Page 115 of My So-Called Perfect Life

The fifteen minutes it took to get here has been spent obsessing over what I’m going to say to Ryan. It’s all in my head, but it’s jumbled because I have so much I want to say, and I want to get it all out, so we can just forget this stupid shit and move forward. Together.

The side door of the bar opens and echoes in the alley, drawing my attention to the two people stumbling out into the back lot. I can’t make out much from this far down, but it’s clearly a man and a woman. The man has his arm around the woman’s waist, and her head is leaning on his shoulder. They’re walking slowly, and as they reach the back stairs, I’m close enough to make out the tattoos on the man’s arm. I spot a colorful dragon tail mixed in the tattoos. A dragon tail that I’m very familiar with. One that I’ve traced with my fingers time and time again.

Ryan is taking some woman up to the loft above the bar.

You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.

I stand stiff as a statue as I watch him lead the woman up the stairs and through the door just as Amelia finally reaches me.

“What are you looking at?”

My eyes stay focused on the closed door. Pain and fury grip my heart and squeeze. Ryan just took some woman up to the loft.

And I doubt it was to play Parcheesi.

More like Hide the Salami.

Son of a bitch!

What are the fucking odds that the night I figure it all out and come to get my man back, he decides to take a bed buddy? I mean, for real, who the hell have I pissed off that I keep getting shit sandwich after shit sandwich?

“Ryan just took some woman up there.”

“What?” she huffs as if she’s out of breath. She really needs to up her cardio. “How do you know?”

“I saw him.”

“Are you sure it’s him?”

I nod. “I saw his arm and tattoos.”

“Damn it,” she curses. “I told you we shouldn’t have come here.”

“I need to see this.”

It’s like the day of my wedding all over again. Two conflicting emotions war inside my chest. Only this time, it’s anger and desperation.

Did he call a break just so he could sleep around?

Was he just having commitment issues?

Or was my earlier feeling correct?

Has he been waiting for me to come to him?

Am I too late, and he’s ready to move on?

Only one way to find out.

My thoughts are streamlined into one thing—find out what’s going on behind that door. I steel my spine, take a deep breath, and prepare to march up those stairs and finish this once and for all. I’m not some puppet Ryan can keep on a string for when it’s convenient for him.

Amelia grabs my arm and pulls, swinging me around to face her. “Why do you need to see this? What do you plan to do if he opens that door?”

I haven’t gotten that far.

Punch him?

Kick him in the junk?