Page 21 of Love on the Brain
Ryan leaned toward her until their foreheads were touching. His green eyes had darkened, and she wanted more than anything to know what he was thinking, what he was planning to do next. If it had been any other man, she would suspect he might want to kiss her.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, he pulled away. “Why did we never get together in college?” he asked.
Surprised by the question, Jane pulled her ponytail forward and twisted it around her hand. There were so many reasons. She decided to go with the most obvious.
“When I met you, you had a girlfriend. A tall, blond, beautiful, tanned, popular Texas cheerleader.” Jane hoped that hadn’t come out in an envious tone. However, next to Sunny, Jane was plain, just like Grady O’Hara had called her in elementary school. She was short with dull ash-blonde hair and a pale complexion that reddened to ruddy when she flushed. “Then you had a fiancée. You talked about her all the time. All your plans, her plans. So, we were friends.” She glanced at the fire, then looked back at him with a smile. “The very best of friends.”
“Yeah.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Right. Sunny and I were practically betrothed since birth. It was always expected that we get married. Looking back, I think by talking about it I was trying to convince myself how right we were for each other.”
Jane frowned. “I always got a weird vibe from her.”
“I think Sunny didn’t like you because she saw you as a threat. You and I spent a lot of time together. I never even realized that until the other day. Even if we had feelings for each other back then, we never would have acted on it because that’s not the kind of people we were. No matter how many times I told her we were just friends, it turns out she never believed it.”
Jane’s fingers curled into fists. “Is that why she cheated on you?”
He shrugged and turned his head toward the fire. “Maybe. And I always forgave her. I don’t know if Casey ever told you… After you got married, she broke things off and said she needed time to figure out what she wanted in life and how I fit in. I waited, then we got back together. I suspected that she’d had an intimate relationship while we were broken up. She was just …different. More physically affectionate and assertive. That’s when we finally planned our wedding. She didn’t want to wait any longer. Neither did I, but … I waited for her, Jane. Not for her … um … but to…” He sighed.
Jane twisted her rings around her finger. She hated Sunny for putting Ryan through so much grief. He hadn’t deserved it.
“You know how hard it was for me to wait? All that time? To find out she didn’t? She never admitted or denied it, and I didn’t ask, but I justknew.It was disappointing that she lied, but I forgave her. And I forgave her again after we got engaged. I still wanted to wait because I was brought up to believe giving all of myself was the greatest gift. And I wasted it. She took it. She took everything and gave me nothing but heartache. A few months after the wedding, I suspected she was having an affair with a player from the Astros’ farm team. We went to counseling. I was still determined to make it work. Until a year later when he leveled up and she ran off with him on a quote, unquote ‘business trip.’”
“Oh, Ryan.” Jane stretched a comforting arm around his back and leaned her head on his shoulder. That scandal had been all over the entertainment and sports news. “I hate so much that she did that to you.”
He flinched. “I don’t want pity. I just want to forget about it. It is what it is. It happened. It’s over. I’m past it.”
“For what it’s worth, I never thought she was that smart.” Jane took a sip from her glass.
Ryan inched toward her and leaned his head on hers. “She was a National Merit Scholar.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Jane waved off his words. “There’s book smart and there’s heart smart. I’d rather be heart smart. You’re heart smart, Ryan.”
“And yet, here we are at thirty, both single, with aching hearts. I think I’d rather be book smart.” He sighed.
A smile she couldn’t hold back spread across Jane’s face. There was something she wanted to tell him, and she’d do it now when her face was in his sweater and he couldn’t see her cheeks burn. “You know, when I met you, I had the biggest crush on you. Who didn’t? You were adorable and sweet. And safe, because you were off the market. When you told me you had a girlfriend, I had to do some crazy mental work and a lot of praying for God to calm that crush down. But that first semester, I purposely walked the longer way to biology so I’d pass you on your way back from the science building to your dorm. And I looked forward to Wednesday night ministry meetings because you always had the best things to say.”
Jane took a deep breath and dared herself to sit up and see his reaction. Ryan’s surprise settled into a kind smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. She quickly lowered her head back to its former position and immediately regretted her tipsy confession. He probably thought she’d stalked him, and he’d be right.
But the crush had mellowed out, as crushes do, and it hadn’t gotten in the way of their friendship.
His hand covered hers on the glass, and he gently nudged it from her grip. She let it go, keeping her eyes cast downward.
He set it next to his on the brick step of the fireplace. “Hey,” he said, tipping her chin up with the crook of his finger.
She couldn’t look at him yet, and she didn’t trust herself to speak. Squeezing her eyes shut, she pressed her lips together and concentrated on even breathing.
He hugged her to his side, wrapping both of his big, burly arms around her in that bear hug that she loved. “Passing you on Tuesdays and Thursdays was the highlight of my week,” he said. “I have so many regrets from that time in my life. One was that I wouldn’t—couldn’t—acknowledge what was right in front of me.”
Jane’s head was throbbing from holding her breath, but she daren’t breathe as she waited for him to continue. “What do you mean?” she asked. Her heart thumped in anticipation of his answer.?
“That I had feelings I wasn’t supposed to have. What I wanted. What I wouldn’t—couldn’t let myself go after. What I never thought would be reciprocated, even if I was free, because my future had already been planned out for me.”
He was talking crazy now. She shifted, deciding she needed to look at him while he was baring his soul.
Ryan’s eyes shone with regret and—was that hope? “It’s so clear to me now. What I needed in my life… what I wanted to keep so badly, I gave away to keep it close, even though it was never mine.”
“I don’t understand.” Jane barely heard her own breathy response.
“Sunny and I were supposed to be together. We were matched up by our parents from babyhood. We were good as friends. But something always felt off. Like being with her was a duty instead of a choice. It was a fight to preserve that relationship for both of us. To resist temptation, to never date other people. It took a lot of effort, and I was happiest when I was away from her, when I was just me, not half of our church community’s power couple.”
