen, and you drive me fucking mad sometimes!”

“Oh yeah?” My hands flew to my hips. “Well news flash, Mr. Campbell. You’re moody, have an ego the size of a continent, and you can sure dish it out but you can’t take it!”

“You know what I think?” He jolted forward, in front of me in a flash. “I think you pout that sexy pout, kick and stomp and throw your feistiness around to push people away, but deep down you
like
being chased.” His breath was hot on my face now, the veins in his neck bulging. “I think you let me pursue you because you were positive I’d break your heart and treat you like shit, and when you found out I wouldn’t, you didn’t know what to do, so you broke it yourself and made
me
the fucking bad guy!”

“Ha!” I was clawing at my shirt collar now, too, the heat radiating off my cheeks enough to set off the fire alarm. The papers spewing from the copy machine were piling up on the floor. “You know what I think? You finally found someone who could give you something
real
, but you only got involved because you knew it would come to this. Knew it would give you an excuse to just run back to your old ways. No commitment, nothing real—just the way you like it! And me telling you I wanted something casual gave you an even brighter green light.”

“If I
didn’t
want something real, would I be standing here right now?” He pressed his lips together, eyes wide, one eyelid twitching.
Oh my. I’m not the only one on the warpath.

“Admit it, Ryan. You chose me for the same reason I chose you. You knew you could easily destroy our relationship, or whatever it was. You keep settling for less than you deserve so that you can go on justifying your warped sense of self-worth.”

“You want to talk settling for less, Kate?” His voice dropped an octave, low and husky. He was towering over me now, hovering over my frame with intense fever. “I infuriate you because you wanted one thing from me and you got another. You think you deserve so little that your self-deprecating radar zoned in on me and lit up like a damn firework, hoping I’d be the one to confirm those standards. Well, guess what? I have zero desire to cheat on you, so get used to it right now.”

He reached forward and gripped my shoulders, yanking me against him, bringing his chest flush with mine, his erection at my hip. “You deserve more than you’ll ever realize. More than any man can ever give you. But I’d bend over fucking backwards to try and give you the world if you’d only let me.” Tilting his head, he traced my bottom lip with his tongue, letting a jagged breath flutter over my lips.

“We’ll ruin each other,” my voice trembled, lips parting to give his tongue access.