Page 60 of Buried Treasure
"Fine, then I won't," he replied with a smirk. "But you can't stop me from trying to help Sydney get her man."
And with that, Ryan turned and walked out without listening to another word from his trainer. To be fair, Andy wasn't sure what he could say. He just needed to move on, find a woman who didn't know anything about hockey and didn't know any hockey players.
Sydney looked at herself in the mirror and smiled. It had been weeks since she got ready without having to be anywhere. It was just a natural decision for her regardless of whether she had to be somewhere or not. For some reason, today was the day when she officially hit the wall and could no longer support the idea of sitting in yoga pants for every hour she was in her apartment. So instead of crusty clothes, it was a pair of dark jeans and a pink fuzzy sweater. She even did her make-up and straight ironed her hair.
Luckily, she actually didn't feel gross or embarrassed to answer to her door that afternoon when someone knocked.
Ryan smiled as soon as she opened it. "Wow, you look nice."
"Are you saying I didn't look nice before?"
He gave her a skeptical look. "You and I both know those yoga pants need to be burned," he said.
"True. Come in."
She moved out of the way to let him into her apartment, closing the door behind him. Like Sydney, Ryan was looking better than he had in the past few weeks. He was on his way to the arena for a game so he was dressed in a tailored charcoal gray suit that accentuated all his hockey player curves. Plus, he was moving almost as well as he did before he had the surgery and was smiling more lately. But he was more subdued and solemn again as he pulled a white envelope from the inside pocket of his suit jacket.
"I know you're going to say it's none of my business or you can handle it yourself or whatever, but I told you I would fix this."
"Andy and I just weren't meant to be," she replied. "You're not a failure if my relationship with your trainer didn't work out."
Ryan sighed and held out the white envelope. "You need to take this."
"What's that?" she asked.
"Tickets."
"Tickets?"
He waved the envelope in front of her. "Don't leave me hanging. Just take them." She stared at him apprehensively and slowly took the envelope from his hands. "Inside are two tickets for tonight for you and Lucy. I figured the two of you haven't done any fun friend things lately."
Sydney swallowed and stared at the envelope in her hands. After everything she had gone through in the past weeks, there were very few nice things that anyone had done for her. In fact, the only people who had done anything nice for her were the McClouds — both mother and son, her best friend Lucy, and a man who met her when she was at her worst and still treated her well.
She looked up and gave Ryan a tight smile. "Thank you," she said quietly.
"But you have to go this time," he said sternly.
She took a deep breath. Ryan was right. She had to go. She had to stop being afraid of who was out there and what they thought of her.
"I'll go," she replied. "I promise."
"Good."
But Ryan didn't make any effort to move from his spot in Sydney's living room. Instead, he just continued to stand there with an apprehensive look on his face. It was as if he wasn't done talking to her about something, and Sydney knew exactly what that something was, or more accurately, who that someone was. She put her hands on her hips while still holding on to the envelope and looked straight at Ryan.
"Yes?" she asked with raised eyebrows.
Ryan coughed trying to clear his throat. "It was that obvious."
"No one will ever accuse you of being subtle, Ryan," she said with a teasing tone in her voice.
"Well, since you agreed to take the envelope already, you should know there's more in there."
"Like what kind of more?"
A sheepish grin broke out across Ryan's face. "More like you have a pass in there to the family and friends lounge after the game, and since I gave it to you with the tickets, you have to go there."
"Why would I do that?"
