No Turning Back (Breaking the Rules #4) - A.M. Madden Page 0,32
get to. But still sound asleep herself, I didn’t want to wake her.
After our conversation last night, we’d chosen a movie to watch. No longer than ten minutes in, she had fallen asleep. Without the emotional stress that she must have been battling for weeks, Riana slept deeply. Sometime during the nighttime hours, she ended up with her head on my thigh and looked so peaceful lying across my lap that I refused to move. Instead, I’d covered her with the blanket that had been draped over the couch and decided there was no way I would leave.
As sunlight streamed through her windows now, I shuffled through my postslumber memory. I guessed knowing that Riana and I would resume our relationship made for some vivid dreams. They weren’t sexual in nature, more so snippets of her and me as a couple.
In one of them, I was in a hospital hallway on the phone, telling my parents Riana and I had had a baby boy. When I went back into the room where I had left them, they were gone. The bed was empty, as was the plastic bassinet. It was so real that I had woken up a bit shaken and freaked out. A dream spurred from her news combined with my brother’s history… but it was no less jarring.
I then watched her sleep… picturing what she would look like pregnant, imagining what our lives would look like after the baby was born. It was that vision that got me through all the uncertainty I’d been plagued with from her news.
This was temporary, and she would be fine.
I lost count of how many times I’d repeated that mantra in my head in just the past few hours. It had been the last thing I remembered before I had fallen asleep for the second time and was replaying on a loop now that I was awake.
Riana’s phone buzzed yet again. As gently as I could, I slid from beneath her, replacing my lap with a pillow. I watched motionless while she stirred, waiting to be sure she fell back to sleep. Not until her chest rose and fell steadily did I pad across her apartment toward the bathroom. After peeing, I took the liberty of using her mouthwash and then headed back to her kitchen to make coffee.
No sooner had I popped in a pod of my favorite blend than the intercom buzzed. “Shit.” Rushing toward the box, I pressed the button and quietly asked, “Who is it?”
“Who is this?” a man snapped.
“I’m Ryder. Riana is sleeping,” I whispered back while checking to make sure she hadn’t woken.
“Oh… um… okay. Sorry, man. I didn’t mean to interrupt. Can you just let her know Cooper came by?”
Curiosity forced my quick command, “No, wait. Come on up.” After pressing the proper button, I then stepped out into the hall to wait for him, closing the door a bit behind me. So I was about to meet the Cooper, rumpled clothes from the day before and bedhead be damned.
A few minutes later, the man who I remembered seeing Riana with in Jersey and Miami stepped out of the elevator. More specifically, the man who had stopped me from begging her to move to California. He casually sauntered over, carrying a brown bag in one arm with an unreadable guise on his face.
“I got nervous when she didn’t respond to my texts,” he said, before offering his free hand and adding, “I’m Cooper Stanton.”
“Ryder Carter.” A genuine smile spread as I shook his hand.
“It’s nice to finally meet you. From what Riana has told me, I feel like I know you.” I wanted to hate the guy, but something in him made that hard to do. It wasn’t his good-looking face or the laid-back aura. It was a vibe I got, as though he would do anything for Riana. How I knew that after a minute I had no clue, but I did.
Before I could respond in any way, the door swung open farther. “Hey, what’s going on out here?” Riana asked through a sleepy smile.
“I was just meeting Ryder.” Cooper raised a brow, to which she just shrugged.
“I guess I forgot about our breakfast date,” she said sheepishly.
“I figured.” He then lifted the paper sack. “Which is why I brought breakfast to you.” Without invite, he stepped past her into the apartment, leaving behind Riana with an apologetic expression on her face.
“Looks like the jig is up. You ready for this?” she asked.