Page 90 of #Moonstruck

Reporters from television shows called out his name, and Ryan stopped for the one fromET. Janelle something.

“Ryan! So good to see you out here tonight. Who are you wearing?”

“I don’t want to talk about that. Have you met Maisy Harrison? Of the band Yesterday?”

Only the slightest flicker on Janelle’s face let me know she wasn’t pleased to be pushed in a new direction. “I haven’t. Maisy? Gorgeous dress. Who are you wearing?”

“Erika Chang. She’s an up-and-coming designer.”

“Maisy and her band are opening for me on my Moonstruck tour.”

Recognition lit up her eyes. “This is the same woman you’ve been rumored to be dating?”

He put his arm around my waist. “Yes.”

Janelle asked, “Ryan, what can you tell us about your next album?”

But his response was “Thanks for chatting with us,” and we moved on.

The same thing happened with every other reporter. Ryan refused to talk about himself, about the tour, his upcoming album, or his soon-to-be released single. He wanted them to talk only to me and ask me questions.

Which completely threw me. I wasn’t ready for that. I thought I’d just be on his arm, smiling, nobody caring who I was. Instead, Ryan made me the focus, and I hadn’t been trained to give interviews the same way he had.

Like when they asked me to tell them about my hobbies. My answer was “Other than music and Ryan? Feeling inadequate, eating chocolate, and napping.”

I faced question after question until I felt dizzy. We finally reached the end of the line, where there was one reporter determined to flag us down. She had a microphone that said MTV.

“Maisy! Over here!”

I don’t know if the word had spread, but she cleverly called out my name instead of Ryan’s, ensuring that he pulled me right over to her.

She made small talk, asked me how the tour was going. How long Ryan and I had been dating.

“Ryan, when did you know that Maisy was the one for you?”

If he wouldn’t answer questions about himself, he had no problems answering them about me. “The first night I laid eyes on her, I knew she was special. I’ve never met anyone who challenges me or understands me the way she does. It didn’t surprise me when Maisy became the most important person in my life. Or when I realized how much I love her.”

He looked down at me with total love and adoration in his eyes. My heart fluttered and flapped all over the place, like it wanted to break free of my chest and hug him.

“What about you, Maisy?”

“The first time I laid eyes on him, I did not know he was the one.”

That made Ryan laugh and kiss me on the forehead.

The reporter was relentless. “So when did you know?”

I thought about all the things Ryan had done for me. Kept my mom in Century Pacific. Took me and my brothers out on tour, paying us a ton of money to live out our dreams. How he made me laugh. How comfortable I felt with him. How he’d given me someone to talk to about music in a way that I never had before. How he carried me out of the club my dad played in. Rushed me to the hospital after the bee sting and stayed by my side. How he confessed his love to me, and even tonight, when it should have been his chance to shine, his chance to drum up publicity, he instead focused the spotlight on me.

The realization that I’d been in love with him for a long time hit me harder than an egg to the head.

“I don’t know if there was just one moment. It’s been more like a bunch of little moments all combined together that made me love him.”

Ryan’s reaction seemed to happen in slow motion. I watched the different emotions cross his face—surprise, confusion, doubt, and then total and complete joy. “You love me?”

“You already know the answer.”

Before I finished the last word, his mouth was on mine, demanding, grasping, desperate. As if he’d been waiting impatiently for this very moment, and now that it had arrived, he couldn’t contain himself. Fiery stars exploded in front of my eyes, forcing me to squeeze them shut, to sink in and savor the feel of his kiss.

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