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But the second they do, they’re flat again, in a grim line, and I’m left wondering if I imagined it.
“I didn’t mean to keep you waiting,” he grits out.
“Well, there’s no harm done,” I say, still with that sassy note in my voice.
I wonder if he can hear the shyness quivering beneath it, or if he takes my façade to be the reality like so many people do.
There are only a few people who can peer past my carefully constructed shield.
My adopted parents and Sadie. That’s it.
I can’t expect him to know that while I tilt my head at him like a girl with all the answers, staring bravely at him, my tone of voice full of energy and banter and sassiness, my inside are quivering, certain he’s going to laugh me out of the building at any second.
“Right,” he mutters.
“Left,” I say.
Cringe-cringe-cringe.
That wasn’t even sassy or banter or anything. That was just plain old cheesy, so cheesy I could open a freaking cheese store in Paris from that one comment alone. I feel like the goofiest idiot who ever lived the moment the word is out there.
“I’m sorry?” he says.
“It’s just…”
I scream shut up in my mind over and over. I’ve already spewed enough word vomit without allowing even more ridiculousness to come spilling out of my mouth. And yet I find I can’t stop myself from going on like I’m running straight into a wall with no way to stop myself.
“Just?”
I’m almost certain I’m not imagining that amusement in his eyes, the way he tilts his head at me appraisingly like he’s relishing my discomfort. It must be because I was so rude to him when he first came in, and now he’s relishing the chance to watch me squirm.
“You said right, so I said left,” I explain, as I mutter frantic silent prayers for the building to collapse, the floor to give way, anything so I don’t have to sit in the awkwardness of this moment.
“Okay.”
He chuckles, shaking his head. My cheeks burn as I imagine him lying up in bed later, stripped to the waist, his skin covered in beads of sweat, as he tells some beautiful billboard model about the dorky girl he met earlier today.
“Are you ready to get started?”
“I’m not sure you’re ready,” I quip back.
Sometimes this works as a defense mechanism, this constant blabbing, this joke offensive. Sometimes it helps me to put douches in their place, to navigate uncomfortable social situations, but right now it feels like a freaking curse as my mouth opens and closes without my say-so.
“I’m not?” he asks, voice gruff, as though he’s losing his patience.
“I know you’ve worked with a lot of people, Ry… Mr. Ridge.”
I just about manage to stop myself from saying his first name, which is a miracle because I can’t stop myself from saying the rest of it. His eyes narrow when I say Mr. Ridge instead of Ryker, and a distant part of me wonders if he wants me to use his first name if he wants that intimacy, that closeness…
And if he wants so much more.
“But I’m different,” I go on. “I’ve won the gold medal three times.”
Shut. Up. Shut. Up.
Sadie calls this my blabber mode, when I open my mouth and absolute nonsense comes out. Once, she said it was a barrier I put up between myself and the world, a way to hide the real me so I don’t have to deal with rejection.
I’ll admit, I was pretty freaking annoyed when she said that to me. Not because she was wrong. But because I think my lovely annoying sister might be right.
“Is that so?” He moves closer, bringing his scent with him, a musky manliness that rises above the sterile surroundings. “In what event?”
My mind whirs as I try to think of something, anything to say.
“Shot put.”
He chuckles a little genuine humor in his voice this time.
“Wow, that’s impressive. Well done, Rosie.”
A tingle dances up and down my spine when he says my name. Not my surname like I used with him. Not even the longer version of my first name.
But my name, Rosie, is spoken in that gruff and dominating voice. A light rain has started to patter against the window, a soft and faraway feeling taking over, as though trying to remind me how alone we are here.
Anything could happen.
No, I quickly correct myself.
The only thing that’s going to happen is what we’ve arranged, nothing more, nothing even close to more.
“I was kidding,” I say as he leads me toward the door of a small but still fairly large private gym. “I didn’t really win any medals.”
He pauses with his hand on the doorframe, a subtle smirk twitching his lips. “You know, Rosie, I expected as much.”
“Yeah. How come?”
His eyes flit up and down my body, causing even more shivering sensations to prickle my skin.
