Page 52 of Safe Harbor
"Would you like me to start from the beginning?"
"Please do."
Lucy took another drink and grabbed a few more fries, delaying the inevitable so she could try and get her thoughts in order. And there were a lot of thoughts that needed to be put in order. Where should she even begin? She started from the first day knocking on Ryan's door and him answering in his boxer briefs.
"I didn't know he was going to be staying there, and then this manly man answers the door without any clothes on and I started stammering and acting like an idiot."
"And it was Ryan that was making you act that way?"
Lucy sighed. "I know. Sounds ridiculous."
Sydney shrugged and grabbed a few more fries. "To be fair, I've honestly never seen Ryan without a shirt on so I can see how that could maybe be an issue." She waved the fries in Lucy's direction. "Didn't mean to interrupt. Please continue."
So Lucy kept talking. She mentioned the coffee and the donuts. She mentioned the books on the shelf. But she also left out seeing Ryan skinny dipping in the lake and the weird look on his face when she mentioned the missing sprinkled donut.
Their food arrived just as she was getting to the night she made him dinner and he made her moan on the kitchen counter.
"And then he just kissed me. But he had this look on his face like he had made a mistake and apologized and…I don't know." Lucy took a sip of her beer before continuing. "He just looked hot and inviting and so I kissed him back."
Sydney shook her head. "I still can't believe you kissed him."
"I can't either! But then he kissed me back and pushed me up against the counter and—"
"Stop." Sydney almost spit out the slider in her mouth and had to take a few drinks of beer before she could compose herself. "I mean, please don't continue with whatever happened next."
Lucy gave her a small smile. "So you don't want me to tell you how great the sex was."
"No."
"Or that I slept with him again the next day and how great that was."
"Also no."
"Or that I didn't talk to him after that until dinner on Friday night?"
Sydney was about to say something else when she stopped and stared at her friend. "Wait, what did you say?"
Lucy took a breath and looked down at her food. "I didn't talk to him all summer."
"But I thought you guys said you were a thing since June," Sydney said incredulously.
"I mean, that's technically true if you think about it."
"Technically true? I guess." Sydney stole a few more fries from the tray. "But you two never talked over the summer?"
Well, that wasn't totally accurate. There was that picture he sent her almost two months ago, his chiseled muscles reflected in the mirror in a way that she wasn't sure whether it was accidental or intentional. It was just that little glimpse into what his life was like outside of Detroit and the hockey team, a little glimpse of who he really was when he wasn't in hockey mode. It was like the way she remembered him this summer at the cottage. Quiet and open and honest as he actually read the books she had given him.
"He did text me a picture over the summer."
Sydney's eyes narrowed as she stared at her friend. "What kind of picture?"
The muscles, the bedroom, the athletic shorts.
"He wanted to show me the stack of books that he read."
Sydney laughed loudly. "I'm sorry," she said trying to catch her breath. "I thought you were going to tell me he sent you an unsolicited dick pic or some photo of him preening in the bathroom mirror to show off his muscles. I wasn't expecting a pile of books."
Lucy didn't know why Sydney's response bothered her. Sure, she kind of got it. None of them knew Ryan to be a bookworm and it was entirely possible he would send Lucy a less-than-innocent photo of himself. She assumed he had probably done that before with someone else and there was some random woman walking around Detroit with a dick pic from THE Ryan McCloud saved on her phone.
