“Ah, so you were the source of many months of pain for me,” Ryder chimed in before I could respond, and we both looked at him. “Thanks so much.”
“What do you mean?” Elisa asked.
“I hated that guy for months,” he said. “I kind of wanted to throw my remote through my flat screen when I saw them together at The Grammys.”
My eyes got wide. “You did watch it, you liar!”
He turned to me. “I watched your performance, and then about five minutes more before I turned it off to go drink beer with Jake.”
I smiled. “Aww, that’s really sweet.”
He threw his hands up. “It was friggin’ torture. I equally hated and loved every second of seeing you looking all beautiful and sexy and sitting next to him all smiley. It pissed me off – but frankly I was more pissed at myself than you, because I was so stupid for kissing you.”
“No, I was stupid. I’m the one who thought you were gay,” I hissed.
“That was pretty stupid, but at least you had your fake boyfriend to keep you company. I just had Jake and some faceless sorority girls.”
“Eww,” Elisa and I both said in unison.
“Oh, sorry,” Ryder said quickly, realizing his mistake. Then he mouthed he was sorry again, just to make sure I saw it. “For the record, I didn’t sleep with any of them.”
I waved him off, hoping he’d shut up before he put any more images in my head that I didn’t want there. “It’s fine. It’s a little weird hearing you talk about other girls, but I’ll get over it.”
“I only ever wanted one girl,” he reminded me, a grin eating up his face. “And now that I’ve got her, other girls don’t exist to me.”
“Aww, you guys are cute,” Elisa said, as she watched us, her chin resting on her palm.
“Love you,” I told Ryder quietly.
“So, did you used to hook up with guys or something?” Elisa asked, and we both looked at her. “Is that who Jake is?”
Ryder snorted a laugh. “Hell no! Jake is my roommate.” Then he jerked his thumb at me. “She thought he was my boyfriend, because she thought I was gay for some reason she manufactured in her head. No, I’ve always been very much straight. Not that there’s anything wrong with being gay. It’s just not for me.”
“Yeah, apparently you like random sorority girls,” I teased him, and he just shook his head.
“I can’t win with you, woman!”
“I’ll make it up to you later,” I promised.
“So, wait. You just assumed he was gay? How does that work? He seems pretty straight to me.”
“Thank you,” Ryder said.
“Apparently my gaydar sucks.”
“You do know Van is gay, right?” she asked, and I looked at her with wide eyes.
“No way?!”
She grinned. “No, not at all. I was just kidding. I’m actually kind of dating him. I just wanted to see what you’d say. He’s kind of pretty, so people assume that, but he’s very much straight.”
I didn’t want to tell her that I’d seen Van hooking up with a well-known teenage actress at a club in West Hollywood a few months ago, so I’d figured he was straight. Elisa didn’t need to know that, and I wasn’t even sure how long she had been ‘kind of’ dating Van. He was the oldest member of Westside, and he was a nice guy, kind of shy, like Ryder. I liked him, so I didn’t think I should broadcast his past to the girl he was newly dating if he didn’t want her to know about it.
“That’s cool. I like Van. He’s a good guy,” I said instead.
“I like him too. We’re not like exclusive or anything. That would be ridiculous since I’m not under any delusions that he’s resisting temptation when it’s thrown at his feet nightly. I mean, he’s a hot twenty-two year-old guy in a boy band. But he’s fun and cute, and we hook up when we’re in the same city,” she said, shrugging, and I shot a look at Ryder.
There was a small smile playing on his lips, and he was shaking his head just slightly. Knowing him as well as I did, I could tell it was his way of telling me that I didn’t have to worry about him resisting temptation. And that was good, because I didn’t think I’d be able to handle a non-exclusive relationship where he was concerned. Just the thought of him kissing another girl made my stomach turn.
“As long as you’re okay with casual dating,” Ryder commented to Elisa, and she shrugged.
“It’s fine. I’m so busy most of time that it’s not like I’m sitting at home waiting for him to call. It’s good for both of us. We’ll see where it goes, I guess. I am excited to see him tonight. We’re all going out to dinner after the show. I’m assuming you guys are coming too?” Elisa asked then.
“Uh,” I said, and it was my turn to be at a loss for words. I hadn’t gotten a chance to talk to Ryder about what I had to do that night.
Ryder reached across the table and squeezed my hand for a second. “I think we’re going to do our own thing tonight,” he said, and I felt my shoulders slump, which caused him to look at me in question. “What?”
I looked at Elisa. “Could you give us a minute?”
“Sure,” she said, taking the remnants of her lunch and getting up from the table. I watched her walk over to where Shelly and Clea were sitting before shifting my gaze back to Ryder.
“You’re going to be so mad at me,” I told him.
“We’re not going out are we,” he deduced, his face showing exactly what he thought of that idea.
“No, here’s the thing. I told Chris, and they’re going to orchestrate a friendly break-up between Dillon and me, but it will look really bad if I’m seen out to dinner with you – even if you’re just ‘a friend’ – when my ‘boyfriend’ is playing a concert in the city. I’m so, so sorry, and I promise I’ll make it up to you, just please, please don’t be mad.”
He took a few seconds to process what I’d shared. “So you have to go to the Westside concert?”
I shrugged. “I don’t have to go, I guess, but I can’t be seen out with anyone else either. It would start too many rumors.”
I watched him, waiting for a response or for him to storm away from the table in anger, but he didn’t move. He just looked at me thoughtfully.
“So if I were to order food from a restaurant and have it delivered, you could eat it with me in our hotel suite?” he questioned.
My whole face might have lit up, and I wanted to leap across the table and kiss him. “Yeah, I can definitely do that.”
He smiled. “Cool. Then we’ll do that.”
I let my whole body relax. The tension had been slowly creeping up my spine dissipating.
“That way I can kiss you across the table and hold your hand if I want to,” he said coyly.
I leaned forward, wishing I could close the distance between us. “I would love that.”
“Good. Then you’ll go to your signing thing, and when you come back we’ll have our first official date. But I will warn you that I’ll kind of expect you to put out afterward.”
I laughed. “Done. As long as you don’t think I’m a slut for sleeping with you on the first date.”
He shrugged. “Nah, I’ll be so excited to get some that I won’t have time to judge you.”
I reached over and smacked his arm as he raised it to take the last bite of his sandwich. “Jerk.”
“You love me,” he said, using the same line he always did when we were just friends.
“Yeah, I do,” I told him.
“Hey, just a thought. If Elisa’s going out with the guys from Westside after the show, do you need to be there?”
Damn, I hadn’t thought of that.
“Yeah, probably. I really don’t want to make Dillon look bad, especially after the negative press of him fighting with Meredith, his girlfriend. If I don’t go, then I’m sure more rumors will fly.”
“Then we’ll go,” he offered, and I really wanted to hug him.
“You’re sure?”
It was such a departure from his angry demeanor from the
night before.
“Yeah, I’m good with it. It’ll be a group of people, so it won’t be so awkward. And it won’t be at a club, so I won’t hate it. But just know that you’re going home with me.”
I laughed. “There’s no one else I’d rather go home with.”
“Good answer,” he said, beaming at me.
Damn, with the way we were acting, it was a wondering everyone at the shoot couldn’t see right through us. I could imagine how obviously in love we looked. I knew it was radiating off of me, and I could see it coming off of Ryder in waves too. We’d be lucky if people didn’t figure us out before it was okay to tell them.
* * *
That night while I was at the signing for my fans, Ryder was back at the hotel suite getting things ready for our date. When we’d parted ways after the photo shoot, he’d had a gleam in his eye that made me wonder what he had planned. He’d been talking to Elisa during most of the afternoon, and something told me it had to do with him wanting to make things perfect.
I was over-the-top excited, and I would venture to guess that my mood made the meet-and-greet more exciting for my fans. From what I’d been told, they’d been lined up since the night before, and we’d had to turn people away. I’d only be signing autographs for an hour and a half, so that limited the amount of people I could meet. I hated to do it, but I also knew that if we didn’t put any parameters around the event, I could be there for nine hours with a cramped hand when it was all said and done.
As the event wound down, I started to get even more anxious, and I was sure my smile was wider than usual as I said hello to the three middle-school aged girls who were standing in front of me.
“We’re going to the Westside concert tonight,” one of them said, her braces gleaming when she smiled widely.
“Are you? That’ll be fun,” I said as I signed a poster she’d brought with her.
“You’re going, right?” her friend asked, and I looked up and met her gaze.
“Definitely. I wouldn’t miss it.”
The three girls beamed at me. “We just love that you’re dating Dillon. You guys are like the perfect couple,” the first girl said, and her friends nodded vigorously.
Oh man, they were going to be so disappointed in a few weeks.
“He’s, like, so hot,” the third girl gushed.
I smiled at them, not sure how to respond. Dillon was way too old for them, but I remembered being in middle school and dreaming about what it would be like to kiss Justin Timberlake, so I didn’t really have any room to talk.
“It was so nice to meet you guys,” I said when I’d finished signing the things they’d brought. One of my handlers started to guide them away from the table. “Have fun at the concert tonight.”
They grinned at me. “Kiss Dillon for us,” one of them said, and I just shook my head.
“You guys are too much,” I said as I waved goodbye to them.
As soon as I finished with the meet-and-greet, Elisa, who was the point person for the event, along with my security team, hustled me out a back entrance and into a waiting car. I rode back to the hotel with just Bert and Pablo since Elisa had to stay and wrap things up at the venue. I told her I’d see her later that night after the concert.
Then I texted Ryder to let him know I was on my way. He sent back a happy face and told me to knock and not use my key. Thankfully I didn’t need to change. I was wearing a gray strapless dress that was casual, but it had a little sparkle to it that made it sexy and nighttime appropriate.
Pausing outside my hotel suite forty-five minutes later, because the traffic had been a complete bitch getting back uptown, I smiled and knocked. I looked back at Pablo who was standing by the elevator. Either he or Bert would be there whenever I was in my suite. I used to wonder if they got bored, but whenever I asked, they told me no. I figured it was just part of their job standing stock still and waiting for something that would, hopefully, never happen.
My stomach made a little flip, as I heard the door opening, and I turned my attention back to it. Then standing before me was Ryder dressed in jeans, a white t-shirt and a black blazer, and looking hot as hell. He grinned widely at me, as he reached out his hand and pulled me into the suite, closing the door behind me.
He pulled me into a kiss, his arms wrapping protectively around me, his familiar scent washing over me. I inhaled deeply as I ran my hands up to his shoulders.
“Hi,” he said, pulling back to look at me.
I pouted and tried to pull him back for another kiss, but he just shook his head. “If we get started, you know we won’t stop, and the wonderful dinner that’s waiting for you out on the terrace will get cold.”
I raised an eyebrow at him. “The terrace?”
Our suite had an amazing brick terrace that allowed us to have privacy but still be outside. A part of me felt like eating out there might just be better than going to a restaurant. It definitely had the potential to be more romantic.
“Yeah,” he said, smirking at me. “Come see.”
He led me through the suite to the terrace and my jaw fell open. In the time I’d been gone, he’d strung lights through the trees in each corner, and he’d set up a table in the middle with candles and flowers. A covered dish sat at each place setting. Soft music that sounded like Jack Johnson was playing from his iPod that was sitting next to a bucket of champagne to the right of the table.
I looked up at him. “Do you know how many times I’ve dreamed of having dinner on a rooftop? No one has ever done something like this before. This is amazing, Ry.”
He smiled. “Apparently, you’ve just been dating the wrong guys.”
“Obviously,” I agreed, making him laugh.
“Come sit,” he said, tugging on my hand.
Then he pulled out my chair for me and walked around the table to sit across from me.
“I don’t want you to leave,” I blurted out then, realizing how at home I felt with him.
And he’d only been with me for three days. Just the thought of him leaving in a week had my stomach suddenly in knots.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said, obviously not getting where my head was at.
“But you will in a few days.”
He reached across the table and took my hand like he’d been talking about doing earlier in the day. “I know, and it’s seven days. I’m not looking forward to it either, but it is what it is.”
“I know. I’ll miss you.”
He chuckled. “Don’t miss me yet. I’m still here. And it’ll only be six weeks until I can visit again.”
“Six weeks!” I groaned. “That’s practically a lifetime.”
He shook his head. “Such a diva.”
“Hey! Not cool.”
He just grinned at me. “We’ll talk every day. We can Face Time. We’ll make it work.”
He was trying to be so positive, and I loved him for it.
“I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get all heavy and ruin the night. This is a really nice thing you did,” I said, trying to smooth things over. “I had no idea you were so romantic.”
He squeezed my hand. “I never have been before, but I like doing things that make you smile. I just want you to be happy, Syd.”
My eyes filled with happy tears, and I used the hand that wasn’t holding his to fan them away. “You make me happy just by being here and being you,” I told him. Then I froze and looked away for a second.
“What’s wrong?” Ryder asked, picking up on the shift in my demeanor.
I looked back at him, and he was watching me closely. Then understanding dawned on his face. He’d seen that look before. He let go of my hand and walked into the suite, returning seconds later with my notebook and a pen.
“Here, write it down before you forget.”
I shook my head, setting the notebook down next to my plate. “No, it’s okay. I can do it later.”
Damn, but the melody was already forming in my mind, and I heard what could be the opening lines.<
br />
“Write it down, Syd,” he encouraged.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. Trust me. I know how your brain works, and when a song idea hits you, if you don’t get it written down, the lyrics are going to torture you until you do.”
He was so right. “Okay. Just give me a minute.”
“Gladly.”
Then he leaned forward to see what I was writing. I covered my notebook with my hand.
“No peaking,” I chastised him.
“Just tell me. Is it about me? Are you going to call it Ryder is Awesome?”
I looked up at him through my lashes and met his expectant gaze. Then I nodded.
“Yes!” he said, punching the air with his fist. “Finally!”
“Hey, don’t get too excited. It’s about you, but I’m not using that title.”
“It’s a good title.”
“Ha! Yeah right. I might use your name in the title, but that’s it,” I said, shrugging
He smiled. “I’d be amendable to that.”
“Hey what did you mean by finally?” I asked a few seconds later, as I looked up from my notebook.
He ginned at me. “Well, you write all these songs about the guys in your life, but you’ve never written one about me. I’m just glad to join the club.”
“I’ve written songs about you,” I told him, not meeting his gaze.
“You have?”
“Yeah, I have.”
“Which ones?” he asked eagerly, and I looked up to see him leaning forward on his elbows.
“Some you’ve never heard, especially ones I wrote in the past six months, but Only With You is about you.”
He looked stunned for a few seconds. “No, it’s not.”
“Yeah, it is. I wrote it about us, about our friendship.”
“But it’s a love song,” he reminded me.
“Yeah, I know. I thought about that recently, which sort of made me realize that I probably had feelings for you long before I admitted them to myself. I didn’t want to think about you in that way since I knew I couldn’t have you, but on some subconscious level, I think you were the guy I always wanted.”
Only With You Page 23
