Stop debating.
Just… do it.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I test the handle. My breath catches when I find he’s left it unlocked.
An open invitation.
Without another thought, I push the door open, tapping my knuckles lightly against the wood as it swings inward.
“Ryder?” I call, stepping over the threshold. “Are you h—Oh my god.”
My feet freeze on the spot.
My face drains of blood.
My barely-mended heart cracks all over again.
There’s a girl sitting on his bed, stark naked. She smiles at me, her eyes glazed with liquor and lust, annoyingly beautiful with her long raven hair and sky blue stare. I tell myself to move, to flee, but I’m rooted to the spot, overcome with absolute horror as I watch Ryder walk out of the bathroom, still dripping wet, wearing nothing but a towel around his hips.
He freezes when he sees the girl. Then, two-tone eyes wide with shock, his head swings in my direction and he spots me.
I swear, he looks like he’s been sucker-punched.
“Felicity…” he breathes, taking a step toward me. “No. This isn’t…”
I’m beyond listening.
Finally locating my executive functioning, I turn and race for the adjoining door, desperate to escape him, her, this whole damned mess. I curse myself with every step for coming here. For thinking, even for a second, that things between us were fixable. That tonight, when we sang, he felt the same sparks in the air between us, bright as shooting stars.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
My eyes are smarting with tears as I fly back into my suite. I’ve barely cleared the threshold when I whip around to slam the door shut. It doesn’t close, caught on something. Gritting my teeth, I glance down and see a familiar bare foot blocking the frame.
“Ryder,” I hiss, pushing hard enough that he winces, but not hard enough to make him move. “Goaway.”
“No.”
I push again, using my full body weight this time, but it makes no difference. With apparent ease, his hand curls around the frame and he forces the door wider, inch by inch, until my only option is to yield. A heartbeat later, he strides into the room, looking like the devil himself in his knotted bath towel, his eyes darker than sin as he advances on me.
I backpedal away as fast as humanly possible. “Leave me alone.”
“No,” he repeats, voice dropping to a growl as the door clicks closed at his back.
Where on earth is Carly?
My back hits the wall, officially out of room to run. I can hardly breathe as I watch him approach. He comes closer, closer, closer, not stopping until he’s less than a foot away. So near I can see the aqua mote in his brown eye with startling clarity.
His jaw locks with barely-leashed violence. “Tell me why you came to my room.”
“It doesn’t matter. You had company.” My chin jerks up. “In fact, speaking of your company, you should probably get back. She’ll be missing you.”
He laughs but it’s humorless. Laced with bitterness. “You’re cute when you’re jealous.”
“I am not jealous.”
“You are!” he snaps, dangerously close to yelling. “You can take all yourplatonic, just friendsbullshit and shove it, Felicity. You’re fucking jealous. And instead of talking to me about what you think you just witnessed, instead of admitting that seeing me with someone else is enough to drive you insane, you decide to do what you do best — run for the hills. Throw up your walls. Shut me out like a child having a tantrum.”
“Oh,I’ma child?” I scoff. “That naked girl in your bed looks about seventeen, I’d check her ID before you screw her.”