Page 143 of Pucking Wild

“What about Cami?” he says, his smile falling the moment she’s gone.

“What about her?” I say, heart in my throat.

“She’s young and cute and clearly knows how chairs work,” he deadpans. “I think she’d make a great date for the gala. Should I ask her?”

The Rays around us all cheer as Morrow finishes his song, but Ryan and I may as well be alone in this crowded room. He’s all I see.

“Feel free,” I reply, knowing he’s just trying to get a rise out of me because I hurt his feelings. But no one hates me more than me right now, so he can spare me the hurt puppy look.

“You know what, maybe she’s free tonight,” he says, slapping his napkin down. “Hell, maybe she’s free right now. Why don’t I go ask her?”

“Ryan—” I reach for him as he gets up, but he shrugs away from me, passing Morrow as he saunters past the bunnies, moving quickly towards the doors.

I sit there, staring down at the food I can’t bear to eat. I’m not hungry anymore. I’m not anything.

“Jesus. That was worse than watching a car crash,” Caleb says. “You’re a fucking mess, Tess.”

I blink away my tears, glaring at him. “Says the guy who loved his best friend for ten years and did nothing about it.”

“Yeah, and if you used half the cells in that ginormous brain of yours—better yet, if you used half the sense of feeling in that bleeding heart you hold in your chest, you’d know not to make the same mistakes I did,” he snaps at me.

A tear slips down my cheek and I quickly wipe it away. “I don’t know what to do, Cay. Everything is so…broken.”

He sighs. “You’re not broken, Tess. You’re scared. What did Mars say the other day?”

I close my eyes and repeat the words. “Life is short.”

“Damn fucking right,” he replies. “Life is short. Do you really want to spend the whole of it running? Or would you like to slow things down and live a little?”

His words pierce me like an arrow through the chest. “I wanna live.” I drop my face into my hands and groan, elbows on the table. “Oh god, I’m so tired of running.”

“Then go home to that sweet idiot who loves you,” he says, his voice in my ear as the music gets louder. Shelby is on the stage now, ready to belt out some Kesha.

I glance up, meeting his dark gaze.

“Stop living life like you’re fucking scared of it. I lived that way for ten years. I’ll never get those ten years back.Go.” He shoves my food away from me and points over his shoulder towards the doors. “Go home, Tess.”

Home.

I’ve never had a home. My mother’s apartment certainly wasn’t a home. Neither were any of the half-dozen guest rooms and couches I drifted around as a kid. And even as I was madly in love with Troy, our home never felt like a space I defined. We lived in his family’s property, using their decorators, mirroring their tastes.

The closest I’ve ever felt to feeling like I had a home was when I lived with Rachel. But even then, the apartment itself never felt like home. We made it homey with our decorations and the smells of our cooking and baking, the sound of our laughter.Shewas my home.

Go home.

Now Rachel has a new home and he’s sitting right next to me. Caleb is her home. Caleb and Jake and Ilmari. Maybe that’s why she and I get along so well. We don’t find our home in places or things. We find them in people. For however brief a time, Rachel was my home. Now, we both need to move on.

Go home to Ryan.

That’s what Caleb is implying—that despite all the odds, despite all the feelings of insecurity I have, telling me I don’t deserve this, I have a home again. It’s not Ilmari’s bungalow. It’s the man sharing it with me. The sweet, twenty-two-year-old man who plays hockey and loves Mario Kart and can never answer a single text message. The man who always puts the oven on the wrong setting even though you tell him three times. The man who needs a haircut and fucks me like a god. The man who makes me laugh and listens when I speak and holds me when I cry. The man who’s been showing me every day since the day we met how he intends to put me first.

Ryan Langley.

My Ryan.

My home.

“Tess?” Caleb says, a dark brow raised.

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