Free Perfectly Charming (A Morning Glory Novel Book 2) by Liz Talley Page B

you’re not ashamed of that.” God, she sounded like her mother. She wanted to snatch the words back even though she’d given them out of kindness . . . or perhaps as an apology for not standing up for him more when he was a kid. Not that she’d tolerated anyone being mean to him, but that she’d never tried to fix it in the first place.
    She couldn’t read his face. He stopped walking, growing still. The corners of his mouth tilted down as he nonchalantly lifted a shoulder. “You’re the first person from my old life who’s shown up here in Pensacola. Guess I can be honest with you—you know too much about my past for me to be anything but.”
    Jess didn’t say anything. She waited. Her therapist had told her she lacked listening skills, said she was too busy dashing into the fray, ready to fix things.
    Be still and listen.
    Ryan shoved his hands into his pockets. “I never disliked who I was. Sure, I had some scars, stayed away from guys who looked like they might torment me, but I was as well adjusted as could be expected.”
    “Nothing wrong with being smart,” she said. “So why leave something you were meant to be?”
    His brow lowered before he shrugged. “Because it was an empty life. Look, one night I worked late in the lab at Caltech. When I went out to my car, I found the battery dead. No reason. I never leave anything on, my OCD doesn’t allow for it, but the battery had given up the ghost. I tried calling a few colleagues, to no avail, and the security guard couldn’t help me. My apartment wasn’t far, so I decided to walk home and take care of the battery situation the next day. You know, I’d never done that, just walked home. As I crossed streets and passed houses, life opened up around me. It was as if I pushed open a door and a scene would unfold. One couple was fighting, hurling nasty accusations at each other while standing beside their van. One house had a bunch of guys sitting around on the porch, drinking beer, playing guitar. A little farther down, a couple with their baby arrived home. They were laughing and singing a funny song about eating beans and farting. And then right before I reached my apartment building, I found a drunk guy sitting on a trash can talking to a skinny mutt.”
    Ryan stopped talking.
    “So?” Jess prodded, not understanding why a walk home would necessitate such a huge change.
    “The bum looked at me like he could see who I was. Then he shook his head, like he felt sorry for me. Him feeling sorry for me . I had just sold my discovery to a huge pharmaceutical company for a few million dollars, and he felt sorry for me?” Ryan paused, giving a little laugh. “At first I was offended. But then he pointed his long finger at me—and it was like something from a Charles Dickens novel, I swear—and said, ‘You need a dog. Go with him, Ace.’”
    “I told him I didn’t want his dog. I was allergic, and besides they were messy and needed constant attention. But the bum looked at me and said, ‘Well, that’s what you’re missing, huh? Some dirt.’” Ryan held out his hands in a you see what I mean gesture.
    “And because a drunk bum said you needed some dirt, you walked away from—”
    “No, it was more like the final nail in the coffin, so to speak. I mean, the guy was pretty wasted, and I didn’t really trust his brand of therapy, but it was a lightbulb moment. I could see I wasn’t truly living.” Ryan drew a circle in the sand with his big toe. “As I climbed the stairs to my apartment, I realized I’d never had a fight with a woman. Hell, I’d never had a relationship with a woman. I didn’t have buds to drink with . . . I had never even been drunk. No pets. No prospect of children. No silly songs to sing. Nothing. My life was . . . a vacuum. I’d missed out on so much by living this plan my parents had conceived for me—or maybe it was one I never questioned. Either way, it pissed me off.”
    “So you quit your life?”
    Ryan