Page 23 of Rivals

He chuckles. “Taking a girl on a first date to a dingy place would not bode well for me.”

I laugh, some of the tightness in my chest releasing. “No, no, it wouldn’t. I probably would have turned around and left.”

He smirks at me, his eyes studying every movement of my face and then they dip down to my lips. “No, I didn’t think so. You want nothing but the best from yourself and those around you.”

I swear my body jerks back from the bar as if I was sucker punched by his words. “It’s obvious, Revna. You’re not only talented but obsessed. I’ve always admired that about you.”

“I—thanks?”

He huffs a laugh. “You’re welcome.”

“I’m so sorry, but I’ll be honest. I have hardly ever paid attention to you or your work.”

Ryan’s head tips back, and laughter bounces out of him, bringing a smile to my face. His eyes glow as they return to me. “Yeah, you have been on a war path either because you are so intensely focused or Lachlan does something to piss you off.”

I bite my lip. I don’t know what to say because he isn’t wrong. I also don’t want to acknowledge the truth. His thumb comes to my lips, pulling the bottom from my teeth. Luckily, I wore lip gloss. My lip slides out from my teeth, and his thumb grazes it. He scrutinizes my lips, and my heart rate jumps. “I really want to kiss you right now.”

“What can I get you guys?” the bartender asks, interrupting Ryan’s confession. I wasn’t going to say no, but I didn’t want to say yes, either. Lachlan did that the other night, and it made me feel a hell of a lot more than what I felt with Ryan. I don’t want to examine what that means.

“Uh, a gin and tonic, please.”

The bartender nods. “For you, sir?”

Ryan is still staring at me, and the need to run burns through me. He finally seemed to disconnect from what he saw in me and turned to face the bartender. “I’ll have a beer, please.”

“Not a problem, coming up.”

We stand there in silence and look around. I pretend to people-watch, and he seems to be considering something. While I try to sneak peeks at him in my peripheral, the bartender sits our drinks down on black napkins and walks away. I practically lunge for mine, needing the gin to chill me out because my shoulders feel like they are connected to my ears right now.

“Do you want to go take a seat?” Ryan asks me. I shake my head with gin still in my mouth and follow behind.

We sit at a two-seater table off the side of the dramatically lit stage. There is a little tea light flickering away on the table, and it holds me captive for a moment. My mind flies to fire, and the need to burn the ghosts of my past. “Revna?” Ryan says, catching my attention. I force a smile and take another sip of my drink. “So, tell me more about yourself. I realize we’ve been around each other for a while with school, but we have hardly talked,” he says with a genuine smile. He’s so cute, soopen.Why can’t I be like that?

“What would you like to know?”

“What brought you to New York? Or were you born and raised here?” My stomach drops and I take another sip of gin to give myself a minute. I hate this question because I don’t have answers for him or myself. So, I go with the simplest answer I have.

“I’ve always wanted to be an artist. Art was something for me, and I originally didn’t know you needed a degree. Then, when I was in high school, a recruiter said I should get one, that it might get me in a better place as an artist instead of waiting to be discovered. You know, contacts and all of that.” Ryan nods, and I continue.

“I don’t know why I listened to the guy’s advice, but it made sense to me at the time. So I found a school and applied.”

“I can understand that. I would have thought the same. The only reason I decided to go to art school was because my parents told me that I needed a degree in something. I wasn’t always into art or loved it like I do now. I figured I would go to school for business. During my senior year of high school, I needed a filler class, and art was an option. I figured I would blow it off and draw stick figures. I was wrong. It gripped me, and it never let me go.”

“I know it’s not like that for everyone, but I get it. It never let me go either, and sometimes I don’t know if I’m better or worse off because of it,” I say the last words quietly. I don’t need to scare him right away. I take another sip and realize I’m having a good time. The gin has kicked in, and I like talking to Ryan.

“What made you want to ask me out?” I ask him.

The corner of his mouth tips up, and he pushes his hand through his hair. “I’m trying to figure out how to not be creepy about this.” I grin and lean back in my chair.

“You probably don’t remember me early on, but we were in a lot of the same freshman classes. I remember when you walked through the door. It was Art History 101, and without sounding like a total sap, you captured me.”

I raise my eyebrow. I remember him, despite what he thinks. I never cared to get to know anyone. I never have. All of that was,is, intentional. “I told myself that before we graduated, I would grow a pair and ask you out on a date,” he says.

“You were cutting it close, weren’t you?” He chuckles and takes a swig of his beer. I watch him as he drinks. His muscular neck bounces as he swallows. His shoulders are wide, and his muscles are toned and firm. Part of the school perks, as they call them, is twenty-four-hour access to a gym, and it looks like he uses it. Lachlan probably does, too. I force the man out of my brain and refocus on Ryan.

“Yeah, I was, but I did it, right? And I’ll be honest; I’m man enough to say that freshman Ryan was not prepared to take Revna Burke out on a date.

“You’re a charmer,” I grin.