Page 75 of Well, Actually
Rylie chews on his lower lip again as he thinks, then shrugs. “Maybe it’s not. But I know Hailey would have hated who I’d become in her memory.” He picks up my hand, lifting it and brushing my knuckles against his mouth. “I probably would have kept going that way if it weren’t for Katie. She was still so young and trapped in the rubble of our family’s crumbling. I came home from a late shift one night and found her curled on the couch, bawling her eyes out. She was only thirteen or fourteen at the time, but when she looked up at me—fuck, she looked so old. So weary and lonely and broken, like life had already beaten her to a pulp. It sort of shattered me out of my fog, if that makes any sense.”
I nod, encouraging him to keep going.
“She opened up to me that night; I think she’d been trying to for a long time but I wasn’t in a place to listen. She talked about how alone she felt, how afraid. How she thought losing Hailey would be the worst thing to ever happen to her but over the past year she’d felt like she’d lost me and our parents too, how their marriage was falling apart. That last part was probably the most jarring. I was so numb to everything, I had no idea my parents were struggling with their marriage. I kind of… Well, it sounds super naive, but I kind of assumed that something like that would glue them together. Make them unbreakable.
“But after Katie talked to me, and I started paying attention, I realized how horrible things had gotten. I saw how badly my dad was failing to step up and be the partner my mom needed. It was heartbreaking to watch, to see this woman reach day in and day out for something as simple as a hug or a word of reassurance or even just acknowledgmentfrom her husband, and not get it.” Rylie’s voice cracks, and he takes a moment to clear his throat.
“I didn’t know how to process it,” he continues. “Realizing your parents are human is a devastating thing. And I always looked up to my dad as the model man, the kind of person I wanted to be. But he checked out, and it fucked with my head. I didn’t know what it meant to be a man, let alone a partner.”
We stop at a red light, and Rylie tilts his head up, rolling out his neck as he thinks about his next words. “I cleaned up my act after that. Slowly, but I did. I started helping my mom around the house, talking with my sister every day, taking her out and trying to bring some enjoyment back into her life. Before the second anniversary of Hailey’s death, my mom filed for divorce and it was probably one of the best things she’s ever done.
“I know this will sound weird,” Rylie says, glancing at me, then away. “But through all of that I found a sort of…beautyin our grief. In the way my mom, sister, and I came together. How we hurt in a way that was the same but also vastly unique for each of us. I became sort of fascinated with that, with feelings, for lack of better phrasing.” He lets out a rough laugh, giving me a sardonic smile. “Probably because I was feeling so many of them for once.”
I smile back, cupping his cheek as emotions knot through me.
“And I needed to find some sort of purpose. Katie was blossoming in high school, my mom was starting to carve out a new life for herself. I realized I wanted to do the same. So I took all those feelings and my fascination with them and appliedfor master’s programs in counseling. And I loved it. I loved studying human nature and trying to understand how all of these awful, wonderful things that happen to us shape us. Then I started sharing what I was learning online in funny bits or whatever. And it resonated with people, I guess. I’m able to make a living off my stupid videos and my podcast and continually learn more about people. It’s a pretty amazing thing, I think.”
Rylie pulls into the driveway of our hotel and a bellman heads in our direction. The second he puts the car in park, I dive across the center console, gripping his face between my palms and kissing him with everything I have.
“It’s very amazing,” I say against his lips, feeling his smile. I kiss his nose. His eyelids. His forehead. Then his mouth again. “Thank you for sharing that part of your story with me.”
Rylie drops his forehead to mine, our shallow breaths mingling. “Kitten,” he says, dragging a palm from my throat down my back. “Every part of me is yours if you want it.”
Chapter 19
“Does my hair look cute or do I look like a yappy little Shih Tzu?” I ask, emerging from the hotel bathroom in a cloud of expensive perfume and setting spray.
Rylie’s lying on the bed, and his eyes slowly lift from the book I loaned him to the fountain of messy hair on the top of my head. “Both things can be true, no?”
I grimace, flipping him off while fluffing my hair. His laugh is a warm amber, slipping through me and crystalizing in my veins with a delicate glow. He stretches his lanky limbs, then moves off the bed, making an unhurried appraisal of me from head to toe. His smile notches on one side when he stops in front of me, fingers toying lazily with a loose strand of my hair before ghosting down my neck to the thin silk strap of my top. I shiver slightly at the barely-there scratch of his nails on my skin, and his smile grows, touch turning bolder as his palmskims down my side until it’s at my hip and he’s drawing me closer.
“You look,” he says, dipping his head so his lips graze my temple, breath tickling my ear, “absolutely stunning.”
A shaky sigh slips out of me, my knees going wobbly, and I feel both silly and outrageously pleased at how earnestly he means it.
How does he do it? How does he make me feel like this, over and over again? Like he’s spent a lifetime looking at art but I’m the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen?
“And your hair looks lovely. More Yorkie than booger-eyed Shih Tzu for sure.” He pulls back to smile at me. The romantic bubble is popped, but glitter sprinkles around us, making the feelings even brighter.
I love playing with him, I love our endless, ferocious need to make the other laugh or gasp or scramble to guess what comes next. I love—
I wriggle out of his grip. “Let’s see how you compare.”
I make a slow circle around his suit-clad body like a surveyor sizing up property. Rylie squares his shoulders and splays his palms to the sides, chin tilted toward the ceiling.
He looks so fucking good, I can’t even find something to pretend to poke fun at.
His suit pants are impeccably tailored, hugging his ass and thighs in a way that makes me want to start barking, the shade a burnt sienna that could look ridiculous on a man with less confidence, but he wears it like the color was invented for him. He’s paired them with a crisp, hunter-green button-down, the top two buttons open, drawing my eyes up the column of histhroat and the bob of his Adam’s apple as he smiles. I stop in front of him, hands on my hips.
“And this is your final decision for what you’re wearing?” I ask in a falsely delicate voice.
Rylie’s eyes narrow, smile growing. “Yeah. Why?”
“You know the Duolingo owl?”
“… Yes?”
I give him a pointed look up and down, then shrug. “Just saying.” I’m drowning in lust but I’d never go easy on him.
