You Before Me (10 page)

With a deep breath, I say, “You want
to behave, remember?” Her frown deepens, and I swear she looks a
bit disappointed. Then I add, “The next time I have sex with you,
it won't be for the simple fact that I'm horny. There should be
more than that, Ryan.”

I don't know how I'm expecting her to
react, but for her to roll her eyes and shake her head like I'm
being impossible and silly wasn't it. She doesn't say she doesn't
think it's possible or that she thinks that's ridiculous. In fact,
she doesn't fight me about it at all because she only says, “Fine.”
Ryan doesn't budge when I go to walk past her, and I wish I could
know what she's thinking. I kiss her temple before leaving her
behind, going to her bedroom to get dressed.

The clock on her nightstand says I'll
have enough time to go home, shower, and then go straight to my
parents. I grab my almost dead phone from my stack of clothes,
seeing a missed call from my mother. I'll call her once I leave
here. As I'm walking out of the bedroom, the oldies music changes
to rock, and the volume is louder than before. Is Ryan one of those
people who listens to the music based on their mood, music that
gives hints about them? Right now, “Bad Girlfriend” by Theory of a
Deadman is playing.

Ryan has wrapped the towel around her
chest and is leaning against the table where her sound system is.
She lifts her head when she sees me, her face void of any emotions
even with her small smile.

“Have fun with your family,” she
says.

“Thanks. I'll text ya later.” I give
her a kiss on the lips before I leave.

* * *

“Hey, Mom,” I say as I kiss her
cheek.

“Hey, Gabriel. It's about time you
came over for Sunday supper,” she teases.

“I know, I know.” I take a seat at the
table because I ran late and they are already seated. “Hey, Dad,
Owen.”

“Hey,” they reply.

Without a word, we fall into our
routine. I grab hold of Owen's hand since he is next to me, and
also my father's. Owen and Dad take Mom's hands. We bow our heads,
and my father says prayer.

“Amen,” we say together when he
finishes. Then we start piling food onto our plates.

“How's work been?” Dad
asks.

“Good. I'm getting a partner
apparently.”

Dad chuckles, but Mom speaks first.
“We're not talking about work at the table. You two know that,” she
chides.

My dad grins. “Is there anything other
than work that you do, Gabriel?”

“He's dating someone,” Owen chirps in
next to me.

I slap his leg under the table, but
it's too late. It's not that my family doesn't ever know of who I'm
dating, but my mother is always the last to meet her. That's not by
mistake either. She's the hardest to please, but she is always
right with her opinion. After my last relationship and the apparent
error of my ways, I don't want to make any more
mistakes.

“Oh?” My mother's eyebrows shoot
up.

“She's hot,” Owen adds
again.

“You've met her?” Even though Mom
knows I save her opinion for last, she doesn't like it.

“Yes, he has,” I say before Owen can
say anything, but he still has to talk.

“How old is Ryan anyway?”

“Ryan?” My mother questions, confused
by the name.

I sigh, glancing at my father who is
smirking. He enjoys this too much. “That's her name,
Mom.”

“Why on earth would someone name their
daughter with a boy's name? It's strange.” She frowns, and I can
already see her picking apart Ryan when she doesn't even know
anything about her yet. With our family, our opinions matter. We
try to be objective and look out for each other. Mom likes to take
that to another level. She doesn't want any of us to get hurt and
sometimes oversteps the boundaries. She means well,
though.

To avoid saying anything just yet, I
take a sip of my tea. “It's not strange, and I've only been on one
date with her.”

Mom nods. “How did you meet this Ryan
then?”

“Might as well get it all out,
Gabriel. She's going to keep asking until she knows everything,”
Dad inputs, telling the truth.

“All right. I pulled her over, gave
her a ticket, and kept running into her. That's how I met her.
She's something else, that's for sure.”

Dad laughs. “You gave her a
ticket?”

I nod, smiling at the memory. “She was
going to get off with a warning, but she asked for it. Ryan has a
fiery personality. So far, so good.”

Owen nudges me with his elbow. “How
old is she? She looked kind of young for you.”

“Only a little younger than I am.” If
her age worries me a little, I don't know what my parents will say.
“What about you? Where's your girl?”

Owen shrugs, the spotlight off me as
my mother says, “He's focused on his schoolwork and football. Isn't
that right, Owen?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

Mom won't let us talk about work, but
she will let us talk about football, and that's where the rest of
our conversation goes. It feels good to be home for Sunday supper,
but in the back of my mind, thoughts of Ryan linger.

Ryan

After Gabe left, I showered and
started cleaning up the apartment, jamming to my favorite rock
bands. I'm not so sure what to make of Gabe and the past
forty-eight hours. It seems best if I don't put much thought into
any of it. Overthinking is part of my rambling problem, and I don't
want to do either. Even though I am by myself, that doesn't mean my
mind and inner dialogue won't ramble. Besides, if I start thinking
too much, I might change my mind altogether about seeing Gabe
again. It's been interesting to say the least. Nonetheless, these
thoughts are shutting down indefinitely. I'm planning to focus on
having fun and nothing more.

Even when “Better Than Me” by Hinder
starts playing, I ignore it. There's still plenty to do around the
place like vacuuming and washing clothes and homework. I have two
papers due this week, and I haven't started either. Today is full
of nothing but busy work. Once I knock out one of my papers, I
decide to text Viv and see if she wants to come work on this paper
with me since we both have to write one. She is seriously abusing
having a key to my apartment though. I only gave it to her for
emergencies or in case she needed to borrow some clothes and I
wasn't here. Nowhere does it say she can barge in
unannounced.

About thirty minutes pass before Viv
arrives and the first thing she mentions is Gabe.

“Spill all the juicy details, Ryan,”
she says, sitting down next to me at the kitchen table with her
laptop and textbook.

“Nothing juicy about it. He came over,
spent the night, took a bubble bath with me, and left. No sex
either.”

Viv's eyebrows rise.
“None?”

“Nope. I rather not talk about Gabe.
Are we going to write these papers or not?”

She squints her eyes at me. “I've
never known you not to want to talk about a guy.”

“Always a first time for everything.”
My phone vibrates loudly on the table, so I pick it up.

“Is that him?” Viv says with too much
excitement.

“That it is.” I can't help but laugh
when I read his message. Apparently, Owen thinks I'm hot. A hint of
apprehension runs through me. Does this mean he talked about me
with his parents too? Or just Owen? Owen, I can handle. I text him
back.

Can't say I disagree with
him, haha.

“Well?” Viv questions when I put my
phone back down.

“He just said something about his
brother. Time to get down to business, Viv.”

And that's what we do. My phone goes
off again, but I ignore it. I don't want to get too distracted. We
work for about an hour in silence before we're done. I order a
pizza online for us, and Viv leans back in her chair.

“I'm guessing that you'll be seeing
Gabe again?”

“Looks that way. I know it's at the
end of the month, but when are we going shopping for Halloween? You
know there will be parties, and we have to celebrate my birthday
somehow. Might as well do it by dressing up and going to a party.”
I don't know why she keeps bringing the conversation back to him or
why I keep changing it when she does. But Halloween/my birthday is
a legit question because it is coming up soon. I don't really
celebrate my birthday, but it would seem odd if I told Viv that, so
I keep it to myself.

“Whenever we know what we want to be.
Do you know yet?” I shake my head. “Me either. What happened to you
never going on second dates?”

I shrug. “I didn't intend to, and it's
not like he's about to be my boyfriend. In fact, the more I think
about it, the more I think I'm a phase of sorts for him.” I'm not
so sure that I believe the things Gabe said to me. There's a knock
on the door, so I leave her to go answer. Once I've paid the pizza
guy, he hands over our pizza and leaves. We eat it right out of the
box and after Viv's first bite, she asks a question.

“What are you talking about,
Ryan?”

“Gabe's a good guy, and I'm not the
type of girl he would want to take home to his mother. I'm younger
than him, still in college, and not good in any sense of the word.
So wouldn't it make sense that he's just having a little fun with
me for a bit? We need to stop talking about it. I'm overthinking it
as it is, and I rather let failure take its natural course without
any help from me. Besides, my mom told me I need to make a decision
on my major in two weeks. Will you help me think of
something?”

Viv doesn't know much about my parents
because I never share much about them and she knows better than to
ask. After she takes a sip of water, she nods. “Well, I'm going to
major in linguistics, but the college has tons to choose
from.”

“Like what?” Okay, so I never looked
at their academic programs when I was applying. I just wanted to
get away from my parents. I didn't care what degrees they offered,
so I don't know all of their programs.

Viv opens her computer again and pulls
up the school website, reading off some of the programs, one from
each letter. “Applied Physical Sciences, Biomedical Engineering,
Communications Studies, Dermatology, Economics, Family Medicine,
Genetics, blah, blah, blah. Ooh, Marine Science or Physics and
Astronomy? What about Spanish? You speak that, right?”

I nod, but everything sounds boring,
and I tell her so.

“Life isn't supposed to be fun 24/7,
Ryan. You need boring moments too.”

“Yeah, well, I don't want
to be bored for the rest of my life. I'm good with math, but who
wants to solve equations for a living? Genetics sounds interesting,
but no thanks. If I
had
,” I say it like it's a despicable thought, “to pick any that
you mentioned, it would be Communications Studies or Spanish, since
that can't be all that hard, and I know a lot already.”

Viv nods, happy that I picked
something. She clicks a few times and then counts. “There are one,
two, three, four, five areas of study for
Communications.”

I groan as she tells me what they are.
“Fine. Spanish. I pick Spanish. Those sounded horrible.”

“Why are you settling if that's not
what you want?”

“Because it doesn't really matter to
me anyway. There's nothing I would love to do. Everything is just
eh to me.”

“What about Marine Science or even
Dermatology?”

Sinking into my seat, I sigh. “Stop
giving me choices, Viv. I'll change my mind and then we'll be back
at square one. As long as I can get a job and make money, then I'm
happy. Every single working person isn't working their dream job.
Since I don't have a dream, anything will do.” Maybe I should let
my parents pick my major. I can't disappoint them if it's their
decision. But then they would probably send me to medical school,
and that's not going to work for me. Everyone in the medical field
is amazing for what they do, but I can't do it. Viv shakes her head
at me, apparently doing some thinking of her own.
“What?”

“I can't believe that nothing appeals
to you. At all.”

“Believe it. The only thing that
appeals to Ryan Kavanaugh is sex and men. I don't think my parents
would be happy with a career as a hooker or sugar baby
though.”

Viv laughs. “You're crazy. You should
work for Sunkist as much as you drink it.” She nods to the bottle
in my hand as I take a sip.

“I wonder if I would get free drinks
for life. That might be worth looking into, Viv. Good
idea.”

She chuckles, shaking her head. “Well,
I should go. There's some more work I have to do. See you in the
morning.”

“Bye.”

Spanish wouldn't be my first choice,
but let's face it. Nothing would be my first choice. Still, I feel
accomplished. I've made a decision for my major. I pick up my phone
to see what Gabe texted me back.