21. Khadri “Moros” Weston

21

KHADRI "MOROS" WESTON

That winter…

"They said you were dating someone." The typical voice of a high school mean-girl who had forgotten to grow up echoed through the lobby.

I knew why she was speaking so loudly. She wanted everyone to hear, to embarrass Ryanne. And I knew she didn't need me to fight her battles, but bullies were never my favourite things. I accepted the coat-check tickets for our coats.

"Is that necklace real?" Another woman spoke up.

"It was given to me by the designer, so it better be." Ryanne responded.

"Like you know Francois Leren." The first woman mocked.

"I don't, but a friend of mine used to model for him." Ryanne explained.

The scoffed,

"I don't care what you think." Ryanne spoke. "Now, go away."

I placed the ticket into the inner pocket of my Armani blazer and walked up behind Ryanne. Gripping her hips, I drew her backward into my chest.

She tilted her head back to look up into my face and I kissed her forehead.

"Sorry, Lover." I told her. "That took way too long."

She kissed my chin and lowered her head.

The woman standing there stared at me wide-eyed.

"Is there something on my face?" I asked, stepping to the side but leaving one arm around Ryanne's hips.

"No—they just didn't think I could score a man." She told me.

The woman standing in the barely-there dress blinked. She exchanged looks with the women with her then opened her mouth to speak.

She clamped it shut.

"There is no way." One of the other women leaned forward. "Where did you hire him?"

When I eased forward, Ryanne moved her curves in front of me. She leaned heavily backward against my chest and sighed.

"Hire me?" I made a how of looking confused. "You got it wrong. I'm her sugar baby!"

Their eyes widened.

They believed me.

Ryanne smacked my arm.

"Behave." She giggled.

"I knew you wouldn't amount to anything." The first woman smirked.

"We're no longer high school students anymore, Brianne." Ryanne spoke. "Just know that if you come for me again, I will squash you like a bug."

"You can't talk to me like that!" Brianne's face grew red. "Stupid little bitch."

"Um—you got knocked up before graduation to a man who picks his nose and eats it and I'm the stupid bitch?" Ryanne asked in a sugary voice.

Brianne tried to slap her.

Before I could react, Ryanne grabbed the offending arm, slapped Brianne against the right cheek then the left before twisting the wrist and shoving her away.

"I warned you, didn't I?" Ryanne wanted to know, her anger now showing. "Or would you like another lesson?"

Taking Ryanne's hand in mine, I escorted her away and deeper into the luxury hall.

It seemed every five years, her high school had one of these gatherings. They call it a reunion, but I saw it as a pissing contest to see whose dick was bigger.

Apparently, Ryanne would avoid them.

This one was a little bit different. Pasha told her that she should go back—to walk through those souls at least once with her head held high.

"You owe those people nothing." I told her.

"I know." She'd cuddled into my arms. "But if I did decide to go, would you go with me, be my date. I know you'd look stunning in a suit. Can you imagine how jealous they'd be?"

"Shorty, I wouldn't make anyone jealous." I told her emphatically. "Maybe you could ask Boss to be your date for the night."

The anger that caused in her stunned me.

"I don't walk into a room on some other man's arms unless it's when he's leading me down the aisle to you. Got that?"

I'd exhaled. My heart racing with happiness.

It was that night, I held her down on my bed and stared into her dark eyes in the moonlight streaming into the room.

"I love you." I told her. "I love you, so fucking much."

Ryanne had immediately started crying.

The moment the tears began rolling down her cheeks, I'd panicked.

"They're happy tears!" She hugged my neck. "I love you too!"

Ryanne taking my hand brought me back to the room. She'd snacked us a couple glasses of wine and while I accepted mine, I didn't drink from it.

We spent the night focusing on each other. The mean girls were still staring, and I could almost feel them wanting to say something else to Ryanne.

Still, I ignored them, danced with my woman and snacked on the finger food around. It was well into the evening when the one Ryanne had called Brianne found me.

I supposed she waited until Ryanne excused herself to use the bathroom before she found her way up to me at the bar. It was hard to not know she was entirely too close to me as her perfume was beginning to give me a headache.

She rested her palm on my arm, and I frowned.

"Why are you really with her?" Brianne leaned in, her breast pressing to me.

"I love her." I replied. "And you may want to go talk to your doctor—your fake breasts aren't supposed to feel like that."

She was outraged but I pulled my arm from her grip.

"You're going to talk to me like that?" She demanded. "Look at me."

"I'm looking." I replied. "But I have question. Is any of you real?"

Someone wrapped their arm around me from behind and I looked back to see it was Ryanne. She didn't meet my eyes but was glaring at Brianne who didn't seem to be able to read the room.

"You do know he's leaving with me tonight, right?" Brianne asked.

"If he leaves with you then he's not the man I think he is." Ryanne smiled. "Remember when I told you outside that I wasn't the same girl from high school? Let's test how good your plastic surgeon is."

Before I could move, Ryanne caught Brianne by the hair, stepped around me only to push Brianne's face down against the bar—hard.

"That is for all the years in high school you tortured me." Ryanne told her.

Brianne screamed as her nose didn't bleed but it was twisted in a strange, almost cartoonish way to the left.

I arched a brow.

"Well, shit." I muttered.

Ryanne took my hand and we walked away with people pointing and laughing at Brianne.

Deep down, I didn't feel like going home yet, and I knew she didn't want to go home. She'd told me earlier that she didn't get many chances to dress up and tonight—I glanced at her body in that dress and grew hard.

I helped her across the freshly cleared sidewalk when the valet returned with the truck and into the vehicle. And after we drove for a little bit I stop at a hotdog stand.

We sat in the backseat of the truck to eat while the heater blew hotness back to keep us warm.

"This feels like a date." Ryanne leaned her head against my shoulder while chewing.

"It does, doesn't it?" I mused.

The sounds of a busy street on a calm night filled the air.

"You know I wouldn't have left with her, right?" I asked. "You didn't have to kick her ass."

"Yes, I did." Ryanne replied. "Or she would have thought she could keep doing that shit to me every time we saw each other. All throughout high school, she made my life hell. I guess I was stupid enough to think age would change her."

"She's miserable, Shorty. You see that right?"

"I doubt it. She married Travis Michaels—high school football captain." Ryanne whispered almost in worship. "His parents owned, like, half the city. Anything he wanted—a new car before he was old enough to drive? Sure! They had the Victor Newman Money."

"The who?"

She looked up at me, gasped as if I was the most uncool person on the planet, then settled in again.

"And she bagged him."

"Most football players peak in high school." I informed her. "They graduate and get too focused on their high school glory that they don't really amount to much. I'm sure if I have Boss look up this Travis guy, you'll see I'm right. In high school, Brianne is the kind of girl who thinks she's scored a good thing then realize too late that she didn't."

Ryanne lifted her head for another bite.

"Now, she's married to this man," I said. "Who's coming home later and later. Going on more and more business trips and always comes home smelling like another woman's perfume with strange scratches on his neck he can't account for. When she finds out who he's working late, she realizes this woman is younger than her—barely legal if Travis is lucky. So, she starts with the body modifications to look like this woman because she believes this is what Travis is into now. At first, it's only a little botox to look nineteen again. When that doesn't bring his attention back to her, she up the ante to fillers in the lips, then the boobs, then the BBL?—"

"BBL?"

"Brazilian butt lift—don't ask." I batted a wrist at her. "My point is?—"

"We're coming back to the BBL later."

I chuckled. "Your ass is fine. I don't want you pumping crap into your body."

She stared into my eyes for an eternity before kissing me and going back to her food.

"My point is," I said. "You can tell she's miserable. She sees you're happy and she wants to wreck it. I saw through her the moment I heard her voice."

"I told you, I didn't think you would go with her." Ryanne reminded me. "I trust you."

I closed my eyes.

I can't trust you, Ryanne. Correction, I don't trust you.

"About what I said in Jamaica that time."

"What did you say?" She picked off a piece of pickle and popped it into her mouth. "I mean, you've said tons of things."

"When I said I didn't trust you?—"

"We're far away from that."

"I trust you, Ryanne." I admitted out loud for the first time. "You've proven yourself over and over—I don't want you to go on thinking I don't."

She nodded.

"I know," Ryanne said. "And I love you."

We eventually went home, showered and slept.

I woke the next morning to Ryanne sitting on the bed massaging the soles of her feet and groaning. After kissing her neck, I rushed to the bathroom then brushed my teeth before joining her again on the bed while carrying a bottle of lotion.

Setting up the pillows, I had her rest her back against them then sat at the foot of the bed with her feet in my lap. I massage the soles of her feet, digging the balls of my thumbs into the soft spots and listening to her moan softly.

"I love heels, but they hurt." She sighed, her eyes closed.

"Pasha always carries these flats in her purse." I told her.

"Yeah, but they don't make my ass look like—Pow!" She flared her fingers and thrust her chest dramatically forward.

I laughed.

Together, we lingered in bed and around lunch time, we finally crawled out for food and to shower and dressed. Even then, we didn't leave the bedroom except for drinks and snacks. We'd placed our phones on silent, left the laptops in the office and decided to focus on each other.

I was using her bum as a table for my bowl of popcorn when I set a red velvet box on my pillow in front of her face.

At first, she continued regaling me with the tale of when she'd gone to the hairdresser that week to get her hair a good wash and treatment. It had been her first time going and that morning as I dropped her off, she was practically bouncing off the wall.

"Um—baby cakes?"

"Mm?"

"What's this?" She asked, slowly, cautiously.

"Today is the day I try stop living without you." I informed her, crawling up the bed to lay beside her with the ring between us. "What was it Beyonce said—if you liked it then you should've put a ring on it?"

She giggled.

Ryanne sat up, dumping my snacks.

I didn't mind—I'll punish her by using her as a snack later.

Right now, my heart raced as my nerves kicked in.

What if she didn't want me that desperately?

What if she said no?

"Well?" I asked. "I'm dying here."

"Well, what?" Ryanne blinked. "You didn't ask. I deserve to be asked."

Blushing, I hung my head before pushing to my knees on the bed.

"Ryanne Larwick."

She sat up to face me.

The grin on her face was brighter than the sun.

"Will you marry?—"

"Don't be silly!" She launched herself at me. "Of course!"

"You haven't even seen the ring yet."

Ryanne clung tighter to me. "The ring isn't important. I'm going to be Mrs. Weston—or is it Larwick Weston? I want to carry on my father's name since he didn't get the chance to?—"

"Baby, hey." I pried her arms from around me so I could see her face. "You don't have to explain. I understand."

"Some men would want their wives to only have their name. They'd see hyphenating it as disrespectful."

"Some men are idiots. As long as your name ends with mine, it doesn't matter what's between. Okay?"

Ryanne nodded.

I tried slipping the ring on her finger, but she only hugged me—this time tighter.

When I was able to slip the ring onto her finger, she squealed happily, kissed me then grabbed her phone. I eavesdropped on her video call to hear Pasha screaming.

"He didn't!" Pasha cheered.

"He did!" Ryanne exclaimed. "I'm not dreaming, right?"

The two of them had become close. It was a joy watching Ryanne falling for Pasha—the two of them going out together. They did everything from shopping, to girls' days, to visiting the university campus where Ryanne had started attending for a degree in social work.

For a week after her birthday, Pasha flew Ryanne to Bangkok so they could attend some kind of fanmeet for an actor they were both obsessed with.

I'd merely kissed her at the airport and went home.

"Sit tight!" Pasha told her. "I'm coming over! I must see that rock in person!"

Ryanne squealed.

"I'll have the wine ready!" Ryanne promised.

I groaned.

Ryanne returned to the room on the phone with Morgana and by the time she was off the call, I'd changed and was picking up my keys.

"I know you and Pasha are going to be having a day," I said around stolen kisses. "I'll spank you for interrupting our day together later."

Ryanne bit her bottom lip.

"I look forward to that." She kissed me deeper. "I'll but on the blue bikini specifically for my punishment."

"Damn, woman."

Ryanne giggled then arched a serious brow at me.

"But I needed to show her." She told me. "I'll make it up to you."

"You'd better."

Pasha arrived as I was opening the front door to leave.

She jumped into my arms, hugging me tightly and cheering.

"Finally!" She told me once she was back on her feet. "Now, scoot. I need to have Mrs. Weston alone for a little while. You can come back later."

I looked over her head to frown at Ryanne who was blowing me kisses.

Shaking my head, I winked at her and descended the stairs.

With the dying sun still warm on my skin with the cold air around me, I twirled the key chain around a finger, while whistling and making my way to my truck.

THE END