Page 14 of Dead to Me

‘Well, I’ll… do my best.’Ryan gave a laugh, and the admission that he wasn’t infallible was somehow a little touching.‘To start with, let me get you a drink.’

‘Oh, that’s…’ I glanced towards the crush of people near the drinks, considered and then gave in with a smile.‘I wouldn’t mind one.’

‘OK.Don’t go anywhere,’ he said, and headed to the drinks table.

Obviously, I fleetingly thought about the dangers of taking a drink from a strange man who might be a poisoner, but dismissed my anxieties pretty quickly.He didn’t know who I was and would be an idiot to drug someone at a comparatively small party.

I came a little way back into the room, and caught Luca’s eye.He raised his eyebrows, clearly checking in, so I gave him an ‘All OK’ smile.

And then Ryan reappeared, squeezing in that little bit closer than most people would have done.It was less intimidating this time, and seemed more about an attempt at cosying up to me.Or just a lack of awareness of personal space maybe.

I thought about Cordelia’s description of Ryan as a reformed womaniser and wondered whether he wasn’t so great at social cues.Whether he got himself a bad rep by getting things like personal space that little bit wrong.I’d worked with a guy like this in the past, and at first felt uncomfortable and then after a while sorry for him as I’d realised he just didn’t understand.

But anyway.I took the glass– which had what looked like another Margarita in it– and then thought about how easy it would have been for him to lift a petite woman like Holly Moore into the river, and I felt the hairs rising on my arms.

‘Thank you,’ I said.

‘It’s the full-fat version,’ Ryan said as I took a tiny sip.‘Real alcohol.In case you were, you know…’

I gave him a grin.‘That’s OK.I’m drinking tonight.A little, anyway.No training tomorrow.’

‘Oh, what training?’Ryan asked me, taking a big gulp of whatever he was drinking.Vodka tonic, maybe?

‘Rowing.’I pulled a face.‘I’m back in again after an injury and it’s boring as hell.Everything hurts.’

I watched his interest sharpen.Cordelia had beensospot-on.The sports stuff totally hooked him in.

Ryan quizzed me about the rowing, then started telling me about his rugby, and actually it turned into a decent conversation.And somehow, even though someone handed him another drink and asked if he was doing shots, we didn’t break off.

‘Why rugby?’I asked him, after a while.‘I mean, you’d make an amazing rower.Just saying.’

‘I don’t know,’ he said, shrugging.‘I guess… my brother and I were always into it.And then he became this star player.He’s playing for England now, you know?’

‘Seriously?’I asked, and then, reading his expression, I added, ‘What an asshole.’

Ryan gave a surprised laugh.‘That’s… kind of how I feel about it.He’s made it seem like any other success isn’t good enough.At least, that’s the way Dad talks about it.’

He shook his head, and I felt a weird little twist of sympathy.I realised that this kid had grown up with everythingbeing handed to him financially, and yet felt… not good enough.

Well, there was at least one side of that which I understood.And Aria would have understood all of it.

‘Tell me about it,’ I said quietly.‘Try having a brother who’s made it to the Senate before he’s thirty.Particularly after I… You know.Left the US and came here.’

I deliberately sketched over the reasons for coming over here.At some point, if I got to know them better, someone was probably going to google me.And if they did, they’d find out about Aria being an addict.

The real Aria might have wanted to keep it quiet at first.But in the long run, it gave me something to confess.And an aura of vulnerability.Which would be helpful if Cordelia was right about Kit and his habit of collecting broken people.

It was that thought that made me look around for Kit, and I realised when I found him in the crowd that he was already watching me.So much for thinking he’d moved on to other things.

He held my gaze with an expression I couldn’t read, and it gave me a slightly sick thrill of anxiety.

I was the one who looked away.

‘… when you’re doing Olympic rowing,’ Ryan was saying, shaking his head.‘Surely your parents must stan that.’

I laughed, enjoying the sudden Gen-Z slang in his otherwise impeccably posh speech, all the while trying not to think about that gaze of Kit Frankland’s.I’d prepped for this, anyway, and the words came easily enough.‘Oh.My mom thinks sport is frivolous.She thinksI’mfrivolous, actually.And Dad has never understood how he managed to father anyone so disorganised and willing to make a spectacle of myself.’

Give them a story that’s pretty much the truth, Reid.That’s how to do this job.

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