Right - (boyxboy)

Chapter 4 - Off The Hook

"Who are you hiding from?" Ryan asked, as he watched Will glance at the screen of his ringing phone, before declining the call and returning it back onto the coffee table. 

"No-one," Will replied a little too quickly, causing Ryan's eyebrow to raise as his interest was piqued. 

It was no surprise to Ryan that his ex was hiding from something, there would be no other reason why he'd been taking refuge on his couch for the last week. Sure, they'd decided to try being friends again, and Ryan was happy with the company in the otherwise empty house - his parents were gallivanting around Europe during their joint mid-life crises - but that didn't mean he wasn't suspicious to Will's motives. 

He knew he wasn't having any issues with the XX Squad, they'd all been over the day before in an afternoon that Ryan could've only described as awkward. Liv's worry for the state of her friend's life was about as evident as her disdain for Ryan's existence. Not that he could really blame her, thinking back on all the foul things that he'd said to her, about her, in front of her, since his and Will's breakup. Add the fact that Will had cheated on Oliver with him and that Ryan was pretty much the catalyst as to why Will and Oliver had broken up, it all ended up into one messed up equation where x plus y equals 'Fuck you, Ryan'.

The other girls had been a lot more civil, and receptive, about Ryan's reappearance, actually talking and interacting with him without a snarl on their face. Kimi even looked at him with almost pitying look in her eyes, as if she felt bad about all the shit that Will was still putting him through, an idea that wasn't even an assumption since she'd pretty much said exactly that during a moment alone they had in the kitchen whilst preparing the popcorn. 

"Will puts us all through a lot," she'd said with a small smile, almost fondly. "And we deal with it because we care about him. And we know that he cares the same about us."

Ryan had nodded, not sure why she was telling him about this. They'd never really spoken to each other like this before. It almost felt like a surreal experience, like it wasn't even happening. 

But as Kimi was leaving the kitchen, popcorn bowls in hand, she hesitated for a moment before turning back around to look at Ryan with a smile. He just looked back at her, a little weirded out by her odd behaviour. It had definitely felt more surreal at that point.

Especially when the look of pity returned as she said to him, "he cares about you too, Ryan. But maybe not in the way that you want him to."

That got to Ryan the most.

Ryan knew that nothing between him and Will would ever happen again. He knew that all the happy memories he had of them together were from a time that would never happen again. He knew that no matter how much they both want life to return to when it was simpler, that would never happen again. He knew that he had to accept the reality that he lived in now and he knew that it was for the best.

 But his heart continued to protest, no matter what he knew or how certain he was that nothing would ever happen again.

The heart really is such a stubborn thing sometimes.

But the reason why that had gotten to him the most was because someone else had seen it, had seen how he was still pining after something that was fruitless. Someone had looked beyond what he'd said and not accepted it at face value as Will had. Someone had seen that.

And they pitied him for it.

His father had always said to him that the Romeros were proud men and that struck at the proud man that Ryan was on the inside. He didn't like being pitied, feeling like he was being looked down on. 

And as he thought about it in bed the previous night, unable to go to sleep, he decided that it was time that he grew up and acted like the man he pretended he was. Someone who took action and did what needed to be done, what was best for everyone involved.