Chapter 17

"Give me the controller!" Leah yelled and jumped onto my back, attempting to yank it from my hands and failing.

"You know you're not stronger than me, so you're wasting your energy!" I tried to shake her off but she clung to me extremely tight.

I felt a twinge of pain in my shoulder and turned to find her teeth sunk in me. "This ain't The Vampire Diaries get your teeth out of my skin!" I held the controller away from my body and out of nowhere Zane pulled it from my grasp and took a seat on the couch.

"That's not fair! I called it next," Leah whined and hopped off my back to attack Zane. I joined her in holding him down to take it back.

He sat there with a huge grin on his face, completely calm and motionless, which pissed me off because we still couldn't take it back.

"None of you are getting it, so just stop already," He chuckled.

"Oh, yeah?" I kneed him in the balls causing him to scream out in pain and giving me the chance to grab it back. "Ha!" I laughed and jumped to my feet.

"You fucking bit-"

"You sure you wanna finish that sentence?" I glared at him. He stuck his middle finger up at me as he silently cried in pain.

That's what I thought.

I smiled and turned to face the TV. I had a lot of amazing songs that I could play right now to drive them crazy, but I couldn't choose. I scrolled through my list of songs on Spotify and stopped when I came to a good one.

"You're leaving as soon as Ryan comes, so why do you even want to play music?" Leah seethed which made me laugh.

I played the song then spun around with the controller to my mouth, pretending it was a microphone. American Idiot boomed through the house as I jumped around singing at the top of my lungs. Leah and Zane both watched me, annoyed.

After the song was finished I tossed it at her. "You guys don't know what good music is." I jumped on the couch and laid my head on Zane's lap. He still was upset because he looked at me like he was ready to strangle me right there.

I placed a kiss on his forearm and smiled up at him. "Sorry."

"You're lucky I love you," he stated, stroking my arm. Leah put on a Taylor Swift playlist then began singing along to it and I joined in.

I pulled out my phone and scrolled through the pictures, Leah sent to my email. She liked to photograph as a hobby, but I think she was talented. She had a way of capturing the beauty of things, even if they weren't appealing to the naked eye. Her college assignment was to take a picture of four things that were special to her and explain why to tell the deeper meaning behind it because you'll never know from just looking at it.

"These are amazing, are you sure you're not serious about this stuff?" I leaned on my elbow, looking over at her. She played with her brown curls between her fingers, avoiding looking my way.

"Of course, I'm serious about it, but it's others that don't take me seriously." She sighed and looked over at me. "I'm nothing like you. You make art yourself, starting with a blank canvas and turning nothing into something."

"So do you! You have to believe in yourself because trust me you're special."

"I keep telling her," Zane cut in. "I'll sign her up for something myself if she doesn't take control."

Someone knocked at the front door and I jumped up to open it. Ryan grinned and held his arms open for a hug.

He and I haven't spent a lot of time together since he packed up and moved out aside from work. Today we were going to the gym, one of his favorite places to spend time. I wasn't complaining as long as I had him to myself for an hour or two.

"What took you so long?"

"Traffic," He laughed.

"And that's why I take the subway 75% of the time." We said bye to Leah and Zane and walked off to his car.

I looked up at him, nudging him with my elbow. "So are you gonna take it easy on me today? Or am I gonna get tossed around like some salad?"

"I never take it easy," He said and threw his arm around my neck. "Not even on a girl as beautiful as you."

One-Two-Three-

One-

Two-

Three-

"Fuck, let go, that was more than 10 seconds," Ryan cried.

I released him and rolled over onto my side, giving him flirty eyes. "I know, I was trying to go for 20."

He sat up and brushed his fingers through his hair. "If I would've known you were gonna pull out the WWE moves I wouldn't have offered to teach you anything."

"Aw, we can go again if your ego is still intact."

"Fuck you, you cheated." He stood up to stretch while I watched from below, practically eye fucking him right now. His sweaty t-shirt clung to him like a second skin and I wished he would just remove it.

He looked down at me and clapped his hands. "Come on, get up, I'm not done with you."

I chuckled and sat up. "Ok, don't take it easy."

"I didn't," He muttered under his breath, getting into his stance. It was adorable how he thought I was some defenseless little girl with no fighting skills. My mother and I took a few classes since we were living in a household with no men to protect us. We had to learn how to protect ourselves, so this was nothing.

I decided to play around with him a bit, so I got into my fighting stance and motioned with my hand for him to bring it on. He immediately tried to grapple me and I rolled out of his reach.

"Oh, you think you're cute?" He asked, with a cock of his head. His silver eyes were trained on me trying to predict my next move.

I kicked my leg out to trip him and he backed away, wagging his finger. "I'm not falling for that again."

"Worth a shot." I chuckled. "I need to ask you something by the way."

"Ask away." He caught my leg as I swung and I fell onto my back, knocking the wind out of me.

I groaned and tried to get back up, but he lay across me, pinning me down. "Continue."

"My dad visited a couple of days ago and he came with some interesting news." I breathed out and struggled to get up. Fuck he's strong. This was already tiring, and I was a sweaty mess.

He looked down at me and furrowed his brows. "Good news or bad news?"

I exhaled slowly and covered my face with my hands to calm down and stop myself from crying. "It's just—"

He climbed off of me and I immediately flipped him while he was distracted making him land on the plush mat with a thud. I took that as my chance to straddle him, pinning his hands down by his sides.

"You know I could easily get out of this, but I'm not so sure I want to." His eyes burned into mine. My breathing became erratic and I'm not so sure it was because of the wrestling anymore, but more so his bulge poking at my entrance.

"He's getting married and I need a plus one."

He opened his mouth to respond but was interrupted by someone speaking over the speakers. "No PDA in the gym. Get up or get out!" The man yelled.

I quickly climbed off of him and helped him to his feet. Talk about embarrassing. "Just let me know when, and I'll be there," Ryan smirked and slapped my ass on his way to the men's room. "How's that for PDA?"