Chapter Eighteen
“Oh, God. I think I might throw up.”
Ryle puts his thumb under my chin and tilts my face up to his. He
grins at me. “You’ll be fine. Stop freaking out.”
I shake my hands out and bounce up and down inside the elevator.
“I can’t help it,” I say. “Everything you and Allysa have told me about
your mother makes me so nervous.” My eyes widen and I bring my
hands up to my mouth. “Oh, God, Ryle. What if she asks me questions
about Jesus? I don’t go to church. I mean, I read the Bible when I was
younger, but I don’t know answers to any Bible trivia questions.”
He’s really laughing now. He pulls me to him and kisses the side of
my head. “She won’t talk about Jesus. She already loves you, based on
what I’ve told her. All you have to do is be you, Lily.”
I start nodding. “Be me. Okay. I think I can pretend to be me for
one evening. Right?”
The doors open and he walks me out of the elevator, toward
Allysa’s apartment. It’s funny watching him knock, but I guess he
technically doesn’t live here anymore. Over the last few months, he
just sort of slowly began staying with me. All of his clothes are at my
apartment. His toiletries. Last week he even hung that ridiculous
blurry photograph of me up in our bedroom, and it really felt official
after that.
“Does she know we live together?” I ask him. “Is she okay with that?
I mean, we aren’t married. She goes to church every Sunday. Oh, no,
Ryle! What if your mother thinks I’m a blasphemous whore?”
Ryle nudges his head toward the apartment door and I spin
around to see his mother standing in the doorway, a layer of shock on
her face.
“Mother,” Ryle says. “Meet Lily. My blasphemous whore.”
Oh dear God.