furniture, though, because his leg is touching my thigh, and the simple contact causes heat to roll through me like a riptide. I look down at our knees when they brush together and realize I’m still wearing the T-shirt I threw on right before I went to bed. I guess I was so shocked by the fact that he said he was at my apartment door that I didn’t concern myself with how I looked. I’m in nothing but an oversized cotton T-shirt that falls to my knees, and my hair is more than likely a wreck.
He’s in jeans and a gray Sounds of Cedar T-shirt. I would say I feel underdressed, but I’m actually dressed appropriately for what I was doing before he showed up, which was going to bed.
Ridge: I don’t know if I’m okay. Are you okay?
I forgot I even asked him a question for a second.
I shrug. I’m sure I will be fine, but I’m not going to lie and tell him I am. I think it’s obvious that neither one of us can really be okay with how everything has turned out. I’m not okay with losing Ridge, and Ridge isn’t okay with losing Maggie.
Me: I’m sorry about Maggie. I feel awful. She’ll come around, though. Five years is a lot to give up for a misunderstanding.
I hit send and finally look up at him. He reads the text, then eyes me. The concentration in his expression makes the breath catch in my lungs.
Ridge: It wasn’t a misunderstanding, Sydney. She understood a little too well.
I read his text several times, wishing he would expand on it. What wasn’t a misunderstanding? The reason they broke up? His feelings for me? Rather than ask him what he means, I cut to the question I want the answer to the most.
Me: Why are you here?
He works his jaw back and forth before responding.
Ridge: Do you want me to leave?
I look at him and slowly shake my head no. Then I pause and shake my head yes. Then I pause again and just shrug. He smiles endearingly, completely understanding my confusion.
Me: I guess whether or not I want you here depends on why you’re here. Are you here because you need me to try to help you win back Maggie? Are you here because you miss me? Are you here because you want to try to work out some sort of friendship?
Ridge: Would I be wrong if I answered none of the above? I don’t know why I’m here. Part of me misses you so much it hurts, while part of me wishes I never even met you to begin with. I guess today is one of the days I was hurting, so I stole Warren’s keys and forced him to give me your address. I didn’t think this through or come up with any kind of speech. I just did what my heart needed me to do, which was to see you.
His brutally honest reply melts my heart and pisses me off all at the same time.
Me: What about tomorrow? What if tomorrow is one of the days you wished you never met me? What am I supposed to do then?
The intensity in his stare is unnerving. Maybe he’s trying to gauge if that was an angry response. I’m not sure if it was or not. I’m not sure how I feel about the fact that he doesn’t even know why he’s here.
He doesn’t respond to my text, and it proves one thing: he’s having the same internal conflict with himself that I’ve been having.
He wants to be with me, but he doesn’t.
He wants to love me, but he doesn’t know if he should.
He wants to see me, but he knows he shouldn’t.
He wants to kiss me, but it would hurt just as much as it did the first time he kissed me and had to walk away. I suddenly feel uncomfortable staring at him. We’re way too close together on this couch, yet my body is making it very clear to me that it doesn’t think we’re close enough at all. What it’s wishing would happen right now are all the things that aren’t.
Ridge looks away and slowly scans my apartment for a few moments, then returns his attention to his phone.
Ridge: I like your place. Good neighborhood. Seems safe.
I almost laugh at his text and the casual conversation he’s trying to make, because I know we’re no longer in a place for casual conversation. We can’t be friends at this point. We also can’t be together with so much against us. Casual conversation has no place between us right now, yet I can’t bring myself to reply any differently.
Me: I like it here. Thank you for helping me out with the hotel until I could move in.
Ridge: It was the least I could do. Absolutely the least I could do.
Me: I’ll pay you back as soon as I get my first paycheck. I got my job back at the campus library, so it should only be another week.
Ridge: Sydney, stop. I don’t even want you to offer.
I have no idea what to say in response. This whole situation is awkward and uncomfortable, because we’re both dancing around all the things we wish we had the courage to do and say.
I set my phone facedown on the couch. I want him to know that I need a break. I don’t like that we aren’t being us.
He takes the hint and lays his phone down on the armrest beside him, then sighs heavily as he drops his head against the back of the couch. The silence makes me wish I could experience the world from his perspective for once. I find it almost impossible to put myself in his shoes, though. People with the advantage of hearing take so much for granted, and I’ve never understood that to the extent that I understand it now. There’s nothing being spoken between us, yet I understand by his heavy sigh that he’s frustrated with himself. I understand how much he’s holding back by the way his breaths are being sharply pulled in.
I suppose his expertise in a silent world gives him an ability to read people, just in different ways. Instead of focusing on the sounds of my breaths, he focuses on the rise and fall of my chest. Rather than listening to quiet sighs, he more than likely watches my eyes, my hands, my posture. Maybe that’s why his face is tilted toward mine now, because he wants to see me and get a feel for what’s going through my head.
I feel as if he reads me too well. The way he’s watching me forces me to try to control every facial expression and every breath. I close my eyes and lean my head back, knowing he’s staring, trying to get a sense of where I am.
I also wish I could just turn to him and tell him. I want to tell him how much I’ve missed him. I want to tell him how much he means to me. I want to tell him how horrible I feel, because before I showed up in his life, everything seemed perfect for him. I want to tell him that even though we both regretted it, that minute we spent kissing was the one minute out of my entire life that I wouldn’t trade for the world.
At moments like these, I’m thankful he can’t hear me, or there would have been so many things spoken that I would regret.
Instead, there are so many things left unsaid that I wish I had the courage to say.
Ridge’s weight shifts on the couch, and my eyes naturally open out of curiosity. He’s leaning across the arm of the couch, reaching for something. When he turns back around, he’s holding a pen in his hand. He smiles softly, then picks up my arm. He turns his body toward mine and presses the pen to my open palm.
I swallow hard and slowly look up at his face, but he’s looking down at my hand as he writes. I could swear I almost see a faint smile flash across his lips. When he’s finished, he brings my palm to his mouth and blows softly to dry the ink. His lips are moist and puckered into a pout, and holy hell, it just got really warm in this apartment. He lowers my hand, and I look down at it.
Just wanted to touch your hand.
I laugh softly. Mostly because his words are so innocent and sweet compared to the things he’s written on me in the past. I’ve been sitting here on this couch with him for ten minutes, wishing he would touch me, and then he goes and admits he was thinking the exact same thing. It’s so juvenile, as if we’re teenagers. I’m almost embarrassed that it pleases me this much that he’s touching me, but I can’t recall a time I’ve ever wanted anything more.
He hasn’t released my hand yet, and I’m still looking down at his writing, smiling. I brush my thumb across the back of his hand, and he gasps quietly. The permission I just gave him with that
tiny movement seems to have broken some invisible barrier, because he immediately slides his hand over mine and presses our palms together, then intertwines our fingers. The warmth of his hand doesn’t come close to the warmth that just shot through my entire body.
God, if just holding hands with him feels this intense, I can’t imagine what everything else with him would feel like.
We’re both watching our hands now, feeling every bit of the connection pulsating through our palms. He brushes over my thumb and flips our hands over, then takes the pen and presses it to my wrist. He moves the pen slowly up my wrist, drawing in a straight line all the way up my forearm. I don’t stop him. I simply watch him. When he reaches the crease in my elbow, he begins to write again. I read each word as he writes it.
Just an excuse to touch you here, too.
Without releasing my hand, he lifts my arm and keeps his eyes focused on mine as he bends forward and blows softly up and down my arm. He presses his lips lightly against his words and kisses them without once breaking eye contact. When his lips meet my arm, I feel a soft flick of his tongue tease my arm for a split second before his mouth closes over my skin.
That might have just made me whimper.
Yep. Pretty sure I just whimpered.