Only With You (14 page)

Chapter Twelve

Ryder

Being
away from Sydney for a week after I’d had her in my arms, had kissed her until my lips hurt and touched her like I’d always dreamed about was making me a little crazy. She’d ended up going down to Key West for her week off with some of the people from her tour. They’d rented a house on one of the lesser known islands so they could have privacy, and even though we talked each night and she sent me pictures, I wished more than anything that I was there with her.

It was like some big, fucking, messed up
twist of fate that I finally got the girl of my dreams right before I had to basically hibernate for five days straight. My finals induced isolation period began the morning Sydney left. We’d laid in my cozy little bed and kissed and talked until I had to get ready to meet my study group. Then I’d given her my pair of Wayfarers to wear, just in case we ran into anyone outside, and had walked her out to her car. Thankfully not many people were out and about, so I got to take my time saying goodbye to her.

I lifted my sunglasses off of her face so I could see her eyes. The beanie she’d been wearing the night before was back on her head, so I tugged it off and let her hair spill over her shoulders.

She smiled. “You just completely ruined my disguise,” she teased as she looked up at me, her hands resting on my hips.

I loved the feel of them there. We’d always been touchy feely with each other, but it had been more playful. It was nothing like this. What we were doing
now was intimate and real. But having fantasized about doing exactly this and looking at her like I now could since I didn’t have to mask my feelings, I felt like I needed to pinch myself. The night before, kissing for hours and falling asleep with her head on my chest felt like a dream – the best dream in the world actually – but a dream nonetheless. It was a dream I never wanted to wake up from.

“Last night really happened, didn’t it?” I said as I leaned down to kiss her, feeling the slightest tug of apprehension that she wouldn’t let me.

When I’d woken up that morning,
I’d never been more relieved to open my eyes to see her still in my arms and smiling at me sleepily as she woke up. Then she’d kissed me, and I was so glad she wasn’t freaking out and pulling away. It was everything I’d ever wanted. But that had been when we’d been ensconced in my safe little world upstairs where no one knew what we were doing. Simply the fact I had one of the world’s biggest pop stars in my crappy fraternity house room made it seem surreal. A part of me feared reality and what it would mean for us when she left. Sure, we could say how we felt and that we wanted to be together, but would it really work?

Sydney lived in a fairytale world of glitz and glamour and paparazzi, and I lived in a world that smelled like stale beer, piss
and sex most of the time. And I spent most of my days either in class or with my nose in a book. But I loved her, and I would do everything in my power to get to do that for as long as I could. I wasn’t about to let the semantics of who we were keep me from the girl I’d wanted my whole life. I mean, what kind of sick, twisted world would that be if I could only ever love one girl, because let’s face it, I’d never wanted anyone else, and I didn’t see that changing, and I couldn’t even have her because we wanted different things in life. That would be messed up to say the least.

I knew I’d fight for her, for us, for as long as she wanted me.

Sydney let me kiss her and didn’t protest when I pushed her back against the SUV and pressed against her just a little bit. I was horny as hell for her, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. Jake had still been asleep when we’d left the room. Five days. I’d see her in five days, and I’d finally get to have her in all the ways I’d always dreamed about. The small taste I’d gotten last night had been enough for me to know I definitely wanted more, and I knew she did too.

I continued to kiss her tenderly, my hands holding either side of her face. I couldn’t get too carried away just in case someone recognized us
and took a picture. I wasn’t a big fan of having the first time I grazed the gossip rags as Sydney Chase’s boyfriend to be while I had a partial hard-on and was grinding her against a car. That would be embarrassing.

I didn’t really want to be in any gossip magazines
period, but I also knew that if Syd and I decided we were going to be together and went public, I might have my picture taken from time to time. Okay, I’d probably have it taken a lot, since Sydney usually got photographed anywhere she went, but it was a small price to pay to be with her.

There were already a handful of pictures of us online from the past few years, but they were few and far between since we didn’t see each other as often as we’d
have liked, and when we did, we mostly kept what we did low key. Still, the paparazzi had managed to capture us a few times. But that was before, when things were one hundred percent platonic. Now it seemed that we’d entered into a gray area that I was sure they’d love to showcase in a multitude of media forums if given the opportunity.

“Okay, I have to go,” I said, forcing myself to pull away.

She pouted. “I hate that idea.”

I smiled. I actually loved that she hated that idea. It made me feel a little more hopeful about what might be waiting for me at the end of the week.

“Do you really have to study?” she asked, and it was probably the tenth time she’d asked that since I’d told her my plans for the week. “You’re already so smart. Don’t you already know everything you need to know for your tests?”

I smiled as I
ran my thumb over her bottom lip. “Yes, I have to study. But I do get breaks, and I’ll call you on every single one of them.”

She smiled. “
It’ll be the best part of my day.”

I grabbed my sunglasses from where I’d
set them on the hood of her SUV and slid them back onto her face before I took her hands in mine and stepped back from the car, pulling her with me. Then I opened her door and helped her climb in before lingering there for a few seconds, my stomach feeling hollow at the thought of her leaving.

She reached out and ran her fingers through my messy hair. I hadn’t bothered combing it before we walked downstairs.

“I’ll see you on Friday in Philadelphia, okay?”

“I wouldn’t miss it,” I told her, already counting the minutes until I’d see her again.

Then she leaned forward and kissed me. “Yes, it was,” she said when she pulled back, and I looked at her quizzically. She smiled softly. “I was answering your question from earlier about last night being real. It most definitely was.”

The smile that lit up my face could have cracked it if it got any wider. “Please drive saf
e,” I told her, and she nodded.

“I will.”

“And call me when you get there,” I insisted.

“Try and stop me,” she said before she leaned forward and kissed me once more. “Now go study, you big smarty pants. Make me proud.”

I smiled as I closed the door and she turned on the car, shifting it into reverse. I stood there as she backed out of the space, waved when she waved to me and then watched her drive until she was out of sight. Then I trudged back into the house feeling like something was missing, like Sydney had taken a part of me with her, which shouldn’t have surprised me. She’d always had a little part of me with her.

I realized after she’d gone that
although I’d told her I’d been in love with her for years, I’d never actually said the words, and come to think of it, neither had she. A part of me felt like I should have said them before she left, but then it just felt like it was too soon. Sometimes at the start of something like what we seemed to have, saying too much cheapened the experience, and I liked that I was pretty sure I knew how she felt, but she hadn’t rammed it down my throat. It made me look forward to hearing her say the words, because I knew she didn’t toss them around lightly. Not someone like her who wrote about love with such passion and force. When she said them, she’d mean them.

And because I’d spent longer than I should have saying goodbye, I had to hurry to not be late for study group.
We were planning to spend the entire day in one of those library cubicles, studying and doing practice problems for calc which ordinarily wouldn’t have bothered me since I was a nerd underneath it all. But I knew it would be a slow torture when I had the memory of Syd’s taste and smell on my skin.

I almost didn’t want to shower
and wash it away, but that was gross, so I headed straight for the bathroom when I got upstairs. Jake was in there taking a leak.

“What’s up, lover boy?” he teased, and I just shook my head as I stripped off my clothes and turned on the hot water.

“Not talking about it,” I told him.

“Aww, come on. I always give you details, and you usually reciprocate. What gives?”

“Probably the fact that I actually care about this girl, so I don’t want you to know what we did. It’s personal.”

“Did you at least get head, because I know you didn’t boink her.”

I kept my eyes closed as I massaged the shampoo through my hair. “Don’t say boink. Not when we’re taking about Sydney. And how do you know I didn’t sleep with her?”

I couldn’t resist responding to his assumption.

“Because I would have heard it. I used to hear you and Kirsten all the time.”

“That’s because
Kirsten was a moaner,” I justified.

“And Sydney’s not?” he questioned.

“No clue,” I told him, as I let the hot water stream over my head, rinsing the shampoo away.

“I knew you didn’t get any.”

Yeah, but she called herself my girlfriend, which was so much better.

“It’s not like that with us,” I justified.

“Like what? Can you not get it up?”

“I’m going to throw my bottle of shampoo at you,” I threatened.

Jake just laughed as he left the bathroom, but I figured it wouldn’t be the last thing I heard on the subject, which was just one of the many joys of having a best friend who didn’t pull punches. He’d hit me up for details later for sure.

Twenty
minutes later, I walked out the front door with my backpack slung over one shoulder. My eyes darted to where I’d said goodbye to Sydney not even an hour earlier as if I half-expected her to be there again.

“What are you looking at?”

“Huh?” I asked, my gaze shifting to my left where my friend David was walking toward me from the TEP house.

We’d met in a class the year before and had been in the same study group all semester. He was a good guy and smart as hell, but he was
also funny which helped when my brain started to fry after a couple of hours of hardcore studying.

“Wow, did you get any sleep last night?” he asked as he came closer, stari
ng at my eyes. I’d given Syd one of my pairs of sunglasses, and then I couldn’t find my aviators, so I was going without.

“Not much,” I told him as we walked up Frat Row toward the main road that led to the
central part of campus and the library.

“Girl keep you up?” he asked.

I couldn’t help smiling. “Yeah, something like that,” I mumbled.

It was like I couldn’t keep the damn smile off my face. I was exhausted, but I didn’t care. Ever
y lost minute of sleep had been completely worth it.

“Right on. That’s awesome. Was she hot?”

David had been dating the same girl since high school, so he liked to live vicariously through me.

“Yeah, she was hot,” I told him, wondering what he’d do if he
actually knew who she was.

I’d never told him about my friendship with Sydney. Jake was the only person who knew the truth. It was one of those things that I usually kept to myself. But that was hopefully going to change. Of course most people would be impressed that I’d landed someone so famous, and they wouldn’t understand that Sydney had been a celebrity in my book long before she’d ever sung a note on the radio. To me she’d always been so much
more than her music, her pretty face, and her rockin’ body, although I wasn’t complaining about any of that. It’s just to me, she was my Sydney, and now, if I was as lucky as I was starting to think I was, she really would be
my
Sydney.

Chapter Thirteen

Sydney

“Chris, I need to talk to you,” I said, going to sit on a lounge chair
next to his on the covered part of the deck.

I’d changed into one o
f my new bathing suits – an all-black bikini that I’d bought a few days earlier when I’d gone shopping with Isabelle, one of my back-up dancers. Most everyone else was in the ocean, and I’d be down there with them if I hadn’t seen a prime opportunity to talk to my manager about Ryder. Chris was finally alone, and this was something I hadn’t wanted to share with everyone else just yet since they all thought I was dating Dillon. I had to rectify that.

“What’s up, babe?” he asked, setting his laptop down next to him.

I’d talked Chris into coming down to The Keys with us since he’d needed a break too, and he finally said he would, but only if he could bring his laptop. I figured I wouldn’t fight him on it since he probably did need to work. We had a lot going on at the moment, but he didn’t get a lot of downtime, so I figured he could mix work with some relaxation. He’d been my manager from the start, and we were close. He’d always felt like a big brother to me. I liked that we had a friendship in addition to him being my manager.

I bit my lip. “It’s Ryder.”

“Your best friend, Ryder?” he questioned, and I nodded. “What about him?”

“Um, I, uh, think I want to start seeing him,” I said, sounding incredibly uncertain.

Why did I sound uncertain? I wanted to be with Ryder. I really wanted that. Hell, we’d been talking on the phone for the past three days whenever he took a break from studying, and just hearing his voice made me crave more of him. I wanted to see him and touch him and wrap my arms around him. I wanted to take him back to my bed and do all the things we hadn’t been able to do in his room the weekend before. I wanted to make this thing between us official, and telling Chris was the first step, because I needed to get Dillon out of the picture.

“So,
do you need me to send him some more tickets or something?” Chris questioned. “He got the backstage pass for Philly, right?”

I nodded. “Yeah. He did. Thanks for sending that. But, um, the thing is, he’ll be with us for the week after Philly too.”

“That’s cool,” Chris said, not getting it, but then again I probably wasn’t doing my best to explain everything very clearly either.

“No, see, I, uh, went to see him last weekend, and things sort of happened.”

He lifted his aviators off of his eyes to look at me. “Oh. Okay, then.”

“Yeah.”

“So, what does that mean exactly?”

I bit my lip. “I need to break-up with Dillon, so I can officially be with Ryder. I don’t want to hide with him.”

“You sure about this? It’s a big deal going public with a relationship, especially one with a non-celebrity. You and Ryder just hooked up. Are you sure it’s for real?”

I knew Chris was only looking out for me, but what he was implying annoyed me. Of course, Chris had been around for every
very public break-up I’d had, and he knew what I’d been through over the years. He’d signed me when I was sixteen, taking a chance on a young girl who had enough confidence to know what she wanted but none of the political savvy to not get eaten alive in a town like L.A. He’d been my political savvy from day one, and I trusted him implicitly.

“Yeah, I am. I’m in love with him. It’s that simple.”

Chris also knew how easily I tended to fall for guys, so I knew he was skeptical and wouldn’t outright believe my feelings until he saw them. And he would in two days. I thought about how I probably needed to tell Ryder how I felt too since I’d held back the weekend before. But telling someone you loved them was always harder than it should have been.

“Isn’t he in school? He’s pre-
law, right?”

I nodded. “Yeah, he’s a total brainiac. It’s actually really sexy.”

“Great. Didn’t need to know that,” Chris said, smirking at me, and I smiled. “But Syd, if he’s going to school in Florida, and you’re going to be traveling as much as your schedule has you doing in the next few months, can you really have a relationship?”

I started to respond, to refute what he was saying
, but I didn’t really have a good rebuttal to make. He had a valid point, one I hadn’t wanted to think about. I’d just been focused on the present and Ryder having a week off of school that we could spend together, but I didn’t want to think about what would happen when he had to go back for summer classes and then fall classes. He’d be off for winter break, but that was only a few weeks, and then it would all start again. I told him we could make it work, but I hadn’t been a hundred percent certain when I’d said that. All I knew was that I didn’t want to let him go because of something like distance.

Maybe I could rent a house in Gainesville when I wasn’t on tour. But would that be logical? I had appearances and awards shows and
events I had to attend. I needed to be in L.A. or New York for a lot of them, not a remote city in the middle of nowhere Florida. Besides, what would I do there? I’d have to bring my security team with me because a large majority of my fans were college-age students, and in a small town like that, I couldn’t just blend in.

I suddenly felt like I wanted to throw up.

“Syd,” Chris said, putting his hand on top of mine. I looked up and met his gaze. “You don’t have to do anything radical right now. Why don’t you see how it goes having him on tour with you for the next week. If it works out, and you want to go through with it, then we can put together a strategy with Laurie. In the end, I’ll do what you want, but I want you to make the right decision.”

I nodded. “Okay, I think that sounds good.”

“Good. Just be careful of the PDA, okay? The world thinks you’re with Dillon, and we have an obligation to Westside’s management team to keep up our end of the bargain.”

“I know. We’ll be discreet. I promise.”

“I know you will.”

I stood then and started to walk back into the house.

“I thought you were going down to the water?” Chris asked.

I turned around. “I’m actually kind of tired. I think I’m going to take nap.”

“Okay,” was all he said, but I knew he wanted to say so much more. He knew me well enough though to know that it wasn’t the right time. I needed to process what we’d just talked about on my own and figure out what to do.