Page 143 of Offside

I’d lost almost a week of him and it had cost me plenty.

That was my answer.

I picked up my phone.

I read his texts again. All eleven of them, Ryan giving me space while refusing to disappear. All eleven of them, keeping the door open with both hands while I decided whether to walk back through it.

I started typing.

Maren: I’ve read every text

Maren: All of them, in case you were wondering

A pause. Then the dots appeared.

Ryan: I was. Are you okay?

I almost laughed. Almost a week of silence from me and his first response was to ask if I was okay. Not are we okay, not what does this mean, just me. Whether I was all right.

Maren: Hard to say

Ryan: I’m going to see Griffin tonight.

I sat with that. Tonight. He’d already decided before I texted. He wasn’t waiting for my permission or my signal. He’d made his own decision on his own timeline, and he was telling me about it because we told each other things, because that was what we did when we were being honest with each other.

Maren: That’s really good.

Ryan: Maren

Ryan: I meant what I said. All of it.

I read that twice. Felt it settle somewhere in my chest. Not the cracking-open feeling of the parking garage, something quieter than that. The feeling of a thing finding the place it was supposed to be.

Maren: I know you did

Maren: Go talk to your best friend

Ryan: Yeah

Ryan: Solsken

I put the phone down on the table beside me and looked out at the yard. The scrubland and the fading afternoon light and the hawk gone now, off to wherever hawks went when the thermals cooled.

I was in love with Ryan Lindqvist. I’d been in love with him for a while. And he was going to go fix the thing that needed fixing tonight, not because I’d asked him to but because he’d decided to, and I was going to sit here in the late afternoon sun and let that be enough for now.

I picked up my cold coffee. Took a sip. Made a face.

My phone buzzed one more time.

Ryan: For the record. A reminder. I know what I want. I just need you to know I know. There is no confusion, and that’s the conversation I’ll be having with Griffin,

I read it three times.

Then I went inside to make fresh coffee and thought about what I was going to say when he came back and let myself smile for the first time in a week.

CHAPTER 27

RYAN