Page 66 of My Bully's Crush: Vol1

“You sure you’re ready?”Oh, so now Zak wanted to play human?“Yeah, I don’t have a choice, do I?”They knew just as well as me why it had to be tonight.I could probably put it off for a few more days, but I wasn’t willing to take the chance.Things had taken an unexpected turn in the last few days that I don’t think any of us saw coming.

I was so caught up in finally getting things headed in the right direction that I hadn’t been able to think of anything else, just biding my time until I got the green light and avoiding Janie as much as I could while pretending that I was really going to move into a new house with her.

Since the day I got her to sign the papers, I'd lucked out with excuse after excuse.I knew after that that she’d expect me to climb into her bed, which was never going to happen, but the guys had helped me keep her on the hook with lies about needing to study my lines.

The only lines I’d been studying was what to say to Elena when we finally met.It was killing me this whole time to stay away, especially when she started going out almost every night as if to rub it in my face that my song didn’t mean a damn thing to her.Little does she know I meant every word.

It’s only because I knew she went home alone each night that I’d been able to stay away, but still, I was over it.Over having to stay away from her, over having the world think that she was available.Zak and Tyler had talked me down a time or two from going after her beau of the hour and breaking his damn legs, whoever he was.

The one that almost pushed me over the edge was the last one that she’d gone out with tonight.He was someone from our past, someone I always worried about being too close to her but was told more than once that there was nothing there.

I was looking for a way to get out of the house and knew for a fact that they’d have stopped me again, but I was more than a little bit surprised when they agreed that it was time to make my move.Before that, they kept telling me to wait, something I was sure had more to do with their reason for being here than my own situation.

But tonight, they agreed that I should go, and their reasons for that had damn near sent me into cardiac arrest.I think it was the first time I truly realized just what I had gotten myself into.The first time I saw the true face of the monster I had married.

I didn’t believe it at first when they showed me the transcript of the call they’d intercepted between Janie, her dad, and Matt, but there was no reason for these guys to lie to me and the way Janie had been acting; I wouldn’t put it past her, or her dad.Even though I never expected them to go this far.

Finding out that the man I called my spiritual advisor, the man I’d trusted with so much of me, was a snake was something I don’t think I will ever get over, though.Elena had tried to warn me, even I had come to have my suspicions, but this was going beyond anything I could’ve imagined.It’s as if everything in my life for the past five years has been a lie.

“You’ve gotta go, kid.Or we could go with the other thing, and one of us can tell her.”“No.”It was mine to do.I was the one who’d brought this mess to her door.The one who’d got in bed with these vipers even though she’d tried to warn me.

“Here goes nothing.”I climbed out of the backseat and scaled the wall surrounding her house the way they’d told me to, looking around once I landed, even though I knew there was no one else there but her.

I heard the car pull off slowly from the other side of the wall and inhaled deeply as if that was going to give me the strength I so badly needed.I pulled the map they’d made of the layout of her house from my pocket and studied it once again.

I’d been here so often, and yet I had no idea that there were an old servant’s quarters with a separate entrance.There was some kind of patio outside with French doors that opened onto a garden, and from there, I should be able to find my way through the rest of the house.

I reached the door just as I heard soft music coming from inside, and through the dim light, I saw her lying on a lounge with her eyes closed and a sad look on her face.I raised my hand to knock just as her eyes opened, and she stared right at me.

We both stared back at each other wordlessly until I watched her mouth my name, then she shook her head as if she thought she was dreaming or I was a figment of her imagination.Then her face changed once she realized that I was really standing there, and I knew I was in for a fight.

***

*Elena*

For a minute, I thought I had conjured him with my mind.I’d been lying here in the almost dark room thinking about him and the wasted night I’d had.I’d accepted the date out of fury, knowing on some deep level that going out with this particular guy would get under Ryder’s skin the way no one else could.

That song had pissed me off, and I was growing tired of all of the back and forth online.Tired of everyone acting as if I had no life without him by my side.Maybe I’d given them that idea because it had taken me so long to move on.I know I can’t blame my fans for wanting what they want; shoot, even I wish things between us had worked out differently, even to this day.But they hadn’t, and he was married to someone else, and it was high time I got my ass in gear.

But the truth is, I still find it hard to move on.That hurt that I’d buried for so long because it was the only way I could function as a living being was somehow reawakened, and I was living in hell again.But that song, the way he seemed to think that he still owned me or had any rights to me, made me want to commit murder.

When Raj called out of the blue, I had no interest in going out with him because though we had become great friends in the past, there was a lot of history there that wasn’t all good.But then I got the brilliant idea that this was just the answer I needed.The one thing I knew would hurt Ryder to the core.

Is this why I’d done it?Did I somehow expect him to lose his mind and show up here?How did he even get in?He never knew about this place when we were together.It was still out of use back then, and only lately had I turned it into a workroom where I worked on the designs for my new clothing brand.

No one else had ever been back here; it was my safe space, the only place other than my studio where I was sure to be left alone.I felt too many things at once to hold onto any one of them.I must’ve imagined this happening a million times, the two of us coming face to face, but for the life of me, I can’t remember what I was supposed to say or do.

I couldn’t believe, even as I walked towards the door where he stood on the other side, that this was really happening.And I hated like hell the feeling of excitement that coursed through me.And the smile that began in my heart.Is love really like this?So forgiving?Love might be, but I’m not; fuck that.

“What are you doing here, Ryder?”Too late, I remembered that I wore nothing but an old pair of shorts and an oversized tee shirt with my hair all over the place in what Sydney would call a sexy mess.I was reminded when his eyes went over every inch of me as if he were recording it to memory.I refused to let that mean anything to me, though I could feel a stupid blush starting on my cheeks.

“We need to talk.”

Was his voice always that grown, that mature?He sounded nothing like the boy I met so many years ago, but this new tone was even more distracting.Reign your ass in, little girl; this is the enemy; proceed accordingly.“I have nothing to say to you.”

I can’t believe we’re having this conversation.I never expected to talk to him or even see him again.This felt almost surreal, and maybe that’s why I couldn’t think of what to say.

The last time we saw each other, we were very much in love.I was making plans for our future together, and there is where I’d been for the past five years.Because I’d never had any real closure, I’d been living in limbo without realizing it, but wasn’t it too late?