Skylar couldn’t resist him. She couldn’t resist the way Ryan chose to torment her, his hands caressing her lovingly in a way she had never known before, slipping under her dress in ways she didn’t expect. She couldn’t do anything other than go along with his tempting idea of how to spend the evening, reaching back to touch his face, giving him just one sign of her affection and letting him use that sign as proof of her permission to kiss her. And he did. As soon as he felt her hand on his jaw, he turned her in his arms, taking a moment to adore the softness of her eyes before kissing her heatedly, having been so desperate to do so for the last week that he couldn’t contain himself. Skylar melted into his arms, taken over by the romanticism of it all, her life imitating the art of her favourite painting in the world. Ryan was just happy that she didn’t reject him again. If she had, he wasn’t sure if he could pass it off so easily as he had done before. Neither even noticed their changed position as they stumbled back until they hit the wall, backed up against it in the darkest corner of the room out of pure coincidence. At the way the night was going and with how his week had been, Ryan wouldn’t have cared if the entire fundraising party had seen them right then, Skylar letting out a soft whisper of pleasure and breathlessness as he reluctantly dragged his mouth from hers to plant a tender kiss on her beating pulse. Nothing was going to stop him from kissing her into submission until she agreed to be his girlfriend and nothing less.
With the way she was responding to him, he couldn’t imagine her not wanting to be his girlfriend, if he could just keep her there, alone with him until she brought it up herself, he couldn’t be shot down again, it wouldn’t help the way he felt at all. The way she ran her fingers through his hair and held him close as he kissed her neck, even arching towards him when he brought his mouth back up to hers, kissing her sensually, it all said that she needed him just as badly as he needed her. Neither of them had felt anything remotely like what they felt that night, nothing so overpowering or uncontrollable and when he whispered in her ear, she closed her eyes and whished that he hadn’t ruined everything by speaking. “Stay with me tonight…” Ryan asked, not finding it too much to ask when they had already shared a bed together, shared a room and their lives with each other, why couldn’t he ask her just, for one night, to forget everything else and be with him? He had just kissed her cheek in that playful way he had when he was trying to convince her of something, when an altogether different interruption added to her disappointment.
“Skylar…are you in here?” Niles’s voice called out, surprising them both and all Ryan could do was stare down at her in the hope that she would ignore it and just kiss him. But she didn’t do that, she couldn’t…so she wasn’t happy about the interruption but that didn’t mean she could just forget about all the good reasons she had for not being with Ryan because of it. With a sadness in her eyes that told him exactly what she was going to do, Skylar took a step back from him into the light of the room, looking so sad and hesitant about making that move that he knew he’d lost her again. She replied to his question, admitting that she was there, only for Niles to snap back at her angrily. “Pepper’s looking for you. What’re you doing in here anyway?” He sighed to himself disapprovingly, leaving the heavy door to clunk into place behind him as Ryan stared at Skylar, praying she would finally do something that made sense to him.
“Don’t go.” He asked, unsurprised when she took another step back away from him, the continual rejection tearing him to pieces as she tried to justify it with a simple ‘I have to’ before turning and walking away from him. He was left alone, in the darkness of the room, with the last thing he saw was Skylar leaving him, yet again, not even looking back on her way out. He leant back against the wall with a sigh, not sure why he couldn’t stop loving her or chasing after her when she was so adamant not to be with him but he knew that he was addicted to her on a level he couldn’t control. No matter what he did, she would always have a hold on him until the day he died. He needed her so badly that it drove him insane. He was so mad at having let her into his heart and his life, and found himself needing her so badly that when his fist made impact with the wall behind him, he didn’t even feel it. He’d told himself he would never need anyone and now he was so in love with Skylar that he could barely breathe…he’d done a great job of protecting himself.
Skylar had been at the fundraiser for a little over an hour when she walked out of the side room and back into the main fundraising hall to find Pepper. She stood there for barely five minutes, finding out about the gossip she wanted to share that was so important she had sent Niles to find her, when she saw Ryan walking out of the side room and leaving the gallery without even a look back into the hallway. She knew why he’d gone and she knew exactly what she’d done and how irreparable it was to their friendship. She tried to keep the tears at bay while Pepper was talking but it was no good. A few minutes later, she excused herself and disappeared to the bathroom to cry it out, only to bump into Mara. She was so sweet and understanding that whilst they had the privacy to talk openly about it, she confessed everything she possibly could. Her feelings for Ryan, his feelings for her and how they so often found themselves unable to control it or hide it. It wasn’t hard to tell her, she was so understanding about it all that she even admitted she had known for a while that something was going on between them. “Athena figured it out after you started volunteering at the hospital. She asked Miles to talk to Ryan about it, he told him everything he felt and then Miles told Fraser. And he obviously told me.” Mara explained it so simply that all Skylar could do was laugh at the inevitability of it all. People were bound to find out and she didn’t blame Ryan for telling Miles about it, he had probably already told Fraser most of it during their talks about Mara anyway. Eventually she would have to face facts and when she was told to do that, just then, she could only smile and nod along in agreement. “He’s really confused Skylar. You love him, we can all see it…have you ever told him that?” She wondered, not surprise at the silent answer she got, a simple shake of the head and a guilty look. She could only tell her so much, about what to do and what to feel, about how Ryan felt and she knew that Skylar knew well enough to know that if she didn’t tell him the truth some time soon about how she really felt, she would lose him forever.
“I think it’s too late for that. He’s gone…he just walked out…just like I did. I think it’s over.” She cried again, trying her hardest not to let them break through but it was impossible, they were too strong and she had too many reasons to cry. Mara convinced her to have faith and keep hope that after some time apart, to let him think, he would come back to her and admit that he couldn’t ever walk away. But it didn’t make her feel any better. Half of her wanted him to walk away and never look back, the other half had her in tears, her heart pounding, her hands shaking all in a true, physical pain from not being able to be with him and tell him the entire truth of her life as she wanted to. Whatever she did, she would have to pick up some of her pride from the floor and build up her emotional strength because right then, she was a walking wreck. The slightest look from him and she would break down and she had to be stronger than that for both their sakes. If she was going to risk being with him, it had to be done right, not rushed into, it had to be planned out and thought through properly or else it would just be one big, drawn out disaster.
*****
Mara’s night was going much better than Skylar’s was. She had left her in the bathroom to freshen herself up, making her promise not to go home early in the hope that she could cheer her up before she ended up going home and wallowing in self pity about it all. The fact that Pepper had invited Niles in order to ‘be with her’ only made the matters worse, since he was lingering outside the girls bathroom when she escaped, having to send him off with some harsh words of warning to ensure that Skylar could come out of hiding without being confronted by Niles and his flirtations. As soon as that was taken care of, she returned to her wonderful boyfriend’s side and hope that the night would get better soon. She explained what she could about Skylar and Ryan’s complicated relationship without going against the promises she had made her friend, explaining how upset she was and how he had left the party in anger, how she hoped they could be together because they were so good together and she just knew, in her heart that they were soul mates. “You know, their relationship’s been really good for you. It’s given you something else to focus on.” Fraser noticed with a happy smile, glad that she had something nice to take her mind off things, particularly since things weren’t getting any easier on her lately. She had been so happy all night, talking and sticking close to him and her father, enjoying her first night out of the house in months, having been so adamant that she was going they nearly ended up in the middle of a full scale battle with each other. She’d had to sit down for ten minutes after getting ready, breathing deeply and calming herself down before they could tackle leaving the house and getting into the car. Even then she had disappeared off to the women’s bathrooms three times to get some peace and fresh air, to be in a quiet area where she could get a cooling, cold drink and get herself together again. He was allowed to worry about her.
“I know what it’s like to be in love…how great it can be. I just want them to know what it feels like before something happens and Niles either drives her from a relationship or Ryan into one with someone other than Skylar.” Mara was worried that Niles was going to drive her friend away from the very idea of having a boyfriend, never away from Ryan, his best friend. She was so scared of hurting everyone that all she was doing was hurting herself even more and allowing them to hurt her, which was just as bad. She didn’t know which was worse. At least Ryan was trying to understand, he kept sticking by her no matter what and promising not to rush her or push her into any decisions and it had really helped her and would probably have made up her mind if it wasn’t for the fact that what they felt was so strong that their distance was making it harder for them to keep away from each other. They knew what it was like to be together and they couldn’t forget it. “Do you think we could go home early…maybe in half an hour?” She asked suddenly, wanting to be alone with her boyfriend for a while so that she could remind him that she had never forgotten what it was like to be with him the way the had been before she got sick. She was still human, she had wants and desires of her own but Fraser took her words as a sign that she was feeling tired or unwell and she could only laugh when he asked what was wrong and looked panicked. “Nothing, silly. Actually, I feel a hundred times better than I’ve felt in a long time since talking with Skylar. I just thought that if we went home early we’d go straight to bed and maybe get some sleep by early morning?”
Fraser was a little confused by her words, asking to go home around half ten only to say they might get some sleep by early morning. It took him a minute to figure out what she meant as she stood at his side, smiling playfully and waiting for the thought to click in his head. “Oh yeah? Then maybe we should leave right now?” He approved, taking her hand and leading her off to say goodnight to her father, who was disappointed to see her go, before taking her out to the car and driving her home. He was glad that she had brought it up, he had missed that side of their relationship, though what they had found in its place meant so much more to him than any physical contact could. But it was good to know that she still felt that irresistible charm she had tormented him for having when they first got together. They had been as bad as Skylar and Ryan were, unable to be apart or stop kissing each other long enough for anyone to form an idea of just what their relationship was. But it wasn’t purely physical for them as he assumed it wasn’t for Ryan and Skylar…relationships like theirs started off as something much more than a need to kiss and touch but as something rather more like an infatuation that began in the heart, of two hearts understanding each others the way no-one else ever had and two minds finding that they thought the same thoughts and felt the same feelings. It was undeniable and impossible to fight and he really hoped that Ryan and Skylar had a chance to see how great a real relationship with those feelings could be, to feel how strong those feelings could get with time.
*****
Eva was having a great night without Devin laughing in front of Angelo that it was a good job Gabriel, her brother wasn’t able to make it. She was actually worried about Christy when Gabriel had called her on her way out of her apartment with Angelo to say that they wouldn’t be attending the fundraiser, at least she was until he explained about the risk of infection and the worry that the excitement would be too much for her nerves. And of course, until Angelo comforted her with kisses and that wonderful talent he had for knowing when she needed to be held in his big strong arms for a few quiet minutes. They had really bonded in the past week, they had connected on a level she had never known was possible and when he explained that he felt ‘pretty seriously’ about her in the same sentence that he admitted he had only ended up renting his house at the last minute because he wasn’t sure how long it would take to build up his business, she knew that his ‘pretty seriously’ meant exactly the same as being in love. And she couldn’t help but feel giddy about it and admit that she felt the same. Of course that had made them late for the fundraiser but she didn’t care.
They’d been together every day of the past week and there was no way they were going to feel anything different from what they already feel with the more time they spend together. But Devin’s snipes weren’t helping. Angelo didn’t care about his jokes but what he didn’t like was the way it upset her to have him making fun of the fact that they hadn’t flaunted their relationship to the whole world yet. “We might not have got round to telling Gabriel yet but we’re not keeping our relationship a secret. All we’re doing is keeping ourselves to ourselves. There’s no crime in that.” Angelo sighed in a weary frustration, fed up of the attitude that Devin had and wondered and slightly hoped that it was only because he had been drinking quite a bit. He waved off his protests with a smile, not drunk but hoping to find out what exactly was going on between them and hoping that Niles’s arrival would perk up Skylar and get her mind off Ryan and the hope of a relationship between them.
“Okay, I’m sorry. I’m just trying to figure you two out. It’s like Skylar and Ryan…no-one can be quite sure whether they’re on or off again…with you two, no-one can be quite sure what you’re about.” He confessed, making Angelo smile down at Eva softly, glad to hear that he wasn’t trying to make fun of her and was just being overly curious. As long as he was only interested in gossip then he could argue all he liked about their apparent secrecy.
“Have you made up your mind about the job? I could really use a second pair of hands to get the place up and running.” He got right to the point and avoided the more private aspect of his relationship with Eva, not appreciating the question of whether he had found a building for it yet, mostly because he didn’t have a clue as to where he was going to start up his new business. “Not yet but Eva knows about this place on the edge of town that could be suitable.” He explained his theories so far and all the help that his girlfriend had given him in starting his life over. She was the best help he could ask for but with all the time they were spending together, working out the business end of things and just enjoying being together, the bookshop was starting to suffer. He couldn’t ask her to keep letting her employees run the place for her when she could easily do it herself if he only let gave her the time to do so.
“Well, I’m up for it anytime you like. I’ve talked it over with Pepper and she’s thrilled about the idea that I’ll be working closer to home.” Devin admitted how happy he was that he was being given the opportunity to start over straight closer to home, closer to Pepper and she was just as ecstatic. Now he could go to work without spending a fortune on travelling back and forward and meals because he wouldn’t get back until late. Finally, he could meet up with Pepper for dinner at a reasonable time, they could go out and do things much easier than having to ask for time off.