Page 21

MARLOW

A few weeks ago, Ryan and I were enemies. But right now, my only enemy is the sun. It’s pouring in through the sheer curtains and making my bedroom unbearably hot.

Or maybe it’s the solid mass of man who has me tucked into his arms that’s making me hot. I prefer to blame the sun though. Because now that Ryan and I aren’t enemies anymore, I can admit that this feels good.

He’s awake, too. I can tell by the tiny adjustments he makes around me. Neither of us speaks. If we did, this…whatever this is…would be over.

I justified having him stay the night by telling myself he was too tired to drive home.

It’s probably true. It’s also true that I would have found any excuse for him not to leave.

After that bizarre happy hour, I can’t deny that I’m attracted to Ryan.

These weird, jealous, achy feelings are more than a residual memory of our little make-out session after the wedding.

I have to face the fact that I want something from him and consider stepping outside of my own comfort zone to get it.

Yeah, I’ll be a clingy, embarrassing mess for a while afterward, but I already feel that way.

Might as well milk it for all it’s worth.

Maybe putting an end to my dry spell will make it easier to move on.

A flutter in my chest tells me that I’m about to blurt something out. The words are right there on my lips. I’m not even sure what they are exactly. Please, oh please, let them be something more eloquent and sexy than ‘Let’s do it.’

The first syllable sounds a lot like a yawn, which is a lucky break considering that Ryan starts talking at the same time as me.

“I have to go.”

It comes out as one quick word. He’s out of the bed and pulling his pants on before I can even turn over.

“Thanks for letting me crash,” he says before bending down to give me a quick peck on the temple.

What I am witnessing right now must be the patented Ryan Ehler ‘Oh Shit, I Dozed Off’ morning-after dance. And it is very well-rehearsed. He pauses and clears his throat as he straightens back up, probably because it dawns on him that we didn’t have sex and it was weird to kiss me like that.

In the meantime, I’m speechless. Well, aside from my single yawn-syllable, which Ryan has chosen to ignore.

Before I can form a coherent sentence, he’s pulling his boots on in the other room and running out the front door.

Literally running. I can hear his heavy boots taking the stairs two at a time.

And then he’s gone.

Call me predictable, but I am already rethinking my ill-advised plan to have sex with him. Now or ever. It was just a fleeting thought, fueled by proximity and fuzzy morning thoughts.

I spend the rest of the morning angry, sad, and stuffing my face with cinnamon rolls.

Normally, I talk to my mom on Sundays after she goes to church. But once I’ve sworn off the remaining cinnamon rolls and cleaned my entire apartment, I decide to call her a day early. It’s weird to want to talk to her, but things have been pretty good between us lately. For the first time ever.

She acts unsurprised by my impromptu phone call, but once we’re on the phone, I can’t bring myself to mention Ryan. I’m starting to wonder if there is even a word in the English language for the way I feel about him. Some amalgam of annoyance, anger, lust, and hope.

___

By late afternoon, I’m admittedly pretty bummed and sort of angry that I haven’t heard from Ryan. I sort of hoped he would realize how ridiculous and unnecessary his sudden departure was and at least send me a quick text to neutralize the situation.

But nope. Not a word. Not even after I send him a text letting him know that he left his work badge here. It must have fallen out of his pocket.

Being cooped up in my apartment all day is getting to me, so I decide to take an evening walk to clear my head. Two miles later, I’m starting to cheer up a little. I turn the final corner down the little path that leads to the bakery and see Ryan sitting at one of the little bistro tables outside.

It’s getting dark. The bakery closed up hours ago. All the surrounding shops are quiet and dark as well.

Ryan stands as I approach. His body language is all wrong for him. Every muscle in his body seems rigid and tense. His smile is tight. It pisses me off immediately. What does he have to be so annoyed about? I decide not to smile, not even a fake one.

“What are you doing here?” I ask as neutrally as I can manage.

God help him if he says he’s here to watch Shameless .

“I think I left my phone here,” he says.

My blood boils. He’s not here to apologize for acting like an asshole this morning. He’s here with his tail between his legs to ask for his phone back.

“I haven’t seen it,” I say as I unlock the front door.

“Do you mind if I come up and look for it?”

I hold the door open and he follows me inside with his hands shoved in his pockets. We don’t say anything as we make our way through the dark bakery and up the stairs in the back.

Inside my apartment, Ryan finds his phone between two sofa cushions. He barely glances down to check his messages before shoving it into his pocket.

“Here, you left this too,” I say, handing him his badge.

“Thanks.”

“Anything else?”

The walls feel like they are pushed to their limit trying to contain the tension that’s filling the apartment. Ryan takes a long look at my face and draws his eyebrows together in confusion.

“I thought maybe we could grab dinner,” he says cautiously.

“I’m going to pass.”

“Why do you seem so pissed?” he asks.

I scoff and roll my eyes. “Are you serious? You practically ran out of here this morning and then I didn’t hear from you all day.

I know it was sort of weird that you stayed the night, but you made it so much weirder by treating me like one of your one-night stands afterward. That’s not how friends act, Ryan.”

Ryan takes a step forward with his hands out in front of him, palms forward as if to surrender.

He stands close but doesn’t touch me. It’s like he’s trying to figure out how to soothe an angry dinosaur that just materialized in front of him, but has no idea that dinosaurs ever even existed.

When his palm makes contact with my arm, it’s the lightest of touches.

“I had to go help Hunter with that desk.” He says this like I understand exactly what it means.

“What?”

“The desk…I told Hunter I’d help him get it out of his old cabin this morning. Didn’t I tell you that last night?”

I shake my head.

“Marlow, I’m sorry. It had nothing to do with you. I just panicked because I overslept.”

“Oh,” I eventually manage in a skillful show of articulation.

“And I couldn’t really call or text you because I was in the middle of the woods with Hunter and…” he pauses and motions to the sofa, “my phone was here.”

We both laugh faintly. It’s a half-hearted proclamation of retreat, a signal that we are both feeling uncomfortable and are unsure of what to say.

“So…dinner?” he asks. His palms slide up and down my arms softly. I want to lean into him and feel his arms around me like they were last night.

“You want to go out?”

We’ve never gone out to eat together unless I’m begging for forgiveness for my drunken mistakes over lunch. It’s outside of the little safety bubble we’ve created for ourselves. But so is sleeping in the same bed, so I guess maybe that bubble has already popped.

“Yeah, I figured we could spend some time together outside of our houses,” he says.

The feels an awful lot like him backing off. At the very least, it feels like him redefining the terms of our friendship so something like last night doesn’t happen again.

“Yeah, we wouldn’t want to end up sleeping together again.” I mean this as a light-hearted quip, an agreement to his new terms, but it comes out strained and wrong.

Ryan rubs a hand on the back of his neck and stares down at the floor. “Yeah, about that…”

“You don’t need to say it, Ryan. It didn’t mean anything. You were just too tired to drive home.”

“That’s not - ” he starts. “Fuck, Marlow…”

The word makes me jump a little. Not because he yelled it, but because it comes out breathy and desperate and growly, like something just deflated inside of him and I’m listening to the release.

It’s the most raw, emotional sound I’ve ever heard.

There isn’t a single thing that I can say in response.

Instead, I stand there as straight and rigid as a board, just watching him.

“What is this, Marlow? What do you want from me?”

“We’re friends,” I stutter out with an amazing lack of conviction.

Ryan plants his hands on his hips and scoffs as he looks away. He repeats the word ‘friends’ as if it is venom stuck in his throat. When his gaze settles back on me, I feel myself shrinking away.

“I went to happy hour for you. I pretended that we weren’t leaving together like you wanted.

I came over here and admitted that I can barely stand not to touch you, and you acted like you felt the same way.

Then you pulled me into your bedroom and spent the night in my arms. I don’t think I’m out of line to think that we were headed somewhere more than friends.

But then I come over here to ask you on an actual date so we can talk about all this, and your first reaction is ‘it didn’t mean anything? ’”

I stare at him in stunned silence. How did I get this so wrong? How did we both get it so wrong?

My mouth is open, prepared for words that never come. Ryan’s expression softens as he takes a step toward me. We’re closer now than two people in an otherwise empty room would typically stand.

“Listen, if that’s really how you feel, I get it. If we’re just friends and the rest of it doesn’t mean anything to you, then that’s fine. We can be friends. But I’ll need some time and space to recalibrate my feelings, okay?”