Chapter 21

"Rise and shine idiot!" And there goes my nice, relaxing rest on the comfiest bed in the world. I was woken up by the shrill and annoying voice of Ryder Freaking Daniels.

Oh how I was going to kill him for this.

"What the hell?" I yelled as I felt the cold air on my bare legs as Ryder pulled the covers off of me.

"Wake up, wake up, everybody wa-ake up!" he sing songed and danced around on the floor.

What the actual fuck was going on?

"What's got Mr. Grumpy Pants in a good mood this morning?" I said, chuckling.

"I don't really know. We should go sightseeing today."

"Alright. Just let me get dressed." I turned on my phone and read the time. 1:47 p.m. "Ryder!"

He stopped his prancing and stared at me. "What?"

"It's past noon! Why didn't you wake me up earlier?"

He only laughed like a psycho and walked off to the bathroom.

I think he forgot to take his medication.

I got dressed into some light jeans and slip on vans with a maroon colored t-shirt.

When Ryder stepped back out, he looked me over and nodded. "That's a nice color on you."

"Oh, so you're saying that I don't look good in any other color?" I said angrily.

"Wh-what? N-no not at all I was just-"

I laughed. "Just joking, Rydie-poo."

He lifted an eyebrow. "Rydie-poo?"

"Uh huh."

"Don't ever call me that again." He said.

"What, you don't like Rydie-poo?" I asked, placing a hand over my heart and acting hurt.

"No, I don't." he took a taunting step forward and came face to face with me. I was trapped in between his hands that were placed on either side of me on the closet door that I was so conveniently back up into.

"I thought it was a cute nickname." I breathily whispered.

"Hmm." He hummed and smirked evilly. "I don't know, sounds a little too girly for me, don't you think?" he cocked his head to the side.

"Fits you well then."

He squinted at me leaned closer so that I could smell his fresh, piney scent that made me want to sink in his hold.

"You have a lot of nerve, Ruby."

"It's what keeps me going."

"Does it really? Interesting."

We fell into a silence with the obvious tension between us. Faces centimeters apart, breaths mingling, pulses racing. It was crazy.

Then we heard the heart stopping sound of door locks clicking and flew apart. The maid walked in and looked at us. She was a short, plump lady with her hair piled in a tight bun on top of her head.

"My name is Regina. I'm the maid. If you don't mind, I'll just clean up a bit and leave you two to whatever you were doing."

I blushed and nodded. "It's fine. We were just going to go sightseeing anyways, right Ryder?"

"Yep. Sightseeing."

It was an awkward silence as Regina glanced back and forth between Ryder and me. I cleared my throat loudly and broke the silence.

"Let's go, Ryder."

I grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the room to the elevator.

The ride down was tension filled and I just wanted him to say something. And he did.

"Hey Ruby?" he asked.

"Yeah?"

He paused, looked at the ground, then back up to stare straight at the elevator doors. "Uh, nothing. I forgot. Never mind."

I wanted to tell him to spill but the sharp ding of the elevator doors stopped me and we quickly stepped out.

Ryder stopped at the reception desk and grabbed two pamphlets that were filled with different touristy activities to do.

"It's not snowing that bad today, so I think we can do some outdoor things." I said.

"Yeah, there's golfing." Ryder suggested. I blankly stared at him and he looked back down to his pamphlet. "Or not."

I kept scanning through the pages. "Horse races?"

He appeared in thought and then smiled. "Sounds like a plan."

I never had a thing for horses when I was little like other girls did. They played with Barbie's and went horseback riding while I much preferred going to go kart races with my parents and riding on the back seat of a Harley Davidson.

But this, this was an excitement.

We got the best seats we could, which were two seat in the very first row, right by the track. Yeah, it had cost us a grand total of two hundred bucks, but we figured, 'Why the heck not?'

Every lap, the horses would gallop past us and the wind from their speed would flip my hair back. It was exhilarating.

Ryder seemed in joy as well. With every lap, he called out for the horse in first place to win. And when another horse would come into first, he'd switch to that one. I laughed at his "decisiveness."

When the horse race was done, we walked back out, eventually seeing angry people paying up their bet.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is one of the many ways to go broke.

"Okay," Ryder said; checking his watch, "it's 5:32 p.m. What else should we do?"

"There's an ice skating rink nearby. Want to eat and then go?" I suggested.

Ryder pointed out that there was supposed to be a good diner nearby, so we walked to it and sat at a cute little red booth.

"I feel like I'm in the fifties." I said, looking around at the milkshake posters and poufy-haired, poodle skirt dressed waitresses.

A girl our age in shorts and a tank top came up to our booth and smiled flirtatiously at Ryder.

"Hi, mind if I sit with you?" she asked in an annoyingly high pitched voice. She was batting her eyelashes so fast that I could almost see her whizzing up in the air.

"Why?" Ryder said.

She talked to Ryder like I wasn't even there. "Because silly, I'm hot, you're hot, we would make a great pair." She giggled.

We both stared at her like she had grown horns on her head. "Sorry, but I'm eating with my girlfriend. Would you mind leaving us now?" Ryder said and my heart sky rocketed.

Blondie looked at me and glared. "Her? For a guy like you I didn't think you could stoop so low." She spat.

That was it. I was going to knock her perfectly straightened teeth right out of her mouth. My fists clenched together tightly.

"Listen up, girlie. I'm trying to have a nice dinner right now so it would be amazing if you could take your trash talk and go somewhere else. Your ass must be real jealous of the shit that comes out of your mouth." I finished.

She looked at me and pouted her mouth into a frown then a straight line. "Whatever." Then she had the fucking nerve to wink at Ryder and toss a piece of paper down on the table near him that I knew held her number. "When you're ready to dump this piece of trash, call me."

And with that, I stood up and knocked her square in the jaw.

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