The date...

"How about you give me a hint on why Gabe is acting the way he is? He's obviously interested in Carley. So? What's the deal? I need to know, Ryder." I say tugging on my skinny jeans. It's always a struggle getting these up.

Ryder is looking at me with hunger in his eyes so I stop wiggling and stand there with my jeans hanging off my hips.

"I'll take everything back off if you tell me," I wink.

His eyes widen, "that's not a fair game."

I shrug, "neither is keeping secrets! Secret secrets are no fun unless you share with everyone," I sing loudly pulling my pants up the rest of the way.

"Hm, you lost your chance." I say walking towards the bathroom.

He laughs, "I'm sure I will have plenty of other chance to see you naked."

"Don't be so cocky, Ryder."

We continue to get ready while throwing small remarks at each other. Ryder feeds Boomer then takes him on a quick walk and I finish getting ready. It's nice to have someone around that fits. Graham never really fit even though I tried so hard to make it work.

"We're meeting them in ten minutes, Addison!" Ryder calls from the front of the house.

"Ready!" I say rushing out of the bedroom, slip, and fall right in front of him and Boomer. Boomer thinks it's a game so he jumps on top of me and starts licking my face. Ryder is laughing too hard to save me. So I'm sprawled out on the floor in my too tight jeans praying they haven't ripped.

"Help," I whimper as Boomer continues his assault, his tail slapping me in the face when he turns around.

Ryder continues laughing as he helps me up and pulls me into his arms, "are you okay?" he can barely get the words out.

The pain in my head starts as a dull throb and morphs into full blown someone is stabbing my head pain. I touch the back of my head to feel a lump beginning to form.

"Ouch," I cry and sit down on the couch. I don't do well with pain. Especially pain that doesn't seem to ever have an ending.

"Shit," Ryder says touching my head cautiously and heads into the kitchen for an ice pack. He places it gently on my head and I fall into his lap. He holds the ice as he runs his fingers through my hair.

He hands me the icepack so he can get out his phone, "hey, Addy just fell." Pause, "no, I'm serious." Pause, "just come over here instead." He hangs up the phone and looks down at me.

"Do not laugh again, Ryder. Fuck this hurts. It's your fault. Why the hell are they coming here? We have no food or activities."

"Activities? We aren't seven-years-old," he says. He pushes me off of him and begins rummaging through the cabinets that I know for a fact are empty. He looks around and grabs a few bottles of wine, glasses, and a bag of chips that must have been thrown in the back of the pantry.

"Done," he shrugs. I look at his sucky assortment and smile.

"At least we have wine."

"And we can order pizza," he says.

"Wow, aren't you an A plus party planner," I smirk.

He comes back to the couch kneeling over me. His lips crash onto mine and before I know it our tongues are wrestling and my hands are inching up his shirt.

Then we here a knock at the door and Boomer starts barking.

"Fuck, why are we having them over?" Ryder asks catching his breath and attempting to fix his hair.

"You wouldn't tell me the secret so now I'm going to find out for myself," I stand up and head towards the door. My head is still throbbing but wine will be sure to fix that right up.

Gabe and Carley stand in the doorway with huge smiles on their faces, "what?" I ask.

"You should probably close the curtain before giving the neighborhood a show," Carley says.

My eyes widen, "whoops."

After the pizza arrives and we have all had at least two glasses of wine each, my head hurts less and I'm ready to figure out what Gabe is hiding.

This is actually my first time really meeting Gabe besides at the bar that night. He is nice and friendly with dark brown hair and even darker eyes. I can tell he is nervous though as I stare at him but that could be because I'm staring at him.

"Gabe," I say making everyone's head turn in my direction. I can see Ryder's disapproval written all over his face, but I don't give a fuck. I will not let this guy screw over my best friend. And if that pisses Ryder off than I don't care.

Because make-up sex is pretty damn good.

"What do you do?" I ask.

"I'm a firefighter," he answers. He probably feels like he is being interrogated, which isn't that far off.

"So why are you screwing with Carley?" I ask. Blunt as ever. Carley looks unhappy too with the route I chose to take.

"Addison," Ryder says in a low voice and grabs my hand pulling me into the kitchen. He looks at me like he might want to hurt me, but I'm not scared.

I smile up at him and bat my eyelashes, "what seems to be the problem, darling."

His mouth twists up, trying to hold back a laugh. He is doing a pretty good job at being annoyed with me. I peak over to see Carley and Gabe in a quiet conversation.

I start to walk towards them when Ryder grabs me around the waist, "leave them alone."

"No way! I have to know what's going on!" I basically shout.

He now has his hand covering my mouth, "I'm sure Carley will tell you everything later." He kisses my neck and I calm down slightly.

"So I did my job?" I say, "I got him to talk."

"Yeah, it was definitely all your doing. He wasn't planning on talking to her tonight or anything," he says sarcastically.

"I hate you," I mumble.

"Mhm, me too, babe."