Page 181 of Say Yes to the Nemesis

This isn’t some faux-reality show. This is my life.

I’m the luckiest man in the world. And I know without a shadow of a doubt that one day soon, I’m going to make this woman my wife.

forty-nine

WREN

A YearLater

I stand in Ryan’s kitchen, barefoot on the cold hardwood, sipping coffee that’s too strong and scrolling through my phone. The morning light softens everything, even my hair, which looks better than it has any right to in the microwave’s reflection.

This house feels like home now. It stopped feeling like Ryan’s place and started feeling like ours somewhere around the second month after I moved in. When I reorganized his spice cabinet and he didn’t complain. When he bought my favorite tea without me asking. When we had our first real fight about whose turn it was to do laundry and made up by having sex against the washing machine.

I pour a second mug full of coffee and carry it upstairs to the bedroom. Ryan has already been up to work out, although he doesn’t have to anymore since he officially quit playing hockey a couple of months ago. The light is on in the en suite and steam escapes from the crack under the door.

Setting his coffee cup on his bedside table, I sit on the bed and bide my time. Eventually, Ryan comes out of the bathroom with a towel slung around his hips, drying his hair with another towel.

I look at him, not even trying to disguise the fact that I’m checking him out. He’s a marvel. Tan skin. Tall, muscular, and ripped. Abs like a fucking cheese grater.

How did I ever end up so lucky?

His sense of humor and personality are just bonuses on this mountain of a man.

Ryan groans and stretches in a way that makes my stomach flip even after a year. His chest hair is still damp from his shower. “You like what you see?”

I take in the sight of him. Hair sticking up in every direction, stubble covering his jaw, his smile still sleepy around the edges. He looks exactly like what he is. A man who’s completely, ridiculously in love.

“You know I do, you deeply weird man.”

He grabs a pillow and tosses it at my head. I duck, laughing. Coffee sloshes over the edge of my mug.

“Ryan! You made me spill.”

“Come here and I’ll make it up to you.”

I set my coffee on the dresser and crawl onto the bed beside him, immediately sinking into the warmth he radiates. He wraps his arms around me and pulls me against his side. I fit there perfectly. Like I was made for this exact spot.

“We really did it, huh?” I murmur against his chest.

“Yeah. We did.”

His voice is rough. I feel it rumble through his ribcage. We fall into comfortable silence. I listen to his heartbeat steady and strong under my ear. The weight of the world outside this room doesn’t matter nearly as much as the fact that we’re here. Together. For real.

The show made us celebrities for a while. Ryan already was one, but now I am too, in a weird way. People recognize me at the grocery store. My Instagram followers went from two hundred to two hundred thousand overnight. The network offered methree different shows to executive produce after seeing how the finale played out.

The hockey season ended two months ago. They made it to the conference finals before getting knocked out, which was further than anyone expected. Ryan played some of the best hockey of his career. I got to watch most of it from the stands, wearing his jersey and feeling ridiculously proud every time the announcers mentioned his name.

“What are you thinking about?” Ryan asks, his fingers tracing lazy patterns on my back through my tank top.

“Everything. Work, hockey, the fact that people are writing conspiracy theories about us on Reddit.”

“What kind of conspiracy theories?”

“That the whole thing was scripted. That the producers planned your finale meltdown from the beginning. That we’re just really good actors who are committed to the bit.”

Ryan’s laugh is rough and low, sending a shiver up my spine. “If I was acting, I’d have an Oscar.”

“You were pretty dramatic.”