Half Full

Chapter 19

I feel like this whole new person. In fact, I think I am a whole new person, because for the past two days I wore my hair up in a ponytail and I totally ignored weird looks that were thrown my way. That doesn't really matter. What matters is the huge smile on Ryder's face the second he saw me sitting in Biology with my hair up in a messy bun. His face lit up like it was Christmas and that make me even more confident. Oh, and the fact that Jimmy came up to me the next day and apologized for everything! Every single thing and looking at his mashed face made me realize that this was all I needed, an apology from him and his admitting how fucked up it was from his side to act like that six months ago.

"I'm going back to Arizona," he said before he took a step back.

"Good, I don't really want to see you ever again." Those were my last words to him, and it made me feel so good, I decided to put my hair back right then and there. I was free.

"Please don't tell me you are going to wear jeans tonight." Sam is watching me go through my clothes. She doesn't know that I'm involved with her brother and I'm kind of scared to tell her. After all, we have this pact to screw up his next relationship, and that would be me. Hell no, I'm not telling her shit.

"Hmm, I don't know, you know I'm not into that club theme and I don't like to dress up." I stand with my back to her so she can't see me smiling from ear to ear while I eye that white off the shoulder dress that I'm planning to wear tonight.

"Whatever, just so you know there will be no other girls wearing jeans." I can tell that she is not happy about the choice of clothes she thinks I would make. "You driving with us?"

"No, I'll take a cab. I have to take care of something." I have no intentions telling her that that something is her brother.

"I hope you're not going to bail on me, Payton."

I turn around and look at her thru the makeup mirror she is sitting in front of. "I would never, you should know that."

"Good, there will be tons of cute boys over there." She winks before she puts the fourth coat of mascara over her fake lashes.

I just smile what else I can do?

There is a knock on my door at exactly ten to eight and I take a deep breath before I open the door, and what I see standing outside is sucking the air out of me.

There is Ryder, standing in a black button up with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, the same old jeans that are the sexiest piece of denim I ever saw, and a smile that has my knee wobbling. We stand there like that, looking at each other without saying anything, and I start to think that maybe this dress was too much. Maybe I overdressed and maybe my makeup and hair is too much, and he doesn't like it, when he takes one long stride and holds me in his arms closing the door behind him with his foot and pushing me to the wall. Placing a long passionate kiss on my freshly painted lips.

"God, you look beautiful." He manages to say between our lips. I want to say that he looks the same, but my mouth is silenced by his next kiss. My hands are roaming over his shirt and I have no idea how they land on his naked torso, tracking his naked muscles, going down his V-line, stopping at his jeans. His hands are doing the same, and I know that this dress was a perfect choice, allowing him access to the parts of my body nobody has traced before like that, not with that much passion and tenderness.

"We have to get to the party." His breathes out while his hands are on my bare waist.

"The party can wait, it will be there the whole night." There is nothing I want more than his hands all over me right now. It's like this man in front of me cures me of all the nightmares, he cures me of all the fears that I have and right now in this moment, I want nothing more than to be with him like I haven't been with anyone else.

"Are you sure Pay? Because once we cross that line I won't be able to stop."

"Don't stop." And that is the last I said before I cried out his name into his mouth. And that is the last I said before I floated up to the sky and didn't want to fall down. For all I know, he could keep me high like that for the rest of my life.