Page 74 of Forbidden Puck
Ten minutes later, there was a soft rap at my door. “Knock knock,” Ella said.
“Come in.”
She stepped in, saw me, and covered her mouth. “Oh my God. Your face.”
“Handsome, right?”
“You look awful, Ryan.”
She spun around and left the room immediately. I thought,huh, I guess she really can't stand the sight of me.
But she returned a minute later holding a bag. “Here. I brought you some ice.” She neared, sat at the edge of my bed, and pressed the ice bag to my eye. “How's that?”
“Helps. Thanks.” I couldn't look her in the eye. “How was dinner?”
“It was MacAllister's, for the second night in a row. Hardly the place you bring a girl you want to impress, right?”
“Where's Lance?”
“Club Regret, with the rest of your teammates.” She paused. “Lance and I had a fight on the way over.”
“Funny. We had a fight too.”
“Yeah. Our fight was about your fight.”
“I figured.”
She leaned closer and lowered her voice. “Why would you tell him about last night, Radar?”
“So you wouldn't have to lie to him anymore.”
“But why?”
“I told you, I wanted to make things right. Did it work?” I gave my best shot at giving her a cocky grin, but it must've looked pitiful, given my black-eye-and-ice-bag condition.
She smiled coyly. “Well, you certainly pissed him off.”
“As you can see.”
“He says he's going to make sure you get traded, you know.”
“Yup. I know.”
“Why would youtellhim all that, Radar? I wouldn't have told him about last night. You could've continued on, like nothing ever happened.”
“But you told me you vowed to live a life without telling a lie. And here I am, forcing you into that kind of life. I guess I didn't realize how important it was to you, until I made you do it … and saw how angry it made you.”
She didn't answer. She pursed her lips and looked at me with a half-smile, half-frown.
“So, Ella, even if I got away with the lie, you would've had it buried inside you for the rest of your life. Who knows, maybe in the grand scheme of things, that lie wouldn't be a big deal. Maybe, eventually, you'd only think about it once every other year. But it'd still be there, a little piece of proof that you weren't living your life the way you wanted, and worse, it would all be my fault.”
She put her hand against my cheek, the non-swollen one. “Ryan …”
“I like you, Ella.” I covered her hand with mine—and then I gently removed it from my cheek. “But I don't deserve you. And that's why I was only trying to do the right thing last night.”
“What are you talking about, that you don't deserve me?”
“I sleep around. You don't. You're the complete opposite of me.”
