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It only tookme ten minutes to unpack my stuff and get it put away in the closet and dresser in the spare bedroom. I probably could have just lived out of my suitcases, since I’m hoping Stephanie at Sandbar Cottages will be calling me soon with an update, but I’ve been doing that for long enough. I’m tired of having to iron everything I want to wear and constantly having to dig through balled-up piles of clothes to find what I’m looking for. Besides, I neededsomethingto do to kill time while I hid away in here until it was time to go to bed.
I spent the next five hours trying to find things to do until I got tired. I paced for twenty minutes, reorganized my clothes hanging in the closet by color, got down on the floor and did some yoga, paced some more, pressed my ear against the closed bedroom door like a stalker when I heard Ryan come back into the house and move around in the kitchen, watched a few episodes of a show I’ve been bingeing on my phone, tried to sketch but everything looked like shit, and then I finally changed into my pajamas of a tank top and a pair of cotton pajama shorts, and flopped onto my back in bed to stare at the ceiling.
It’s now 11:00 p.m., and sleep is nowhere in sight.
Rolling off the bed, I grab a hoodie I tossed onto the end of it and pull it on. Padding across the carpet in my bare feet, I press my ear to the door again. I haven’t heard any movement in the main part of the house in a while, and I’m pretty sure I heard Ryan’s bedroom door shut in the middle of the last episode I watched. Figuring the coast is clear enough for me to go grab the damn pot brownies I should have brought in here with me so I could actually relax and get some sleep, I quietly open the door. Peeking out into the dark hallway, I can just make out Ryan’s closed bedroom door, and I quickly tiptoe out of my room and down the hallway.
As soon as I round the corner to head into the kitchen, I run right smack into a wall that shouldn’t be there.
“Aaahhh!”
The loudest shriek ever flies around the quiet, dark room. When the bright, overhead kitchen light is flipped on, I realize that scream didn’t come from me, and I didn’t just run into a wall.
“Wow! I forgot someone else was living here!” Ryan laughs, holding one hand over his heart as he tries to catch his breath.
“I’m so sorry!” I laugh right along with him. “My God, you scream like a girl.”
“You scared the heck out of me! I thought someone broke in.”
Our laughter trails off after a few minutes, and Ryan shakes his head at me. “You know you didn’t have to hide in your room all night. I won’t bite.”
But what if I want you to?
“Sorry,” I reply sheepishly, pushing away the stupid thoughts in my head. “This is just a little… weird. I didn’t know if you’d want me out here, or if you wanted your privacy, or what I was supposed to do.”
“This isyourplace too while you’re here. You can do whatever you want, whenever you want. You can watch whatever you want on TV, help yourself to whatever food, or dance on the furniture; I don’t care. As long as you’re comfortable,” he reassures me.
And I know he means it. He probably wouldn’t care if I invited half the island over here and threw a rager. He’d most likely just follow behind people with a smile on his face, making sure they used a coaster with their drinks and vacuuming up spills with his Dyson with the great suction.
“I couldn’t sleep and was gonna make a cup of tea. Do you want one?”
It makes me feel a little better that he couldn’t sleep either, but it’s probably because he’s afraid I might murder him while his eyes are closed. Not because he couldn’t stop picturing me naked in bed. That just seems to be ameproblem.
I agree to the tea and follow him into the kitchen to lean my elbows against the counter while he grabs two mugs out of an upper cabinet.
“I like the glasses.”
Ryan adjusts the black frames on his face when he comes over to the island to grab two packets of tea out of a small basket next to the salt and pepper shakers.
“I usually wear contacts. I know, I should probably get a more current style. They make me look even more nerdy.”
I quickly shake my head. “No, they don’t. You lookreallygood in them.” I clear my throat when he pauses opening the tea packets and just stares at me. “I mean… smart. You look really smart.”
Who’s the nerd now?
He doesn’t move for a few seconds, and then he shakes his head to clear whatever was going on in there and smiles at me. Putting the tea packets into the empty mugs, he walks over to the sink, and I can finally let out the breath I was holding.
“Can I ask you a question?” Ryan looks back over his shoulder at me as he fills a tea kettle with water, and I nod. “I know you kind of… walked away from your life recently. Did you make all of these changes that quickly?”
He sets the kettle on the stove, turns on the burner, and moves back to the other side of the island, mirroring my pose with his elbows on the counter across from me.
“Changes?”
He laughs a little uncomfortably, rubbing the back of his neck in what I now know as his telltale sign for being nervous. “I have a vague recollection of meeting you in college. You were blonde, and quiet, and… not so colorful.”
Realizing he probably thinks I quit my life, immediately went batshit crazy, and changed everything about myself in the blink of an eye, it’s my turn to laugh.
“I actually got the tattoos and the nose piercing in college,” I tell him. “I took the piercing out whenever I was around my family and kept the tattoos on my arm hidden with long sleeves, and the ones on my thigh with pants or long skirts. My hair was the only thing I changed the day after I left.”
