Page 32 of Perfectly Imperfect Us
At our walkway, they turned, Mom pulling me into a hug before they continued on with their after-dinner stroll around the neighborhood. I watched them go, wondering if I’d have that one day. A partner I felt completely at ease with.
To be honest, I didn’t feel that way with Ryder yet. While I enjoyed our conversation and felt like he understood me and we had a great time, I hadn’t quieted the little voice in the back of my mind that squealed over the fact I was dating Ryder Steele, the international male model. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop, the day to come when he’d realize he could do so much better than me.
I stepped out of my dress and pulled on my pajamas, the soft cotton material feeling luxurious even if it appeared old and faded. I flopped down on my bed and ignored my phone when it pinged. Ryder made my heart race and my insides melt. When I wasn’t with him, I was thinking about him and daydreaming about when I’d see him next. I could get lost in him, the kind of lost that made girls do stupid things, promise forever, and get their hearts broken.
Bottom line, I didn’t trust that whatever we had would survive the long haul. Girls like me didn’t end up with men like Ryder. Unless you believed fairy tales like Cinderella actually came true.
Being a realist I believed that what we had, while it burned hot now, would eventually flame out. Maybe Nicoletta was right and that’s why it made me so angry. I wasn’t in Ryder’s league. She knew it and now I knew it. I’d probably known it all along, I’d just been too distracted to focus on the things my subconscious wished to ignore.
13
Ryder
I scrubbed a hand over my face and squinted into the dark, even as I pulled a sweatshirt on. For as hot as it got in Nickel Bay during the summer, it sure did get chilly after the sun went down. I’d been texting Ava for several hours since her family left that disaster of a dinner we’d slogged through. I gritted my teeth, thinking of the confrontation I’d had with my mom the second the Mendezes walked out the door. Ugly words had been tossed back and forth until Mom burst into tears and ran out of the room. Dad stayed to smooth things over with me before going after Mom. I didn’t envy him.
Simply put, Mom was a spoiled brat. No one ever pushed back on her ridiculous statements or held her feet to the fire when she was nasty. The second she tried to shame Ava it was like a switch flipped in my head. No more pacifying when it came to Mom. I might be the only person in her life who would stand up to her, but I was up for the challenge.
I bent down to pick up a few tiny pebbles that lined the little pathway through Ava’s side yard. Ava not texting me back turned my insides cold. I couldn’t let her go to sleep tonight thinking she wasn’t good enough or that my mother’s insane ideas were how anyone else saw things.
I cocked my arm back and let the pebble fly, not putting a lot of heat on it for fear of breaking her window. It hit the wall of her house, between the first floor and the second, before bouncing off and falling into the bushes below.
“I really wish I would have played more sports,” I muttered to myself.
I narrowed my eyes on Ava’s window again, pulled back my arm and let the next pebble fly with a bit more power, rejoicing silently when it hit her window. I winced at the loud ping that echoed in the still night air. I wanted to talk to her, not scare the daylights out of her.
When nothing happened for several long seconds and no one else came out of their house to threaten to call the cops on me, I threw another pebble. A second later, her curtain pulled back an inch or two. I couldn’t see her in the dark, but I could imagine she saw me. Especially when I waved my hand in the air for her to come down. The curtain swung back into place and I held my breath.
A few seconds later, I heard the back door open and Ava poked her head around the corner of the house.
“Ryder?” she said softly. “Are you reenacting some sort of teen romance movie or something?”
I moved toward her, a ghost of a smile at her usual sass. “Yeah, it’s me. I just needed to talk and you weren’t answering my texts.”
She straightened and came around the corner, barely dressed in what looked like a skintight tank top and tiny shorts. My steps faltered and my brain blanked.
“What’s going on?” Ava whispered and for the first time I realized how alone we’d be, outside here in the dark without another person in sight.
“Stop,” I whispered hoarsely.
Her eyebrow went up, but I was serious. If she came any closer, I couldn’t be held responsible for taking her in my arms and kissing her senseless. I yanked the sweatshirt off me and handed it to her. Anything to get all that delicious skin covered up. She smiled and put it on, probably thinking I meant the gesture because I thought she was cold. I ran a hand through my long hair and tried to get my brain to focus on what I came here for.
“Listen, I’m so sorry for my mom. She was completely out of line and everything she was implying is wrong. I had a talk with her today and I can guarantee she won’t make the mistake again.” I winced. “She’ll probably say something else that’s completely rude and insensitive.”
“Ryder,” Ava interjected, arms crossed over her chest. “It’s okay. She’s just looking out for you.”
I stepped closer. “No, she’s never looked out for me. That was just her being nasty. She’s spoiled and my father and I are partly to blame. Please don’t let her shortcomings mess up what we have or who you believe yourself to be.” Another step closer and I was finally close enough to touch her, to see how her eyes held a measure of pain. “You’re beautiful, inside and out, Ava. You areexactlywho I should be with.”
She looked down at my chest and I held my breath, not at all sure she’d come out of this day unscathed like I’d hoped. Reaching out, I unfolded her arms and threaded my fingers through hers, squeezing her tight and silently begging her not to let my mother’s careless words ruin everything.
Her eyelids fluttered up and my heart seized at the tears I saw shining in the moonlit sky. “She was so hateful, Ryder. Logically, I know that’s on her, but there’s another part of me that wonders if she isn’t right. I’m just an ordinary girl—”
Her voice caught and she zipped her lips shut. A single, solitary tear slid down her cheek and I wanted to rage at my mother for the damage she’d done. I wanted to yell at the world for making a woman like Ava think she was less than simply because she wasn’t famous or because she was different. I wanted to shake some sense into Ava and take the blinders off her eyes. But none of that was possible. I could only do a better job of showing her what I saw, a better job of protecting her from the very people who sought to tear her down.
“An ordinary girl, Ava?” I let go of her hands and traced a finger across her forehead and down her cheek, the sight of her natural skin tone pleasing me despite the pain in my chest knowing she was hurting. I threaded my fingers through her hair and wondered at the beauty of each strand. Then I cupped her face and went all in.
It was time I stopped being guarded and actually showed Ava how I felt about her. Anything less and I’d be just as much to blame as my mother. I cupped her face, keeping my hands gentle, but making sure she looked me in the eye. My thumb swiped away the tear and I vowed to never be the cause of her crying ever again.
“I’m the ordinary one in this relationship, I assure you. I have a mother who puts her foot in her mouth. I literally ache for you day and night. I can’t take a full breath unless you’re near. I want to take a thousand pictures of you and hang them everywhere I go so I’m never without the sight of the woman I’m falling for.”
