Run Wild Horses

Chapter 24

In case you didn't know
Baby I'm crazy 'bout you
And I would be lying if I said
That I could live this life without you
Even though I don't tell you all the time
You had my heart a long, long time ago
In case you didn't know

Although I had initially been angry with him for outing us, after some discussion and a couple hours of making up, we moved past it. I realized that actually, a lot of pressure had been taken off. So maybe this was a good thing after all. Focus on the positive.

The rest of the weekend went remarkably well. We both were busy, but not too busy, and without the added stress of sneaking around, I was able to relax a lot more. By Sunday morning, I was able to bear all of my weight on my ankle. It was still a little sore, but the more I walked on it, the more it improved, enough improvement for me to ditch the dreaded crutches.

I was excited, but filled with nervous anticipation for the race today. My loyalties would be divided three ways. Will, of course, since I represented him. Chase who was practically family, and now I had to throw my boyfriend into the mix. It still sounded crazy thinking of Ryan as my boyfriend, but we were all Instagram official and everything.

Last night, I remembered the comment Stephen had made on Ryan's post, so I asked him to block Braindoctor, because I knew he would cause trouble. To my surprise, he deleted his comment, and after seeing some of the comments made to him, I understood why. Someone I did not know called him out on the fact that I left him because he couldn't keep his dick in his pants. Maybe one of his former, tossed aside lovers perhaps? Then, someone said brain doctor obviously needs his head examined for cheating on me. Several more insults were thrown his way. I couldn't help but laugh. He had made himself look like a total ass. So much so, I didn't even have to comment.

The race was pretty uneventful, other than the fact that William had gotten into a crash in stage two and was unable to continue. After he was released from the infield care center, we got together to work on his post race statements. I told him it could wait, but he flashed me a sly grin, and said he figured I'd want to fly back home with Ryan. For some reason, his comments made me blush.

Ryan ended up with a solid fourth place finish. I surprised him a little when he got back to the bus and I was still there and told him I was flying back to North Carolina with him. He ended up dozing off on the plane. I knew he was exhausted, so I figured I probably should go back to my apartment and check things out, pray there were no more spiders. Ryan looked disappointed that I wasn't coming back to his house with him, so I told him to let me go back for a bit and get a change of clothes, and I would meet him back at his house later. He seemed fine with this, and laughed when I told him I missed driving and I missed my car.

Once home, I took a few moments to unwind and reflect on everything that had happened over the past week as well as the weekend. I knew I was in deep with Ryan. The things I was feeling for him, I had never felt before. Was it love? I know now that I was never in love with Steven. I think I was more dazzled than anything that a brilliant, young, very attractive neurosurgeon had chosen a small town girl like me. My college boyfriend and I had exchanged "I love you's," but it was more about sex than anything between us. We were young and I was focused on my education and he was focused on baseball. More lust than love between us. I'm not even sure either of us knew what love really was. Besides, what girl wouldn't want to date LSU's star third baseman. Back then, I had no problem being someone's arm candy, because he was just as much mine.

I went to take a shower, and halfway through, the water turned ice cold. I finished as quickly as I could and hurriedly dried off and got dressed. I needed to get out of this place. Spiders aside, it wasn't an awful place. It was...old. Small. Bad lighting. The plumbing had a mind of its own, as did the air conditioner. I never intended to stay here forever, I just needed something that I could move in fairly quickly, and when I found a permanent job, I would find something else. The location was good, but I could do better. Now that my job had become permanent, maybe it was time to find my permanent home.