Unexpected Forever (Ryan Haywood)

Chapter 4

I shrunk down trying to make myself as small as possible so I could hide further behind Ryan. He looked down at me comfortingly before gently grabbing my hand and pulling me out from behind him. He placed a large warm hand on the small of my back, sending chills up my spine.

"This is my friend Abigail. She's going to hang out for the day, and you jerkoffs better not bother her." He told them with an authoritative voice. Damn that was sexy. No, Abigail stop, you're not allowed to like this guy. I sighed before looking up for the first time to see 5 men and 1 woman all looking at me questioningly. I gave a nervous smile and a small wave to them before the woman seemed to notice my anxiousness, stepping forward and introducing herself.

"Hey I'm Lindsay! It's nice to finally have another girl around here." She introduced herself with a friendly smile on her face before turning around and glaring at a man with curly auburn hair. She grabbed him by the arm and dragged him towards me. "Please excuse my rude husband." She gave him another glare and he sighed, introducing himself.

"What's up, I'm Michael." He stuck his hand out, which I awkwardly shook and he turned around, walking to the other side of the room and sitting back down at a desk. Great I've been here not even two minutes and they already hate me.

I hear someone else clear their throat and I look over to see a large man with a big red beard walking over towards me. I step closer to Ryan and squeeze his hand. This man looked like he could crush me with one hand.

"It's ok, nobody here is going to hurt you." Ryan whispered lowly so only I could hear. I felt a little bit of my anxiety disappear at his words but I was still visibly nervous as you could see by the look on the large man's face. He looked almost hurt that I was scared of him.

"I'm Jack," he told me with a soft smile. He reached out to shake my hand gently. Woah his voice sounded almost identical to Ryan's! He and Ryan both chuckled as I looked back and forth between the two of them.

Another man lets out a loud laugh as he yells out, "Team Same Voice strikes again!" He strode over towards me confidently. "I'm Geoff and unfortunately I'm in charge of all these idiots." He grins at me and the british lets out a loud "Hey". I laugh quietly to myself remembering Ryan's words from earlier about his boss. I smile up at Ryan and he gives me a smile with a look in his eyes that tells me he's happy that I seem to be a little less nervous now. "Let me introduce the rest of them since they don't seem to want to do it themselves." He points to the british one, "That's Gavin, he's the stupid one."

At this Gavin frowns before looking over to me smiling happily and waving, "Alright love?"

Geoff points to the last man, he was short (still taller than me but only by a couple of inches) and had bright purple hair. "That's Jeremy but everyone just calls him Lil J." Jeremy gives me a nod and a small smile before turning back to whatever work he was doing. "So Ryan, can I talk to you and Abigail for a minute?" Ryan nods and my mouth goes dry as a I follow them out of the room and into a small office. I can feel tears start to well up in my eyes. Oh god I got him in trouble. I shouldn't have come now he's gonna get fired and it will be my fault and he'll hate me.

"Hey chill," Geoff startles me as he speaks in a soft voice, "You're not in trouble or anything." I let go of the breath I didn't know I was holding and Geoff let out a sigh. "Listen I don't know who you are and I don't know how you two met and I don't know what your relationship to him is, all I ask is that you don't distract him or anyone else in the office. Even though we play video games for a living we still have shit to get done and a schedule to stick to. As long as you do that you can hang out for as long as you want."

"Yeah, yeah of course. I'll stay out of everyone's way I promise. Thank you, Geoff."

He grunts, "Yeah don't thank me yet, clearly you've never seen our work environment before." And with that he walks out, leaving me and Ryan alone.

"Are you okay?" he asks genuinely.

"Yeah I think so."

"You don't have to lie to me. I know you're uncomfortable, but trust me give it a few hours and you'll warm up to everybody."

I chuckle at that, "Yeah except for the one guy who hates me."

Ryan looks confused for a minute. "Oh Michael? Nah he's probably just pissed off at Gavin for something. It happens a lot, he'll get over it don't worry." I nodded at this and it was quiet for a minute, Ryan seemed to be trying to find the right words to say. "I don't want to scare you but I should probably warn you that we don't exactly work like normal people. There is probably going to be a lot of yelling and swearing and throwing of things. But don't worry no one actually means anything they say and no one would ever hurt you, especially Jack." He says giving me a nervous smile. "I know he scared you but honestly he's the nicest of us. He's pretty much a giant teddy bear." At this I have to laugh imagining Jack with a little bow tie on. "Ok ready to go in there?"

"I'm as ready as I'm going to be, which means I'm not at all ready." He laughs at that and takes my hand again.

"Come on, you'll be okay. Besides I'll be right there with you and if you need a break or if you need to go take a breather, just tell me." Something about his words gave me more confidence and I nodded grinning at him.

"Okay let's do this!" And with that he leads me back into the chaos that was the office.

AN: Okay guys so I'm hopefully going to be on a regular updating schedule now, school has been crazy busy and things are finally starting to calm down. So be expecting a new chapter at least once a week. Also, Ryan's kids and wife are going to be introduced within the next few chapters and I won't be using their real names, I'm just not comfortable with that. I'd also like to point out that I have absolutely nothing against Ryan's wife, I wish them all nothing but happiness, this is just what was needed for the story.