Mine to Lose (6 page)

I remain rooted near the kitchen area
while he explores the rest of the apartment. I resist the urge to look around
since I’m finding it hard not to get upset. If I were moving out here with him,
this is exactly where I would want to be. He emerges from the bedroom and
shrugs his shoulders. “I guess this is my home away from home.” His sigh is
heavy, and I know that he’s just trying to make the best of the situation.

I turn away and walk to the window to
distract myself from the reality of this moment. This
will
be his home,
and I’ll be in Colorado without him. I wipe the tear that sneaks out before responding
to his statement.

“Have fun.”

I didn’t expect Ryan to pick the second
place that he looked at, but then again, he’s pretty laid back. Had the first
complex not looked scary, he may have chosen
it
on the spot. I guess
it’s good that we got the hard part out of the way, because now we’ll be able
to spend the rest of the weekend exploring the city and spending our last bits
of time together. I’ve never been to California, so I am excited to see the
beaches.

There’s no way to treat this like a vacation
or anything other than what it is. The relocation and the move are ever looming
over our heads. Ryan checks us into the hotel and I remain uncharacteristically
quiet as I follow him to the room. He swipes the room card in the door and
holds it open for me to enter, and as I do, I toss my purse on the dresser.
Before I can do anything else, he pulls me to him and catches me off guard with
a passionate kiss that he plants on my lips.

“What was that for?” I ask, touching my
lips, eyeing him.

“I know this is hard for you, but you’re
here with me.” The look in his eyes is loving and I feel like I melt into him
when he holds me.

“Ryan is this weird?” I mumble into his
chest. “We’re about to be married, but I’ve just helped you pick a home away
from me. I feel like everything is changing and not for the better.”

“Don’t think of it that way,” he starts
as he pushes me back so he can look at my eyes. “Think of it as the temporary
arrangement it is.
You
are my home; this is just the place where I’ll be
staying. A place you will be visiting. Often. I hope.”

Wrapping my arms around him, I try to
push any negativity out and focus on Ryan. The man I love. “I’ll come out as
often as I can.”

I’m sure the reality of that statement
isn’t lost on him. Working for one of the most well known event planners in
town, with a growing clientele, is a dream. But it also keeps me quite busy.
During the week I’m scheduling, consulting and monitoring events, and as of
late, my weekends are filled with weddings and other corporate events. The
chances that over the next few months I’ll be able to fly out on the weekends
are slim to none, but I can’t say that to Ryan because he will assume I’m
trying to be difficult.

He grabs my luggage and lightly tosses it
on the chair near the window before looking at me. “I’m gonna grab a shower,
wanna join me?”

I shake my head and smile. “I’m good,
Lang called earlier so I need to call her back.”

The way Ryan looks at me, I know he’s
trying to figure out how he’s going to respond. “Alright then, I won’t be
long.” He takes his shirt off and throws it at me and grins. “Tell her I said hi.”

Once the water starts, I pull my phone
from my purse to call Langley and of course she answers on the first ring. “Hey,
sis. Nice of you to finally call me back.”

“Did you forget that I’m in San Diego
with Ryan for the weekend?”

“Nope. That’s why I called. I knew you
were probably moping and whining and being an overall bitch, so I wanted to
snap you out of it. Was I right?”

I am quiet for a moment before answering.
I could lie, but my sister knows me better than anyone. “Yeah, you’re right,” I
respond begrudgingly.

“Right. So then, what are you gonna do
about it?”

“There’s nothing I can do, Lang. He’s
moving out here. He already signed the lease for his new place and-”

“That’s not what I mean, I know he’s
moving. What I’m asking is, are you going to let this ruin your weekend and
your time with Ryan? Speaking of, where is he, anyway?”

“He’s taking a shower,” I acknowledge,
hearing the shower still running.

“And you’re on the phone with me, why?” I
know what she’s getting at, but I try to ignore it.

“I had to call you back,” I start to
remind her, but she doesn’t let me finish my explanation.

“Go. Now. Be with Ryan. And, Em,” I can
tell I’m about to get a warning from my big sister and I smile when she doesn’t
wait for me to answer. “Stop sulking, it ages you, and you don’t want me to
look like the younger sister.”

“Yeah, yeah.” I smile a genuine smile. “I
gotta go. Love you.”

“Love you, too,” she answers and just
like that, we’re disconnected.

Our conversation was only a few minutes,
and I can still hear Ryan in the shower, so I get up and head over to join him.
Opening the door reveals my handsome fiancé. He’s standing in the bathroom in
his boxer with that killer grin on his face. “Damn, girl! It took you long
enough.”

“How did you know I was coming in here?”
I ask, puzzled. I want to snap at him for letting the water run, but this is
about me and him, not another argument.

He looks at me and shrugs his shoulders.
“I didn’t. Just hoped.”

It takes only a second to realize that
he’s as unsure of all of this as I am. He doesn’t know how things are going to
turn out, but he’s trying to make the best of it, and I need to meet him
halfway. So I do.

I start to remove my jeans and I feel his
eyes gaze upon me while I make a show of doing it slow and exaggerated. I
shimmy out of them, leaving my panties on before I start to remove my blouse.
He looks like he’s trying to remain composed, standing only a short distance
away. “I can help you with that,” he offers with a sexy, controlled tone.

When I look up, Ryan is leaning against
the counter with his arms crossed over his chest. I walk toward him and smile.
“I
think
I could use some help with the shirt.”

He brushes his knuckles along the side my
face and tucks my hair behind my ear before kissing me. He trails his kisses
from my jaw to my ear and then whispers, “I have something planned. You up for
it?”

“What do you have in mind?” I ask, in a voice
that sounds too needy to be mine. But Ryan, kissing me and holding me, is
exactly what I want.

“Right now? All I want is this,” he says
before his lips land on mine once again. It has to be one of the most
passionate and sexy kisses I have ever been on the receiving end of and it’s
easy for me to get lost in.

I don’t care that my shirt hasn’t been
completely removed, or that my bra and panties are about to get drenched. All I
know is that as Ryan backs us toward the shower door, I only want to be here,
in his arms. I laugh as he drags us both under the running water and he resumes
kissing me again, separating only to pull the shirt over my head. He brings my
body close to his and I hold on to him for dear life.

* * *

My eyelids feel heavy, but I can tell
from the light that seeps in through the curtains that it’s still daylight.
Between the shower, and what happened after the shower, I could quite possibly
sleep for days. Ryan rolls over and places his arm over my waist and squeezes
me to his chest. I rest my hand over his and entwine our fingers, feeling that
here in his arms is where I belong.

He raises himself up and rests on his arm
so he can look down at me. “You tired?”

“Depends,” I start. “What do you have
planned?”

He leans down and kisses my nose. “I know
you’ve never seen the beach, so I figured we could drive out to PB and maybe
grab some dinner.”

I can’t contain my smile; this is one
perk to this little trip I’ve looked forward to. “What’s PB?” I ask, my smile
fading in confusion.

“Sorry, Pacific Beach,” he smiles. “I
forget you’ve never been out here before. Why don’t I take you to see some of
my favorite places out here?”

“That sounds great,” I admit, turning to
fully face him. “I really love you, you know that, right?”

“I love you, too,” he says, between
kisses, the final one becoming slow and sensual.

* * *

When we finally get out of bed Ryan, true
to his word, takes me all over the city, showing me the beaches, malls, and
military base. There is so much to take in, but I have to admit, I really do
like it out here.

We continue driving, and since I have no
clue where I am, I figure we are heading to eat, but he slows the car in an old
neighborhood. He parks on the side of the street and turns the car off to show
me a small home where he spent countless summers. In the years that we’ve been
together, he’s not returned to San Diego, and though I can see this is hard for
him, he fits here.

He used to tell me about the times he
would come out here to visit his grandparents for a few weeks every year. Both
of Ryan’s parents worked, and I guess he was a bit of a handful, so they would
pawn him off on the retired pair. Only, they didn’t realize how much he loved
it.

When he was a kid, he said that they
would take him to the zoo at least once each visit. However, as he got older,
he would go to the beach and rent a surfboard and spend all day trying to learn
to stay up on the board. His grandmother surprised him one year with his own surfboard,
which he said was the best gift he’d ever gotten.

“See that garage, right there?” he asks,
pointing to a tiny shack in the back. “Grams had Pa clear his ‘junk’ out of it,
as she called it, and said I could do whatever I wanted with it.”

“So what did ya do?” I turned smiling at
him.

“Not much really,” he admits. “I tried to
turn it into a bungalow because I had this idea that when I got out of high
school, I’d come out here and just be a beach bum, living with them.”

I look at my fiancé, loving there are
still things about him I don’t know. “So what happened? Why didn’t you come out
here?”

“I did,” he responds. My jaw opens
slightly to question, but he continues, “for the summer. I told Grams I wanted
to move out here. I said I didn’t want to go to college, but she said that if I
didn’t go, she would disown me.”

“And, what? Just like that, she was able
to convince you?” Ryan is very headstrong, and when he makes his mind up to do
something, it’s hard to sway him.

“Nah, we spent a lot of time going back
and forth. Every time I had a reason to stay, she’d give me three to go.”

“Such as?”

“Grandpa didn’t go,” he offers with a
grin. I figure that must have been his favorite thing to point out. “She would
raise her eyebrows in that ‘don’t fuck with me’ way and start in on how times
were different back then and he had a family to support.”

“She sounds tough.” I smile, thinking of
my own grandmother.

“Yeah, she was. Eventually, she resorted
to cheap blackmail telling me I would break her heart if I didn’t go.”

“I’m glad she got to see you walk across
the stage,” I remind him.

“Me, too. She was really bad off by then.
I was afraid the flight out would kill her, but she was determined to see it
happen.” He looks like he’s in another world, thinking about her.

“I wish I could have met her. She sounds
a lot like my Gamee,” I say past the lump in my throat. Ryan was with me when I
got word that she passed away last year. My heart broke because there was so
much I wanted to tell her and never got the chance to. I shared everything with
her and when I introduced her to Ryan, I told her that he was the one, even
before he proposed.

“She would have loved you.” He wraps his
arm around my shoulder, both of us missing the women we held in such high
esteem. “Did I ever tell you what she told me when she saw me after I
graduated?”

“I don’t think so.”

“She told me to go back and get my
master’s. She said that I needed to have my life in order because I was going
to meet someone who was going to turn my world upside down, in the best way.
‘She’s out there, Ryan, and hopefully, if you don’t find her, she’ll find you.’
Six months later, I met you.”

I’m speechless. There are no words that I
can say in response to that beautiful story. I have heard numerous tales about
his grandparents, but I know that this is one that he has never shared with me.

After she died, his mom and her sister
moved his grandfather to a home near them in Charleston. When he died last
year, I went with Ryan to the funeral, and he was devastated. He told me the best
part of his grandfather died when she died, but moving him away from all that
the two shared was harder on him than anything else.

I think Ryan really believes that his
grandpa died of a broken heart.

It must be self-preservation, because I
find myself doing anything and everything to make this transition easier.
Trying to find the silver lining in any of this is hard, but maybe the time
apart will push us to communicate with each other better. Maybe distance does
make the heart grow fonder and we’ll defy the odds and make it through this
next year stronger than ever. No matter what I tell myself, I know it’s going
to hurt like hell when he’s gone. In four days, Ryan will be in California for
the next year, and I will be here.
Alone.

My whole day has been shitty. Elle
decided that since I won’t be in the office on Thursday or Friday, I need to
come in early and stay late to make sure I’m ready for my meeting with Mr.
Miller next Monday. I left this morning before Ryan woke up with a note that I
would pick something up for dinner on my way home. After our weekend away,
things have been less strained, so I’ve been looking forward to our time together.
That is, until he texted around noon to say that he would be home late and not
to worry about getting him dinner. Apparently his boss has some things they
need to get together for a client that he’s turning over to someone else.
Regardless, I’m annoyed, because I’m busting ass to get done so I can spend his
last two days with him, but he’s making no concessions whatsoever. Part of me
wants to tell Elle that I’ll be out all week, but deep down I know I’d never do
that.

I ignored his text.

Add to my day that Mr. Miller has sent
numerous emails instructing me to have a list of suggested menu items, as well
as potential caterers, for our meeting on Monday. He has yet to nail down
whether it will be a Friday or Saturday event, but considering it’s less than
five months away, I need a date. I need to make sure these vendors are
available. Now I’m a frazzled mess, and I want nothing more than to vent about
it to Ryan.

Me: I’m heading home

Ryan: I’m still at work

Me: How much longer?

Ryan: Not sure. I’ll call

I look at my computer and groan, because
it’s almost six thirty. I’m drained, annoyed and now pissed at Ryan. He’s still
here, and already I feel alone. I didn’t move out here and agree to marry him,
just to wind up by myself.  This day has dragged, but most likely it feels
that way because I am eager to get home.

Me: Don’t bother

Why am I being such a bitch?

I clean up my desk and grab a stack of
things to take home with me before shutting everything down. Just as I walk out
of the office my phone rings and I look to see it’s Ryan and roll my eyes.

“Yeah?”

“Hey,” he stumbles over his words. “Everything
okay?”

“No, Ryan,” I snap back, “I’m not. You
leave in four days but you have to work late.”

“Don’t you think I’d rather be home with
you?”

“I don’t know what to think. We just
picked out your new home for the next year, you’re closing up things at work,
and I’m busy. I’m just not sure when we’ll get to spend any time together
before you leave. Before you know it, Friday will be here and we’ll have missed
out.”

“Em-”

“No. You know what? Don’t worry about it.
I’ll just see you when you get home.” I don’t wait for him to say anything else.
I hang up and stuff my phone into my purse and storm out to my car to head
home.

The entire drive home, I go between
sniffling like a child to getting fired up over Ryan leaving. By the time I
pull into my parking spot, I’m finally calm and feel like maybe I’ll just go to
sleep and put a nail in this day. To my surprise, those ideas are put on hold
because when I open the door to let myself in, Ryan is leaning against the back
of the couch, staring at me.

I’m trying too hard to keep my composure,
so I walk to the counter and place my purse on one of the two barstools and
turn to face him. I'm unsure whether to walk over and hug him or to stand back
and wait for him. But before I can decide one way or the other, Ryan pushes to
his feet and walks over to me and wraps his arms around my waist, pulling me
close. I bury my head in his chest and I am crumbling all over again. The pain
of him leaving consumes me and I begin crying inconsolably. I wrap my arms
around him, holding tight, as though my grasp alone can keep him here.

“I’m sorry, baby,” he whispers into my
hair.

“I’m morry, moo,” I answer muffled into
his chest between sobs. He chuckles and loosens his grip.

“What?”

I look up at his face, take a deep breath
and clarify, “I said, ‘I’m sorry, too.’”

He runs his thumb across my cheek, wiping
a stray tear and leans down to kiss me. This single act has the tears escaping
all over again, so he takes my hand and urges me to sit on the couch with him,
“I already ordered from the Chinese restaurant you like, it should be here in a
bit. So we have time to talk.”

I look at him with a questioning eye. “You
think all of our problems are going to be solved in twenty minutes, Ry?”

“No, but we can at least start. Unless
you want to do something else with those twenty minutes,” he teases.

“You give yourself too much credit,” I
joke, and the laugh he releases causes a smile to finally appear on my face. He
leans into the cushions, pulls my back to his chest and holds me close. I hear
him breathing and the silence between us stretches, but I know that we both
have thoughts running through our heads. Thoughts that we have been putting off
far too long.

“Em, you know I want you to come with me-”
I start to sit up, but he pulls me back, shushing me. “But I know you have your
job here.”

“I know this is a huge opportunity for
you, but I can't just quit and follow you for a year.” I look down at our
fingers that are entwined as I try to share my thoughts with him. “Ryan, I’m
scared. We’re on shaky ground right now. Can’t you see? I’m not sure we'll make
it.”

“Wow.” His arms fall away from me, but I
grasp his fingers tighter. “What the hell is that supposed to mean, Em?”

“I didn't mean it like that,” I rush to
clarify my bad word choice.

“Then how did you mean it? Because first,
you can't come with me, or won't. And then you're saying that a year is gonna
break us. I don't know about you, but that says a lot about what you think of
our relationship, don’t you?”

I turn to face him, ready to have the
second biggest fight of our short time here. “Don't put words in my mouth,
besides, you're the one trying to uproot us for
your
career.”

When he looks at me, confusion is etched
on his face, “Yes, I need to take this job for
my
career, as you point
out, but it's not like I have a ton of options out there. Last I checked,
we
need for me to have this job to make ends meet.”

I'm not going to yell.
I take a steadying breath and turn to look at the
frame on the end table next to me because I cannot look at him.
One. Two.
Three. Exhale.

My voice is steady when I counter his
argument
.
“
We
came out here, because
you
said this was the
best place for us, and I followed, because I love you. It took me months to
line up this job with Elle, when I had one already waiting for me back home.
But again, I did it for you. And as far as making ends me, you are
not
the breadwinner here, Ryan.
We
are a team, but this is one move that I
will not do for you.”

“Em!” he starts to yell, but I know that
he’s trying to remain calm. “I already said,
I don’t expect you to come with
me
. Do I want you to? Yes, but not if you don’t want to. You’re making it sound
like I’m choosing work over you, but I’m not.”

“It sure feels like it,” I counter.

“Well, I could say the same thing back to
you.” He looks at me, knowing that he has a point.

We’re in a standoff, neither of us
willing to back down, and I feel both of us are wrong. The silence is
deafening, but I'm afraid if I speak, I'll cave. Ryan is the first to make a
move when he takes a seat at the kitchen counter, and exhales a frustrated
breath. I follow by sitting back down on the couch waiting to see how this will
play out.

A loud knock on the door breaks through
the silence and Ryan gets up to answer it. He pays the delivery guy, sets the
food in the kitchen, and starts to pull out plates from the cabinet. The
conversation could be over, but I’m not ready to let this one die. “How’s this
really going to work, Ryan?” My question is barely a whisper, but I know that
he’s thinking the same thing.

“I’m not sure.”

“I know people go through far worse
things than being temporarily apart, but all I can see is us, and what effect
this could have. I’m really scared.” When the words are finally out there, I
give in to my pain and fears. Ryan sets down whatever he was holding and joins
me on the couch. He reaches over, entwining his fingers with mine and for once,
this small gesture makes me feel even lonelier. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking that this is gonna suck
ass,” he starts. “But we’ll see each other as much as we can on the weekends.
You are amazing and the fuckin’ strongest woman I know. I don’t want you sitting
around here moping while I’m gone. That’s not fair, so go on about your normal
day. Go out with friends, work, and do whatever else. I may be gone, but it’s
not like we’re breaking up or anything. And until I leave, we are spending as
much time together as we can. Okay?”

I let his words filter through and try to
think of any other solution that might help us out of this place. Maybe I
should just go with him. But I would resent him, and if I beg him to stay, he
would, but he would resent me. “Alright,” I say in defeat.

“Alright,” he parrots. “Unless you don't
want to spend time with me,” he asks teasing, because it’s obvious from my
attitude that I want nothing more than to be with him as much as possible. I
move closer to him on the couch to straddle his waist and take his face in my
hands before answering him. I could get lost in his beautiful brown eyes if I
stare too long, so I kiss him briefly. “Alright.”

He wraps his arms securely around me and pours
so much passion into his kiss. He stands with me still in his arms, never
removing his lips from mine, and I know that our dinner is going to be cold
when we finally get around to eating it.