Page 60 of The Enemy: Extended Edition

He grins but doesn’t look away from the road. “I can see your thoughts. Didn’t you know?” He says it so seriously that, for a second, I think he’s telling the truth. I knew he was a sorcerer of some kind. It’s how he manages to wield this powerful, sexy man aura that I can’t resist. “June, I’m kidding. You’ve been rubbing your sunflower tattoo for the past five miles.”

“Oh.” Why do I like the sorcerer idea better? I also don’t love that I seem to put all my feelings on display when Ryan is around. Or wait. It’s a good thing to show Ryan how I’m feeling.

It’s opposite of my natural inclination, but I’m determined not to sabotage this relationship with Ryan, so I tell him everything. I tell him that after Ben broke my heart, I went straight to the tattoo parlor and had the nice man with fifteen piercings and over one hundred tattoos ink the sunflower onto my skin. It was a spontaneous decision, but I don’t regret it.

“Why after you broke up?”

I look down at my hands and fidget. “Ben didn’t like tattoos. Always said they looked kind of trashy. It’s so ironic considering he slept with someone else a week before our wedding, which is the ultimate trashy look.” I scoff. “I decided that day it was time to start doing what I wanted and not give a shit what Ben did or didn’t like.”

And then something amazing happens. I realize that I just talked about Ben and what he did to me, and for once, it doesn’t sting. Not a bit. This is curious to me, so I force my thoughts down that rabbit trail a little further just to see if it was a fluke. I let myself remember picking up Ben’s phone when he left the room and finding a text from Hallie with a photo of the two of them snuggling under the covers as if they’d been a couple for a hundred years.

Huh. No pain. No knots in my stomach. No nothing. In fact, all I can really focus on is Ryan’s thumb tracing circles on the back of my hand.

He peeks at me from the corner of his eye. “I’m glad you got the tattoo. It also looks superhot on you so that’s a plus.”

I don’t know why, but a blush creeps over my face. I think it’s a combination of the way Ryan is looking at me and what his touch does to me.

“Thanks,” I say quietly, but my voice betrays how much his words mean to me and it cracks.

The rest of the night goes by in a zoom. Ryan and I catch a flight to O’Hare International Airport, where we take a detour before going to baggage claim and stop at the food court. “I heard your stomach growling on the plane,” he says before once again shocking me to no end by steering us toward the Taco Bell. Once was a fluke—twice is certainly on purpose.

I squeeze his arm while we wait in line. “You know, that night you got us tacos while we waited on the locksmith, I thought for sure you were stooping to fast food because you liked me. Now I’m starting to think it wasn’t for me at all. Answer honestly, Ryan Henderson, is this your favorite restaurant?”

He grins down at me as we advance toward the front of the line. “I’ve tried to re-create the flavor of their beef. I can’t match it no matter how hard I try.”

A laugh rolls through me, completely delighted by this turn of events. Ryan, Mr. Michelin Chef, is a fast-food lover just like me.

After scarfing our meals in the food court, Ryan takes my hand as we both roll our suitcases behind us to the parking lot where a 4Runner truck is parked. But not just any ole 4Runner truck . . . it’s a nice one. He’s clearly had a lot done to it. It looks lifted, has big tires and blacked-out windows. It fits him. Still something I could 100 percent picture Ryan driving in high school, but with a much cooler twist. (An expensive-looking twist.) It’s a simple thing, but I love that I get to know what he drives. What his guilty pleasure food is. That he wears socks with his PJs.

I’m high on delight by the time we load into his truck and make our way toward his place, feeling so joyful I could bust.

And that’s why I rotate in my seat so my back is against the door and curl my legs up in the seat.

“What are you doing?” Ryan asks, glancing at me and then back to the road.

“Staring at you.”

This amuses him, but I’m dead serious.

“That’s creepy.”

“Maybe I’m a little creepy then. Get used to it. You’re too pretty not to stare at.”

Ryan just shakes his head slightly as he moves his hand to my knee and keeps his focus on the road. We don’t talk the rest of the drive, and he lets me stare at him the whole time. I lay my head against the seat and watch the interstate lights flash behind his head, something soft and folky playing on the radio.

I catch myself thinking something that I haven’t thought in a long time.

So this is what happy feels like?

CHAPTER 24

June

“Oh, I see now! You’re loaded,” I say as soon as Ryan and I walk through the front door of his “apartment.” And I mean apartment in the most sarcastic way possible, because this place is bigger than my house. And I have a pretty good size house.

He laughs. “Something like that.”

I give Ryan some serious side-eye before walking deeper into the apartment. My eyes bounce from the exposed brick wall to the six-foot windows and then draw a line all the way up the enormous ceilings more fit for a cathedral than a home. There’s a black slate fireplace against the exterior wall, and exactly the kind of kitchen you would expect to find in a famous chef’s home just beyond the main living room.

---