Wild Love: Chapter 20

Ryan looks around the bunkhouse with an expression of shocked wonder on his face. “This is where you’ve been staying?”

The floorboards creak beneath his boat shoes, and he runs a finger along the condensation that’s gathered into little pearls on the single-pane window.

I immediately feel defensive. He comes from more than me. More money. More property. More fancy vacations.

His parents bought him the condo in downtown Vancouver outright. Mine worked themselves to the bone to build something new for retirement on property they’ve been handed down through generations. Their idea of a fun vacation for us is camping in a tent.

Ford is supposedly a billionaire, a child of an A-list celebrity, and he’s never made me feel as self-conscious of where I’m from as Ryan did with that one sentence.

“Yeah, Ryan.”

There must be something final in my voice because he turns and stares at me. His overnight bag rests at his feet, his jaw is perfectly clean-shaven his blond hair slicked in a perfect little swoop.

If he were properly distressed, he’d have run his fingers through it and fucked it all up by now. Like Ford, who’s constantly pulling at his hair.

“You’re breaking up with me, aren’t you?”

I sigh and my arms go limp at my sides. We’re standing in the middle of this tiny cabin, staring at each other like strangers. Might as well rip the Band-Aid off.

I look him straight in the eye like I promised myself I would and blow past all the lines I’ve been practicing. “Yes. I’m sorry.”

A couple of beats pass before he says, “I figured this was coming.”

A sad laugh bubbles up out of me. “Now I feel worse.”

“Don’t.” He cuts me off by holding a hand up between us. “I wasn’t planning on leaving early today, but my boss looked at me like I had two heads when I told him my plans for the weekend. He asked me why I wouldn’t just make a long weekend of it. Insisted I leave early and hit the road.”

I grimace. “Romantic.”

Now it’s Ryan’s turn to let out a sad laugh. “It’s not. It’s not at all. He said to me, ‘Aren’t you itching to see her?’ and I told him I was. But, Rosie, it’s been a month since you left, and I wasn’t itching to see you. And I think I knew this was coming and have just been avoiding it.”

“Why?”

His head tilts, and he gives me a sad look. “Have you been missing me?”

I bite down on my lip a few times, weighing my words. “Not in the way I should.”

“That’s why I’ve been avoiding it. I didn’t want to hear that. But I’ve also had enough time to realize that while I’m happy to see you, I wasn’t itching to see you.”

A physical weight lifts from my body at his admission. The heaviness on my shoulders just—poof—evaporates. I feel like I’ve been carrying an elephant around on my back, and Ryan just pulled it right off. “I think… I think we had so much in common. You know? We were in the same program. Same classes. Same study groups. Same friends…”

He drops his gaze, understanding dawning on his face. “And you don’t know what we have in common anymore?”

“Yes. I’m sorry,” I say again because I really am. I’m sorry to see this chapter of my life end—it wasn’t all bad. But I won’t miss it and I’m not sad about the new one I’ve started.

“Rosie. Stop apologizing. It’s okay. We were young when we met. We both grew up, and I think in that process, we grew apart.”

I nod, expecting tears to well in my eyes. But they don’t. I could tell him all the ways he went wrong. But I don’t.

I’m sure he’d have a list for me too if we wanted to venture down that path. I’m not sure what else to say or do. So, I stick out my arm and offer him a handshake. He drops his watery eyes and flinches before slowly reaching forward to grip my palm.

Maybe a hug would have been nicer. But I don’t want to hug Ryan. Leave it to fucking Ford Grant Junior to ruin hugs for me.

I’ve never endured a more painfully awkward handshake and I sigh in relief when it finally ends.

“Are you okay?” he asks, swiping the back of his hand over his nose.

“Yeah.” His question takes me back to that moment with Ford before we left the office. Before he walked away.

“Are you?” I repeat the same words, but don’t hang on to his.

Ryan smiles good-naturedly, but the watery eyes remain. “Yeah. I am.”

I can tell he’s sad, but if I’m being honest, I’m not especially worried about Ryan being okay.

Instead, I’m stressed by the fact that Ford isn’t.

“I’d love to go pay your parents and your brother a visit while I’m here. You cool if I crash for the night? I’ll take off in the morning.”

“Yeah, of course,” I lie. But I’m not cold-hearted enough send a grown man who is now wiping at his eyes back out onto the highway.

I might feel relieved about ending things with Ryan.

But that relief is eclipsed by feeling downright sick over Ford and that parting no.