by Noelle Adams
He had to though. He couldn’t sleep in when his animals were hungry, so he trudged through his morning chores, drank three cups of black coffee, took a long shower, and then headed into town.
The others were already at Tea for Two when he arrived. The place wasn’t as crowded now as it had been during the first weeks after opening, but there were a decent number of customers at the counter and scattered at the small tables.
His friends were sitting at a couple of tables in the far corner near the back room, and Carol was behind the counter. She waved at him as he went to sit in the empty chair between Noah and Patrick.
Patrick was working on his laptop and greeted him with a wordless grunt, but Noah grinned and gave him a soft punch on the arm. “Late night?”
“Eh.” Ryan was acutely aware of Ginny’s big green eyes on him, and he wasn’t about to admit he’d lain awake for a long time, thinking about her. “Not too bad. Why is Carol behind the counter?”
“Melissa called in sick again this morning,” Ginny explained. She looked disturbingly like she’d just rolled out of bed with tousled hair and an oversized T-shirt with leggings. “I think she’s pregnant. So Carol and I are taking turns until Rachel gets here to cover the shift.”
There were several college students who worked part-time for Tea for Two, but Ryan could never keep them straight.
“Would you put the laptop up, Patrick?” Emma asked, giving her brother a little flick on the sleeve. “If we’re boring you, you don’t have to hang out with us.”
Patrick blinked. “I’m not bored. I just got here before everyone else and was trying to finish this up. I’ve been listening. Melissa is sick and maybe pregnant, and Carol and Ginny are covering until Rachel gets here. The new tea is too bitter, but Carol’s scones are top-notch. Noah and Emma had a fight about movies last night, and Ginny met a hot guy.”
The others chuckled at Patrick’s bland rehearsal of their morning’s conversation, but Ryan’s spine stiffened. “What hot guy?”
“You were there,” Emma said. “Weren’t you paying attention?”
“She was flirting with a lot of guys. How the hell am I supposed to know which one is the hot one?”
“I wasn’t flirting,” Ginny objected. “I was working on winning the contest.”
“But there was one you liked?” Maybe that was who the text had been from as they were saying goodbye last night. Maybe that was who had made her smile in that fond, amused way.
It had bothered him last night, and it bothered him even more this morning.
He was supposed to be getting over her, but that didn’t mean he wanted to see her hook up with some guy she thought was hot.
Ginny gave a little shrug. “They were just asking about who I met.”
That didn’t really answer the question, and Ryan was about to continue the inquiry when Patrick slanted him a significant look.
Ryan knew what it meant.
He would be very stupid to keep up an inquisition. It wouldn’t take long for everyone to realize he was jealous, and that would just be humiliating.
He wasn’t sure why all these feelings for Ginny were rushing back like this, even after he’d made the decision to move on, but he knew better than to believe they could lead anywhere.
So he closed his mouth and held himself back from pursuing the topic.
After a few minutes, a brunette arrived to take over the counter, so Carol came over and pulled a chair up near him. “Did Mom text you?”
“This morning?” Ryan asked with raised eyebrows. “No. Why?”
“She wants us to come over for lunch.”
Ryan managed to hold back a groan. He had a pretty good relationship with his parents, but lately his mother had taken to nagging him, and he wasn’t sure he was equipped to deal with it today. “How set is she on it? I had plans.”
“What plans?” Carol asked.
“I’m trying to finish up my basement, and if I go to lunch, I’ll lose two hours from the day.”
“Well, she’s already cooking,” Carol said, her expression serious, “so she’s going to get hurt feelings if you bail on her.”
“Okay. Fine.” Maybe he could try to steer conversation away from discussion of his habits with women and his lack of a serious relationship.
“I can come over this afternoon and help you finish the basement,” Carol offered, evidently seeing continued reluctance on his face.
It hadn’t really been about the basement, but Ryan could always use an extra pair of hands. “Sure. Thanks.”
“Ginny, maybe you can come help too if you don’t have anything else going on.” Carol was smiling innocently, evidently unaware that Ryan’s heart leaped embarrassingly in his chest.
Ginny looked startled and then slightly uncomfortable, but she said with a smile. “Sure. I’m not doing anything else.”
“You don’t have to help with the basement,” Ryan told her. “Seriously. It’s not a big deal.”
“I’m happy to help,” Ginny said with a more genuine smile this time. “If it’s anything like the cluttered mess you’ve always kept in your closets, then you can use all the help you can get.”
Ryan chuckled at her teasing tone, but then he realized he’d have to get to his house before the women came over.
There was still a box of memories of Ginny, sitting on the floor of his basement—scrawled with the word TRASH—that he hadn’t yet thrown out.
If Ginny saw them, she would know they meant something to him.
And if she opened the box and looked inside, she might find an engagement ring he’d never gotten the chance to give her.
“WHY DID YOU FEEL THE need to invite me to help with the basement cleaning?” Ginny demanded as she got into Carol’s car that afternoon.
Since Nan’s house was between Carol’s apartment and Ryan’s property, Carol had stopped to pick Ginny up.
Carol gave her a guileless smile. “Why wouldn’t you want to help?”
“Don’t give me that innocent act. What’s really going on?”
“I thought you might want to spend more time with Ryan—outside of the group, I mean.”
Ginny’s breath caught in her throat. “Why would you think that?”
“Because you’ve got feelings coming back for him, don’t you?”
Ginny stared. She hadn’t said a word about the feelings to anyone except Nan. “How did you know?”
“We’ve known each other since we were ten. Of course I could pick up that something’s different. Besides, you aren’t even really looking at him lately, and what other reason could there be.”
“Maybe I was mad at him.”
Carol laughed. “When you’re mad, you come right out and say it. It’s only mushy feelings that you’re scared to show or admit. So the mushy feelings are back?”
Ginny sighed and leaned back against the seat of the car. “I... I guess they are. I’m not even sure how it happened. Or when.”
“So why don’t you say something to him?”
“What am I supposed to say? Hey, Ryan, I know it’s been years since we went out, but I think you’re the best and hottest guy I know in the world, and I’d really like to hook up with you again.”
Ginny snorted. “Well, you might reword it a bit. He’ll never just hook up with you.”
“I know.”
“You’ve got to let him know you’re serious.”
“I don’t even know if I am serious. I don’t know anything. I don’t know what’s happening.”
“I don’t have much experience myself, but I’m pretty sure everyone feels that way when they fall in love.”
“I’m not in—”
Ginny broke off the words when Carol shot her a knowing look.
“I’m not,” she added lamely. “It’s just... I don’t know what it is, but I don’t like it.”
Carol’s mouth twitched like she was hiding amusement.
“You’re laughing at me now?” Ginny demanded.
“A
little. You’ve always been so with it and confident. It’s kind of nice to know you’re just as insecure as me in some ways.”
Ginny gave her friend a curious look. Carol didn’t date nearly as much as she did—or even as much as Emma had before she’d gotten together with Noah. Ginny had always understood it to be because Carol was looking for her soul mate and she didn’t want to waste time with anyone else.
But it was also because Carol wasn’t sure of herself with men.
With a little smile, Ginny admitted, “I guess we’re all kind of at a loss when it comes to matters of the heart. If I had to guess, I’d say you’ll be better at it than I am. I’m good at flirting, and I’m good at dating. But I’m not good at... anything serious. That’s why I’m not sure I want to pursue this right now. Or at all.”
Carol’s expression was sober again as she turned from the road to glance at Ginny. “So what are you going to do?”
“For now, I’m going to go on the way I’ve always done. I don’t want to ruin the friendship I have with Ryan because I’m blundering around figuring things out. After what happened between us, it’s a miracle we’re even still friends.”
“Ryan can be friends with anyone. He’s just that way.”
“Yeah. I know he is. But I’m not going to take the risk until I know... until I know what’s going on.”
“Okay. I’ll be good.”
“And please don’t tell him anything.”
“Of course I wouldn’t!” Carol’s silver-gray eyes were very wide. “I’d never say a word. I might be a tattletale, but I can keep secrets when they’re important, even from my brother.”
Ginny knew that was true.
WHEN THEY GOT TO RYAN’S house, Carol let them in with her key and called out for Ryan until they discovered he was already down in the basement.
The basement was large and unfinished, the walls and floors all painted gray. Half of it was neat and uncluttered—just shelves of boxes, rubber crates, and miscellaneous sporting equipment. The other half was a mess, with junk spilling out of beat-up boxes and a variety of random objects strewn all over the floor.
“You’ve made a lot of progress,” Ginny said with a smile. “This half looks great.”
“Yeah.” Ryan was kneeling on the floor, pulling stuff out of a box that looked like old Christmas ornaments. He wore jeans and a T-shirt, and Ginny couldn’t help but notice and appreciate the size of his biceps and the tightness of his ass as he leaned over.
She wasn’t sure how it could happen, but he seemed to get sexier every time she saw him.
“But there’s still a lot to do,” Ryan added with a tired look at the cluttered half of the basement. “How the hell did I end up with all this junk?” He held up a silver miniwreath dotted with shiny berries. “Why do I have this stupid thing?”
“Hey!” Carol objected. “I bought you that for your first Christmas in this house. Don’t make fun of it.”
Ginny chuckled and lowered herself to the floor beside Ryan. “So what do you need us to do?”
He gave them each a general area to start working in, and they began to pull down boxes and sort through their contents, often asking Ryan about what stuff to keep and what to throw or give away.
The work wasn’t as tedious as Ginny had feared, and she actually had fun laughing and joking with Carol and Ryan. After a few hours, Carol went upstairs to fix some dinner for them, leaving Ginny and Ryan alone in the basement.
Ginny felt hot, dirty, and unattractive in her jeans and tank top, her hair pulled back in a messy ponytail.
She had to remind herself it didn’t matter. Ryan didn’t care how she looked. And she couldn’t take any sort of risk with him until she was sure it was a good idea anyway. After closing a box and lifting it onto a shelf with the other finished boxes, she slumped onto the floor near where Ryan was kneeling.
He looked over at her, and his gray eyes changed. “Thanks for helping this afternoon. I know it isn’t any fun.”
“It’s not been too bad,” she told him with a smile, wiping sweat off her face with her hand. “The truth is I kind of like cleaning things up, bringing order to chaos.”
“Do you?”
“Yeah. Remember in college when I’d come over and clean up your room?”
Ryan laughed, adjusting so he was leaning back against the wall beside her. “Yes, I remember. It didn’t seem to matter that your own bedroom was kind of messy all the time. You had to come over and clean mine.”
“Well, it was different. My clutter was mostly clothes and schoolbooks. Yours was pizza boxes and unwashed dishes and really gross things.”
Ryan chuckled again, turning his head so his eyes were resting on her face with a soft, fond look that made her heart beat like crazy. “It wasn’t that bad.”
“Yes, it was. Your dorm room in college makes this basement look spick-and-span.” She couldn’t look away from him, even though she kept telling herself to do so.
“Maybe. I guess I can’t even remember.” He sighed as if he’d just thought of something and finally shifted his gaze away from her. “I guess I’ve always been a slob.”
“You’re not a slob,” she said, immediately jumping to his defense, even against himself. “Your house is actually in pretty good shape for a guy living on his own. Everyone’s basement ends up being a mess. That’s what basements are for.”
He gave a soft chuckle and looked back at her. “My mom says I’m a mess and it’s time to pull myself together.”
Ginny shook her head. “She doesn’t mean everything about you is a mess. She’s really proud of you, you know.”
He gave a half shrug, and she suddenly realized that his mother’s words had really bothered him. They had struck him in a way that wounded.
He was always so big and laid-back and friendly and confident that it was easy to forget he had insecurities too.
He’d always been more sensitive than anyone else realized.
“Ryan,” Ginny said, unable to stop herself from reaching over and putting a hand on his thigh over the denim of his jeans. “You’re not a mess. You’re amazing. You’re not even thirty yet, and you have a great job and a house and not much debt and good friends and an extraordinary way with animals and the biggest heart I’ve ever known. Your parents are proud of you. All of us are proud of you.”
“Are you?” he said with a rasp in his voice, his eyes holding hers intently now.
She could barely breathe at the look on his face. “I am.”
He was breathing more quickly too. She could hear it in the silence of the basement and see it in his shoulders. He leaned forward, his lips brushing against hers very lightly.
That slightest of touches triggered every nerve ending in her body, and she made a little sound in her throat as her hands lifted to hold on to his shoulders. She followed the retreat of his mouth until she was kissing him again.
This time it wasn’t just a brush of their lips. He was claiming her mouth more intensely now, one of his arms wrapping around her body, pulling her closer to him. His tongue teased at her lips, sending shockwaves of pleasure down her spine, between her legs. She clutched at him eagerly, opening her mouth to him, wanting to feel him as deeply as she could.
“Ginny,” he murmured against her mouth, one of his hands clenching in her ponytail and the other curving around her bottom as she leaned into him. “Fuck, Ginny.”
She was so excited she couldn’t hold herself back. She was practically crawling into his lap, trying to feel his warm, hard body against hers, trying to ease the delicious ache at her center.
“Dinner’s ready!” Carol called out from the top of the stairs. “Come get it while it’s hot!”
Carol sounded friendly, natural, completely unaware of what they’d been doing alone in the basement, and the sound of her voice caused Ginny to jerk away with a gasp.
Ryan was pulling away too, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand as he stared at her with astonishment.
Ginny
was flushed, gasping, and struggling to make her mind work, her voice work. “Shit,” she managed to say. “That was... that was...”
“A mistake,” Ryan finished for her. His expression was changing now—from astonishment to something else, something that looked a lot like distaste, as if kissing her was the last thing in the world he’d wanted to be doing.
That wasn’t how Ginny had been planning to finish her sentence. It hadn’t felt like a mistake to her at all.
It had felt exactly right, as if she was finally doing what she should have been doing all these years, ever since college.
But Ryan obviously didn’t feel the same. He was still wiping at his mouth and now standing up, looking tense and uncomfortable. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I never should have done that.”
“You don’t have to be sorry. I did it too. It was just...” She had no idea what it was.
“A random impulse,” he concluded, again finishing her sentence in a way that wasn’t at all what she was thinking. “It didn’t mean anything. I never should have done it.”
“Well, don’t worry about it,” she managed to say, determined not to let Ryan see how crushing she found this whole thing. To finally have, feel, what she’d wanted for so long and then to hear he didn’t want it at all. “It was just one of those things.”
“We tried that before, and we saw what happened. We can’t go down that road again.” His hand was covering his mouth and chin now, as if he were trying to hold something back.
Disgust or revulsion or something.
He really hated the fact that he’d kissed her.
Ginny’s stomach churned at this recognition, but she was able to hold on to a casual smile. “Then we won’t. We won’t go down that road again. We’ll just forget this happened. How about that?”
“Yeah. Yeah.” He was still breathing heavily. He was flushed and still aroused—she could see it from the tightness at the front of his jeans—but there was obviously nothing else about her that he wanted. “Let’s do that.”
“I’ll head upstairs,” Ginny said, desperately needing to get away from him before she burst into tears. “I’ll tell Carol you’re just finishing something up. You come up when you’re ready.”
