“Go away, Logan,” Ryan all but growls.
“No way. In fact, don’t move. Let me go get my phone so I can film this.” Logan rushes off, and Ryan and I are left here, fighting about I don’t know what. We’re always fighting about something, though, so it doesn’t really matter.
“So…you got me back,” he says, breaking the silence first. One point for me. “Brought a date to friends dinner.” I don’t answer. Another point. He steps closer, and a sad smirk touches the corner of his mouth. “How do you feel? I’m guessing not as great as you hoped.”
I clear my throat so my words will dislodge. “Why do you say that?”
“Because that's always how I felt after I brought some random girl to our friends dinners. Every single time, my only motive was to make you jealous. But you never were.”
I stay quiet still because my emotions are teetering. He’s standing there and laying his heart on the line, and I’m mute. I don’t know how I want all of this to end. If I stay quiet, nothing is final. Nothing is decided.
“Does he get a second date?” asks Ryan. And when my brows pinch together, he says, “Yeah, I know about your rule. Logan told me.” Freaking Logan. “And I want to know if, after five years, Carter the marketer gets a second date with you?”
Is that why his mood crashed? My stomach flutters. He’s angry because I might be into someone else?
I could string him along. He very clearly is annoyed by the idea of me breaking my rule for Carter, and it’s the perfect way to gain an extra point in our game. But I can’t. For some reason, I don’t want another point. “No. I won’t go out with him again.”
Ryan’s face softens, and I think I hear him let out a relieved breath. “Good.” He comes closer, and the air ripples between us.
I hold his gaze, lifting my chin. “Good.”
He swallows, and I watch his Adam’s apple go up and down. “I saw that you moved your name away from mine on the seating chart,” he says, and I resist the urge to smile. “I moved it back.” He says it so final. Like it’s the end of a discussion. Don’t you dare move it again.
As much as I didn’t want it to, his declaration this morning does change things. Ryan holds so much power in my life, and I’m scared to let him see it. I’m worried I’ll break my rule for him. But maybe I won’t have to. Maybe he’ll leave without saying goodbye after the wedding, and that will be the end of us forever. I’ll go back to my life of serial dating and keeping busy so I don’t sit still long enough to feel my loneliness. A girl can only hope.
“Okay, I got it!” says Logan, rushing back in the room, slightly out of breath. “I had to wrestle it from Stacy because she wanted me to leave you two alone, but I won.” He angles his phone at us and must click the record button the second Ryan and I smile at each other, because he just groans and lowers the phone. “That was definitely not worth Stacy’s pinches.”
Later that night, after I’m tucked into bed and tossing and turning for half an hour, I sit up and grab my phone. Before I have time to think it over, I open up my text chat with Ryan and send him a message that I’m sure I’ll regret in the morning.
JUNE: I was always jealous.
And then I literally toss my phone to the other side of the room and bury myself under the covers as if that’s going to protect me from Ryan Henderson.
Chapter Twelve
June
How do I put this mildly?
I’d rather jab a pencil in my ear over and over than co-own Darlin’ Donuts with the woman sitting across from me.
“…And the color scheme is all wrong,” Heather (the woman naively thinking she is nailing this interview) continues after a solid ten minutes of other insults about our bakery. “I think we would do better to market to the corporate world. Sleek and clean cut, if you will. It wouldn’t be that difficult to change your colors over to black and gray. We could get rid of this old bar”—she’s referring to the gorgeous antique wooden countertop that was used in a French patisserie in the early 1900s we practically stole from an auction—“and replace it with something metal and clean. Ikea has affordable alternatives.”
Deep breath.
“But…our whole brand is a crossover between Charleston’s old Southern-money roots and modern-day trends.”
“Exactly,” she says, making absolutely no sense and giving me a pitying smile. She feels so bad that I don’t see the glaring problems with my bakery which was featured in Vogue as a must-visit attraction in Charleston. “But I think with a little face lift, we can probably do pretty well for ourselves here.” Oh, honey.
Let this be a lesson for anyone trying to get a job: do your research before you interview.
“Well, thanks for coming, Heather,” I say, concluding the meeting early. “Don’t forget to grab a Slow as Molasses donut on your way out.”
Stacy hides a snicker behind her hand.
I glare at her. This is all your fault.
The moment the door closes behind Heather, I let out a puff of air and sink back against the counter. “Well, she’s a no-go.”