Page 46 of Promised Summer
When Monday came, I called my real estate agent. I hadn’t heard from her since our last apartment viewing, so I didn’t keep my hopes high. Good thing, since she told me there had been no new openings within my price range since our last talk.
Despite keeping my expectations low, I still deflated just a bit. I could feel Jones was still nervous about the possibility of me packing up and leaving him behind one day, so I wanted to plant some roots to show him I wasn’t leaving. I thought Karla and me having our own place would be the easiest method to do that, but it was turning out to be the opposite.
I was about to hang up when my agent suggestedthat finding a place outside the town’s limits might be easier due to all of the recent people wanting to live in Kither Springs.
Karla was already registered to Kither Springs Elementary and was set to start kindergarten next month. If we moved outside school limits, we’d have to deal with zoning issues for her. I could have her stay with my mom on school nights. We could fully turn the room she and I were currently staying in into one of her very own. But if we had to be apart, then what was the point of moving here in the first place?
Besides, I selfishly wanted to stay within Kither Springs’ limits. Even as a kid, I longed for the summers so that I could return here, and now that I was back, I’d found my home and didn’t want to leave.
But if I couldn’t find a place here, I might just very well have to…
Chapter Eighteen
JONES
“Heard Ryan’s been looking for a place outside of Kither Springs.”
Dan’s comment had me flinging my head toward where he was lounging in the hot tub. Clay and Ryker were enjoying the warm water with him. With three giants already inside, the tub looked too small for a fourth, so I opted to lay on my lawn chair instead.
They hadn’t had a chance to try out the hot tub yet and insisted on coming over after work. I was more than happy for the company, since neither Ryan nor Karla was here today.
From my view, I felt like I was watching the beginnings of a hot tub porn scene with three hot, muscular men cozying up to each other in the small space. Just because I was madly in love didn’t mean I couldn’t appreciate how handsome my friends were.
Seeing the tub and thinking about Ryan made meremember the things we’d done in said tub, and the way he commanded me and took what he wanted. I’d replaced the water since that night, of course.
Now that I was thinking about it, he probably thought I was a masochist back then. Was that why he’d been so assertive? Because he thought it was what I needed, what I wanted? And what did that say about me for hoping he’d order me around like that again?
“Someone said they saw him driving to the next town over to meet the real estate agent. Said he was real urgent in his desire to find a place outside of town as soon as possible,” Dan continued, and my focus returned to them.
“Where did you hear this from?” I asked. I stood, anxious to get an answer, which made sitting still impossible.
“A pretty little thing?—”
Angry grumbles came from Clay, but Dan merely cast him a glance before continuing.
“—came into my clinic today. Told me he heard from his friend, who heard from her mother, who heard from…well, you know how it goes. Anyway, it’s all the town’s been talking about and how there’s such a lack of housing in Kither Springs that the poor Edgson kid has to move out of town.”
Ryker glanced at me with obvious worry in his eyes. The worry was seeping into my body too. Was Ryan planning to live outside town with Karla? Why didn’t he tell me this?
He was leaving? Leaving me again?
I thought our relationship was going well. He let me call him my boyfriend. We were together just last night, though he did say he couldn’t come over today since he had some matters to take care of. Were these matters going to meet with his real estate agent to get away from me?
Ah, fuck.
All the unsavory thoughts rushed to the forefront of my mind despite doing my best to push them down.
Ryan wouldn’t just up and ghost me again. He promised he’d stay, or at the very least, he promised to tell me ahead of time if he was going to leave.
But he’d broken his promise to me once before…
A wet hand on my shoulder had me glancing up to the concerned eyes of my best friend.
“Hey, you know rumors are always exaggerated. Everyone was saying how you’re a masochist, and we all know that’s not true, right? Unless…”
I shoved him. “Thanks for that, by the way,” I grumbled with a glare, since he was the reason the rumor started in the first place. “Even my mom thinks the rumors are true, saying how I didn’t need to repress my sexual desires now that it was out in the open. I never want to hear those words from her mouth again.”
“Sorry,” Ryker said, not looking the least bit apologetic. “But you see? I’m sure the rumors are being exaggerated. You should ask him the real story.”
