The Enemy (It Happened in Charleston 2)

I whip my head to him. “Huh? How did you know I was thinking about tattoos?”

He grins but doesn’t look away from the road. “I can see your thoughts. Didn’t you know?” He says it so seriously that, for a second, I think he’s telling the truth. I knew he was a sorcerer of some kind. It’s how he manages to wield this powerful, sexy, man aura that I can’t resist. “June, I’m kidding. You’ve been rubbing your sunflower tattoo for the past five miles.”

“Oh.” Why do I like the sorcerer idea better? I also don’t love that I seem to put all my feelings on display when Ryan is around. Or wait. It’s a good thing to show Ryan how I’m feeling.

It’s opposite of my natural inclination, but I’m determined not to sabotage this relationship with Ryan, so I tell him everything. I tell him that after Ben broke my heart, I went straight to the tattoo parlor and had the nice man with fifteen piercings and over one hundred tattoos ink the sunflower onto my skin. It was a spontaneous decision, but I don’t regret it.

“Why after you broke up?”

I look down at my hands and fidget. “Ben didn’t like tattoos. Always said they looked kind of trashy. Which is so ironic considering he slept with someone else a week before our wedding.”

And then something amazing happens. I realize that I just talked about Ben and what he did to me, and for once, it doesn’t sting. Not a bit. This is curious to me, so I force my thoughts down that rabbit trail a little further just to see if it was a fluke. I let myself remember picking up Ben’s phone when he left the room and finding a text from Home-Wrecker Hallie with a photo of the two of them snuggling under the covers as if they’d been a couple for a hundred years.

Huh. No pain. No knots in my stomach. No nothing. In fact, all I can really focus on is Ryan’s thumb tracing circles on the back of my hand.

He peeks at me from the corner of his eye. “If I’m being honest, I’ve always had a major thing for tattoos.”

I don’t know why, but a blush creeps over my face. I think it’s a combination of the way Ryan is looking at me and what his touch does to me.

“Well, that’s a happy coincidence,” I say, but my voice betrays how much his words mean to me and it cracks.

The rest of the night goes by in a zoom. Ryan and I catch a flight to O’Hare International Airport and then rent a car to take to his house. While he’s at the rental station, signing the papers, I go hover by the pretzel shop and try to decide if the calories will be worth it.

Ten minutes later, I’m still salivating over the pretzels but haven’t quite decided if I should get one because it’s late and every woman in the world knows that eating a million carbs right before bed will do bad things to her butt.

Ryan sees me in all my indecisive glory,

looks from me to the pretzel counter, and asks, “Are you going to get one?”

“No…yes…no…yes. I mean NO. Final answer.”

He gives me the smirk—the one with the dimple that says game on—and then goes and buys HIMSELF a pretzel. He doesn’t eat it right away. Nope. He carries it with us to the car and lets it hover on his leg as we start down the interstate. The air immediately fills with buttery, salty goodness, and suddenly, I know what it feels like to be a pretzel stuck in one of those clear cases. It’s glorious, and it’s definitely what I want to come back as in another life.

“Aren’t you going to eat that?” I ask while accidentally licking my lips.

“Huh? Oh.” He looks down like, PING, a magic pretzel just popped in his lap that he had no idea about. “Totally forgot about it. Yeah, thanks for reminding me.”

I watch Ryan lift that pretzel all the way to his mouth and take a big bite. Ugh, but he’s doing it all wrong. He’s eating it like such a man. Downing the whole thing without taking the time to savor the notes of butter and salt and yeast and more butter.

“Mmmmm,” he groans dramatically after another bite. “This is really something else. You should have gotten one.”

I hate him. I hate him. I hate him. I—

“UGH, FINE, YOU WIN!” I lunge across the center console and snatch it out of his hand and then settle back in my seat, eyeing the prize like I just got out of rehab for pretzel overdose. Ryan is oh-so pleased with himself, chuckling and shaking his head.

“June,” he finally says after I’ve finished my pretzel and am licking my fingers to savor every last drip of butter I can. “I don’t know what all crap Ben pulled to pollute your self-esteem, but from now on, when you want a pretzel, get a damn pretzel.” The way he says it, with such authority and tenderness, leaves a euphoric sensation floating around my body.

I twist in my seat so my back is against the door and curl my legs up in the seat.

“What are you doing?” Ryan asks, glancing at me and then back to the road.

“Staring at you.”

This amuses him, but I’m dead serious. “That’s creepy.”

“Maybe I’m a little creepy then. Get used to it. You’re too pretty not to stare at.”

Ryan just shakes his head lightly as he moves his hand to my knee and keeps his focus on the road. We don’t talk the rest of the drive, and he lets me stare at him the whole time. I lay my head against the seat and watch the interstate lights flash behind his head, something soft and folky playing on the radio.