Stilling, I looked around. Every head in the room was turned toward us, their eyes wide. Some had their mouths hanging open; others were gossiping. It was just a matter of seconds before the almost chick fight news hit Twitter.
Ryan dragged me out of the bar. I thought he would let go of me once we were on the sidewalk, but his grip was firm around my waist while he pulled me along with him.
“Let me go,” I said, trying to elbow him in the stomach.
“Stop fighting me.”
“Then let me go.”
“So you can go back inside and keep doing what?” He looked down at me. His eyes were hard and his jaw popped. He wasn’t happy. “Stop and think for a moment. Whatever you two were doing, it was ridiculous.”
He was right, of course, but I would be damned if I admitted that to him. Besides, I was a little proud of myself for standing up to her. Sixteen-year-old me would never have stood up to a bitch like Caryn.
The anger slowly receded and the dizziness from the alcohol took over. “It’s okay. I won’t go after her. I promise. You can let go now.” He eyed me suspiciously, but dropped his arm from around me. I stopped and looked around. We were half a block from The Pub. “Where’s Rachel’s car?” I resumed walking back to The Pub and reached for my cell phone to send her a message that I was waiting outside. Three steps later, my heel caught on the sidewalk and tipsy me tripped. Pain shot through my foot, and I flailed for a second, sure I would kiss the sidewalk, but Ryan was right there. He caught my elbow and pulled me up before my knees touched the ground.
Gritting my teeth, I limped the next step. “Shit.”
He looked down at my legs. “Did you hurt yourself?”
“I think so. My ankle is hurting.” I tried taking another step and I whimpered. The pain was even worse than before. With a loud sigh, Ryan swept me into his strong arms. My breath hitched. “What are you doing?”
“My apartment is right there.” Walking, he jerked his chin ahead. “We’re gonna sit down and see what happened to your foot.”
“No, it’s okay,” I protested. “Just … help me to Rachel’s car. I’ll text her and she’ll take me home.”
“We’re already here,” he said, walking us past his closed garage. He went up the stairs and paused in front of the door. “Hold on to me.”
“W-what?”
“Just hold on to me, please?”
Wary, I wound my arms around his neck. The arm supporting my back dropped, and he fished his keys from his pocket. As if he did this every day, he unlocked the door without looking, and carried me inside. He kicked the door closed and deposited me on the couch.
In the same rhythm, Ryan got an ice pack from his fridge then sat beside me. With gentle hands, he put my foot on his leg. Because I was wearing a dress and didn’t want to flash him, I grabbed a pillow and placed it on my lap. Thankfully, he didn’t seem to notice.
Ryan moved my foot from one side to another, and I hissed.
“It’s swelling,” he said. “But I think you only twisted it, nothing major.” He placed the ice pack on my ankle.
At first, the coldness shocked me, but in seconds, it began soothing the pain.
His eyes met mine, something hard and raw written in them. “What were you thinking?”
“About?”
“Letting Caryn get to you like that. Reacting to the bullshit she said.”
Shrugging, I averted my eyes. “Maybe I can blame the tequila.”
“Even so. You shouldn’t give her the time of day.”
I returned my eyes to his. “You do.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“No, you don’t get to do that.” He held my foot a couple of inches up and shifted on the couch, turning his torso to face me before depositing my foot back in his lap. “Don’t insinuate something and then shut up. Talk to me, Jess.”
Talk about what? About how Caryn was right? About how it hurt to see them talking and standing close together? About how I was leaving soon, and she would stay here to take care of him? Disgust rolled in my stomach.
“Were you jealous I was talking to Caryn at the bar?”
“W-what? Of course not!”
“We weren’t actually talking, Jess. We were—”
“I don’t want to know.”
“—acting like our usual selves. She bothers me. I try to let her down nicely, but she pushes it until I snap. Still she comes back. I think she’s a masochist.”
It was too good to be true, but how would I know if he was telling me the truth? Besides, it didn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter. As I kept reminding myself, I was leaving and he was staying.
I slid my leg from his lap and put my foot on the ground. Pain shot up my muscles. Shit. How would I walk away from here? I grabbed my pumps—one had a broken heel, great—in one hand and my cell phone in another.
“What are you doing?” Ryan asked, leaning forward.
“I should go,” I whispered.
His warm hand touched my arm and I shivered. “Stay. Just for a while longer.”
“I shouldn’t.”
“Just hear me out,” he said, his tone almost pleading. I looked at him. “I need to say thank you. Thank you for helping at the site, for bringing others who also helped a lot. Thank you for taking me to see Brody. Thank you for calling John.”
“I … You’re welcome.”
“Jess, I probably shouldn’t say this, but I’m glad you came back, even for a short while. I’m glad we were able to heal, like you said. To find closure.” He ran his hand through his hair. “There’s one thing you should know before you go.”
“What?”
“When we started flirting, that trip was already scheduled, but I had forgotten about it. You made me forget about it. I … I don’t know how to explain. I had never experienced anything like what I did with you. It was like you could see the good in me, and you also knew my flaws, but you were willing to help me out, to wait for me to come around. I had no idea how much I had fallen for you until that night.”
I scooted to the edge of the couch. “I’m not sure I want to hear this.”
“By then it was time for the trip and I wasn’t sure I wanted to go. I even told you that, but you insisted I go.”
“You’re gonna say it’s my fault now?”
“No, not at all. The guys were giving me a hard time, but it was my fault. I went on the trip, dead set on behaving, on having a good time, but I wasn’t going to sleep with anyone. I was just there to have fun with the guys. But it wasn’t fun. It was torture. The guys pushed alcohol on me, and the girls sneaked into my tent at night.”
“Please stop.”
“No, hear me out. Whenever they came into my tent, I left. I drank, yes, but I didn’t sleep with anyone.”
My eyes went wide. “W-what?”
“I didn’t sleep with anyone.”
“But Caryn … and the pictures? She showed me a picture of the two of you on a mattress.”
“She sneaked into my tent when I was sleeping and lay beside me. I woke up to the flashes of her camera. She was able to take a few more before I was fully awake and sent her away.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was trying to, but then your father overheard us, and …”
I shut my eyes and shook my head. “I can’t believe you let me think you had slept with Caryn for so long.”
“Like I said before, I tried calling you, but I couldn’t seem to find a way of reaching you. It was like you had disappeared off the face of the Earth.”
“You didn’t sleep with Caryn that weekend,” I whispered, trying to absorb the information.
He shook his head. “I didn’t sleep with Caryn. Not that weekend or after.”
I bit my lip, but the words came out anyway. “But you did before me?”
A knot appeared over his pained eyes. “Yes, but it was months before you.”
I stared at him. That last bit of info hurt, but I tried focusing on what mattered. He hadn’t slept with Caryn that weekend. He hadn’t cheated on me. Oh my God. Everything we went through was because I thought he had cheated on me, because I thought he didn’t care about me.