Only With You (23 page)

“Learning anything exciting?” I’d asked him when we were getting ready to head to the first
of two meet-and-greets.

Seeing him leaving his book behind to follow me was a reminder of how different our lives were. It was like we lived on two different planes of the same world, but I didn’t mind it so much anymore. I figured he could teach me all about
the earth and politics, and I could get him backstage at my concerts. It was nice trade-off, and with him there, it allowed me to do my thing while he did his. It gave me hope that if we did things right, our relationship could really work.

“Nah,” he said, smiling at me, the backs of his fingers grazing mine softly, but I knew he was only kidding. He loved school.

I leaned closer to him. “Maybe you can wow me with your knowledge later – you know before bed. We can consider it foreplay.”

He laughed. “Yes, because
protecting our natural resources is a turn-on to so many girls. I can’t tell you how many women I’ve brought back to my room just by telling them about recycling initiatives alone. And don’t get me started on soil conservation.”

I smacked his chest playfully with the back of my hand. “Hey now, I do not want to hear about you using your brains to flirt with other women.”

He laughed. “Yeah right, like that ever worked.”

“Hey, it made me think of a parade of hot co-eds
dressed like slutty librarians filing into your room all with one thought in mind.”

“Yeah, to sleep with Jake,” he said, which made me laugh, but I didn’t think for a second
that it was true. I knew Ryder had pulled his share of women in the past, but if I had anything to say about it, he’d never kiss anyone but me ever again.

“Well played,” I told him, and he flashed me one of his adorable, dimple-popping smiles that I loved so much.

When we went back to my dressing room after the second meet-and-greet, he put the books away and talked to everyone while I finished getting ready for the show. And when we walked to the stage, we weren’t alone, so we had to keep up the friend-type conversations we’d been having all day, which was getting exceedingly frustrating. I just wanted to kiss him already. It had been too long since our morning spent in the hot tub and then again in the hotel bed.

More importantly, I needed to talk to Chris, but every time I’d seen him throughout the day, he’d been on his cell phone or with other people, so I hadn’t been able to have the very important conversation with him that I needed to have. I hoped Ryder wouldn’t get upset. I’d have to make it a point to talk to Chris after the show, and if I couldn’t talk to him, I’d go to Laurie.

Right before I headed under the stage, Ryder grabbed my arm. I turned to look at him, and he smiled. “You look beautiful, and you’ll be amazing tonight.”

“Thank you,” I said genuinely, just wanting to grab his face and kiss him, but there were like a hundred people nearby.

“I’ll be cheering for you from the wings,” he promised me.

“I’ll be looking forward to after the show,” I told him, lowering my voice so only he could hear me.

His smile widened. “Me too.”

“You ready, Syd?” Ralph, the guy who basically ran everything backstage, asked me, pretty much telling me to get to my spot since we were starting.

I winked at Ryder before I headed underneath the stage only to be propelled into the air a few minutes later. When we finished the opening number, I snuck a glance to the left to see Ryder standing in the wings smiling at me. I smiled back and pranced to the front of the stage to greet the audience.

Chapter Eighteen

Ryder

“Hey man. You’re Ryder, right?” I heard from behind me, a guy’s voice drawing my attention away from the stage wh
ere Sydney was singing and dancing to one of her high energy songs.

I turned to face the person who apparently knew who I was.

“Hey,” I said, trying to figure out how I knew him. He looked familiar, and I figured we’d probably met at some point over the years. Sometimes the people who worked with Sydney got jumbled up in my mind since there were so many of them.

“I’m Dillon
Paulson,” he said, sticking his hand out to shake mine, and all the air went out of my lungs in a whoosh.

“The boyfriend,” I said, hesitant to shake his hand.

Then he cocked his head to the side and raised his eyebrows. “I thought that was your title,” he said, low enough so only I could hear him.

I eyed in him for a few seconds, unsure if he was being genuine or not, but it seemed like he was. I reached out and shook his hand. He was a good looking guy, even I could see that, but he had that pretty-boy look about hi
m that was almost too polished, only to be offset by the array of tattoos peeking out from his shirt sleeves and collar.

“It’s nice to meet you. Syd told me all about you last weekend after she went to see you. She seems really happy.”

“She is,” I said coolly.

I couldn’t help it. I was secure in how Syd felt about me after last night, but I still felt animosity toward the guy who was preventing us from being out together.

He smiled. “Good. I’m glad to hear it. She’s a great girl.”

“What are you doing here?” I asked him, not all that excited to see him. Sure he seemed nice, but what I really wanted to know was what his visit meant for me and Syd.

“My band’s playing in the city tomorrow night, so our management team thought it might be good if we got into town tonight and made an appearance at a club that opened last week. You know, for good publicity and all.”

Yeah, I didn’t really since I
’d never been asked to appear at a club. I’d never been asked to appear anywhere except the Gamma Pi date auction that Jake had dragged me to last fall. I can safely say it wasn’t my favorite experience of all time. But I knew from Sydney, who’d done a lot of appearances early on in her career, the basic gist of what Dillon was talking about.

“That’s awesome,
” I told him, because I wasn’t going to be a dick to the guy.

“Yeah, it’s pretty cool. The club’s supposed to be amazing. The guys are heading over there, but our people figured it would be better if I waited for Sydney.”

“Sydney?” I asked, looking back at her standing at the edge of the stage singing one of her slower songs. I turned back to look at Dillon.

“Yeah, my girlfriend,” he said
and then leaned closer to me. “Air quotes implied obviously.”

“Yeah, right. So you and her are going to this club tonight?”

“She didn’t tell you?”

Nope.

I shook my head. “It must have slipped her mind,” I said tightly.

Dillon must have noticed my irritation, because he put his hand on my
shoulder. I fought the urge to shake him off and reminded myself that he wasn’t the bad guy in this situation. He was just a pawn in the game.

“Hey, no worries. I’m sure we won’t be there long. We’ll just go in, get our picture taken a few times, and then you guys can split.”

“I’m going?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.

He shrugged. “If you want.”

I looked down at the black t-shirt, jeans and green Converse sneakers I was sporting. I wasn’t sure if what I had on was acceptable for a New York City club. Of course when I was walking into said club with two of the most well-known pop stars on the planet, who would really care what I was wearing? Hell, who would even look at me?

A part of me really didn’t want to third-wheel with Dillon and Sydney on their faux-date, but I
also wasn’t going to go back to the hotel alone to sit there and wait for her.

I heard the opening chords to
Only With You
and turned around to watch Syd sing my favorite song. She looked up and me and smiled, but her smile faltered when she saw Dillon standing next to me. She looked back at me, and I gave her a tight smile in return.

I knew this was her job, that she’d signed up to help Dillon long before we’d gotten together, but it still didn’t change the fact that it bothered me that she hadn’t even told me he’d be in the city while we were there
– especially after everything we’d talked about the night before.

And I was jealous. I
wanted to spend time with her. Our relationship was still new, and we were honestly trying to figure out how to exist within the confines of who we had to be in public, that having to share her, even temporarily, didn’t thrill me.

I knew she wouldn’t kiss Dillon, but she would hold his hand and pose and smile at him, and I’d have to watch it all. Unfortunately
I didn’t think she’d even gotten a chance to talk to Chris about ending things – not that it would have kept Dillon from taking her out tonight since that was obviously already planned – but I was anxious to get the ball rolling on a sunset to what they were doing.

Sydney finished out the song
, and the end of the show seemed to come agonizingly slow as she sung three more songs while I waited for her to come off-stage. Finally, after the encore and the bows, she exited the stage and came to stand in front of Dillon and me.

She hugged him first. “Oh, my God. I completely
messed up the dates,” I heard her tell him. “I thought the club appearance was tomorrow night.”

Okay, so she’d actually chosen not to tell me about this. Did that mean she didn’t want me there either? Fine by me. I didn’t want to go anyway.

“You’re still cool with going, right?” Dillon asked, as Sydney pulled back and looked at me.

I stood there like an idiot with my hands in my pockets knowing that she was going to be keeping her distance a wh
ile longer and I wouldn’t be getting a hug, but did I really want one now? Yeah, I did.

“I think I have to be,” she said,
her eyes on me.

“It’ll be fun,” Dillon said
and then turned to me. “You’ll like the guys in my band. They’re cool.”

I nodded once. “Sounds great.”

Yeah, I wasn’t going.

“I need to showered and changed, I suppose,” Sydney said then. “Can you boys give me thirty minutes?”

“Take your time,” Dillon said, and she smiled before she leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek.

I cringed.

“Thanks, baby,” she told him, and I fought the urge to cringe again. This was starting to piss me off. Did she have to lay it on so thick? Then she turned to me. “Ryder, I think you left your book in my dressing room, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, I did,” I said tightly, knowing what she was doing.
             

She knew she’d screwed up, and if I didn’t need my eighty dollar textbook, or if I could have even afforded to buy another one, I would have left it in there. I was in no mood to talk about this. But instead, I followed her back to her dressing room in silence.

When we got there, she closed the door behind us and turned to me. “I’m so sorry about this. I didn’t know he’d be here tonight, honestly.”

I raised my eyebrows as I appraised her for a few seconds. “But you knew he was coming, that you’d have to go to this club thing?”

She bit her lip, and I knew it was her way of buying time as she tried to figure out what to say.

“Why didn’t you tell me, Syd?” I asked.

“Because I thought you’d be upset,” she confessed. “And you are.”

“Only because I got blindsided by your ‘boyfriend’ and found out that we were going to some club that’ll probably be douchy as hell
.”

“Hey! That’s not nice. I’m sure it’ll be fun.”

I gave her a pointed look. “For you. Not for me. I don’t like clubs all that much, in case you don’t remember.”

“I remember,” she grumbled.
“It’s why I didn’t want to tell you.”

“Syd, I’m not upset about going to a club. I can get over that. I’m upset that you lied to me.”

“I didn’t lie,” she defended.

I threw my hands up. “Fine, you omitted information. It’s kind of the same thing.”

“Ry, I’m sorry,” she said, and she must have known how weak I was when she did something as simple as call me Ry.

“Listen, just do your thing, and I’ll see you later,” I
offered, trying to find a way to keep my cool and not blow up on her.

Her mouth dropped open. “You’re not coming with me?”

“As the third wheel to you and your public boyfriend? No. I think I’ll just go back to the hotel and chill until you get back. Is that cool?”

Even if she said no
, I still wasn’t going out. I wasn’t in the mood anymore. Just witnessing the little that I had of her and Dillon, I knew I didn’t want to see any more.

“I guess, but I’d rather have you there.”

“Why? So you can shoot me looks of pity as you sit on Dillon’s lap and flirt with him? I don’t think so.”

She rolled her eyes. “It won’t be like that, and you know it. Besides, the other guys from Westside will be there, and I know I can convince Paul and the guys to go. It’ll be a group thing.”

I shook my head. “Maybe next time. I’m tired. I’m just going to head back.”

She looked so hurt, standing there in the middle of the room, not moving as I walked past her to grab my
textbook. I stopped next to her, and she looked up at me.

“I’m sorry,” she said again.

I closed my eyes for a few beats and then opened them again. “I get that, but it doesn’t make this feel any less shitty. You said you wanted a trial period, and maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe I’m not cut out to be a part of everything in your world. I don’t know.”

“Ryder
, no!” she exclaimed, her mouth dropping open. “You can’t seriously mean that.”

I w
atched her eyes fill with tears and knew I’d taken things too far. I was upset, but throwing it in her face felt wrong. We’d already had one fight the night before. I didn’t want to have another one.

I kicked the toe of my shoe against the floor a few times. I looked up and met her gaze. “No, I don’t. I told you last night
that I wanted this, and I want you, including all that comes with it – no matter how bizarre it is. But you can’t blindside me. You have to tell me stuff like this.”

She nodded. “I will.”

“I’m serious, Syd. If I can’t trust you, then a long distance relationship isn’t going to work. It’ll drive me crazy.”

She nodded quickly a few times. “I’m sorry.”

“I know you are. I’ll see you in a few hours,” I said, and I knew she could tell from my tone that I just needed some distance. She didn’t say anything. She just looked at me from across the space that separated us, regret written all over her face.

“You’re the first guy who’s ever cared,” she said as I started to leave the room.

I stopped and turned to look back at her. “What do you mean?”

She took a deep breath and shakily exhaled it out, almost as if she was trying to keep the tears that had filled her eyes from spilling over. “No one has ever cared before. The guys I usually date are so wrapped up in their careers and their own lives that I never had to tell them what I was doing. This is new for me.”

I shook my head. “I don’t buy that,” I told her, and she looked a little taken aback. “Syd, this is me you’re talking to, and I’ve always cared. You never would have treated me like this when we were friends. Don’t treat me differently now. Shit, if anything, I should get more consideration as your boyfriend.”

She nodded. “I know.”

It looked like she was about to come apart, so I closed the distance between us and wrapped her up in my arms. Then gave her the briefest of kisses, because I couldn’t leave with her thinking I was pissed. I wasn’t pissed, per se. I was hurt, and I needed her to know that.  Hopefully she wouldn’t fail to tell me things in the future now that she knew how it made me feel. I wasn’t overly sensitive, and I was supportive of what went on in her world, but I also didn’t appreciate being left in the dark.

As I left I started to wonder if
holding off on telling the world we were together might be a good thing. Maybe getting through the summer to see if we could even handle a relationship with our lives as crazy as they were would be better. I certainly didn’t want this relationship to crash and burn and then be splayed all over the Internet. If there was even a chance of that happening I’d rather keep things private.

The worst part was that I loved her, and I knew she loved me. But sometimes loving someone, even when it made you as nuts as I felt when I was around Sydney, wasn’t enough.
And I was slowly learning that no matter how bad I wanted this, I might not end up getting it in the long run.