Blooming Passion •• Ryan Tedder {1}

Too Unfair

Ryan's P.O.V.

It was around noon and Ryan was simply driving around in his car, desperately wanting to get out of his quiet, lonely house. The silence brought him deep thoughts, most of them unpleasant and painful. Including Ramona---it was a yearning, longing pain that tortured him.

It seemed to him that he thought far too much about Ramona. He wondered how she was doing very often, and what she thought about Shawn. Every time they were together working on songs or her guitar, he wanted to ask about Shawn. She hadn't brought him up once since it was revealed that he had cheated on her. But it was so clear that she hadn't moved on.

The problem was, too, that Ryan had feelings for her. It was extremely difficult to deny at this point, and to Ryan, also difficult to hide. And had she noticed them?

Speaking of Ramona, Ryan's phone rang to reveal Ramona's face on his phone. Ryan picked it up a little too fast.

"Hey." He greeted her.

"Hey." She said solemnly.

"What's up?"

"I, um, was wondering if you wanted to go to lunch?" Ramona asked.

"Yeah, sure, I'm not doing anything today." Ryan replied. There was a very small pause.

"Are you sure? No studio time? I mean, because I know you're able to go aga---"

"No, it's fine, Ramona. Where do you wanna go?"

"Not sure. We could just walk around L.A., though, before we go. Unless you have a place in mind."

"I don't, but that's okay. I'll pick you up." Ryan answered her. He started to notice how her tone was off.

"Okay. See you." She suddenly said, throwing Ryan a bit off. But she hung up before he could say anything more. Well, that was a bit odd. Ryan thought.

He took the next fifteen or twenty minutes to head to Ramona's house. When he pulled up, he saw her sitting on the front steps of her house, looking down at her phone. She raised her head, though, straight dark red hair swinging around, when he arrived. He smiled at her and she smiled back, but something was off about that too.

Ramona got in the car and Ryan immediately asked, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah." She said in an airy tone. Ryan was sure she was lying---she's not the best liar. But he didn't push on it. Maybe she just had a bad day.

They were in silence for several minutes. Ryan was wracking his brain for things to talk about. He noticed her wearing a nice dark blue dress and decided to compliment that.

"You look nice in that dress." Ryan commented.

"Thank you." Ramona said politely. Ryan glanced over just a moment out of the corner of his eye and thought he saw her blush.

There was another pause. It killed him, for some reason.

"So..." He trailed off. Ramona did not reply. Ryan finally thought of something.

"Zach, one of my friends you haven't met yet, he won't shut up about some Lynn...isn't that one of your friends?"

Ramona giggled a little, to Ryan's slight surprise.

"I'll bet it is. She's been really happy lately and won't stop calling me and Addie about her new 'love interest.' Half the time I can't even understand what's she's saying, so I never got the name of the guy."

Ryan laughed.

"Why doesn't she call Johana?"

"Jo is harsh and doesn't really give a shit about much, and Lynn is a caring sweetheart. Their friendship is off and on, it seems."