Capture Me Slowly by Joya Ryan

Author:Joya Ryan [Ryan, Joya]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

“You’ve got to be joking,” I said, climbing out of Rhys’s car, my eyes glued on the house he grew up in. And yes, there was a picket fence.

The cute little white house had blue shutters and sat at the end of the cul-de-sac. There were even flower boxes beneath the windows of the second story. It was quaint, picturesque and, like the two women I’d met already who were part of Rhys’s life, adorable as hell.

As if on cue, a little dog came to the neighbor’s fence, wagging its tail.

“This explains a lot,” I said and Rhys came to stand by me, holding the bottle of wine we’d bought, while I palmed the French bread.

“What does?” he asked.

I motioned to the house, then at him. “Why you are the way you are.”

“You make that sound like a bad thing. It’s a neighborhood, not a ghetto.”

Exactly. I bit my tongue and glanced down.

“Emma, I didn’t mean it like that.” He ran his hand along the small of my back and I stepped away, breaking the connection.

“I know. It’s cool.” I used my best “don’t care” voice. Problem was, Rhys was right. He wasn’t putting me down. He was just stating what I already knew. We grew up very differently. And with that came various ways to view things. A distinct mentality.

“I wasn’t saying that this,” I glanced at the house, “was bad. Just different.”

Different than me. The reminders were piling up, but this doll house turned real house was the icing on the cake.

“You okay?” Rhys looked at me like I was going to keel over and it wasn’t until I saw the expression on his face that I realized I was shaking slightly and clutching the bread as if it was a lifeline. Ironic that spending time on the streets was less terrifying than staring down this house. I plumped up the bread, trying to straighten it and fix the damage my death grip caused.

Rhys’ strong hands framed my face and he bent and looked at me. “Emma?”

My vision cleared and I saw his gray eyes beaming back at me.

“I’ve never done this,” I whispered before thinking better of it.

“Never done what?”

I stared at the house over his shoulder for a long minute, then looked back at him.

“This.” I held up the bread. “This whole ‘let’s go to your mom’s house for dinner, I’ll bring the side dish and break out the backgammon board,’ this.”

His expression went serious. “Emma, don’t be crazy. We play dominions, not backgammon.”

He grinned and it was just contagious enough to allow a deep breath to come through my mouth. This wasn’t a real thing, after all. In a couple weeks I’d be gone, Rhys would be back to his life and I to mine. We probably wouldn’t even have a reason to see each other again.

The thought was a bit unnerving.

So none of what Rhys and I pretended to be or not to be mattered in the end, right?

This wasn’t “meeting the parents” in a traditional sense.

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