Ryan shrugged. “Okay.”
That’s what I loved about Ryan. No matter what, he would always have my back and support me in any decision I made. I was even more grateful later that night when he didn’t say a word about how I took a little more Benadryl than I should to help me get to sleep. I added some pain meds along with it to help my aching body. Ryan was already really good at ignoring the things that neither of us wanted to be forced to discuss.
Chapter 6
Katya
I was shocked when both Ryan and I managed to sleep in Monday morning. We had been in class, rehearsing, or nursing our sore bodies for a few weeks straight to get ready for our performances. Now that it was all over, we had a week of lounging around ahead of us. We would usually catch up on all the Netflix we had missed out on during the semester and eat all the unhealthy stuff we had to avoid during the performance season. A chocolate milkshake in your tummy would only weigh you down when you were trying to increase the height of your jumps. The only thing I had to worry about now was sitting on the couch.
Ryan and I slept in until almost noon, and I stayed in bed for as long as my bladder could stand it. I hobbled to the bathroom on aching legs.
“Let’s do yoga today!” I yelled at Ryan. “I need to stretch out my muscles.”
What I really needed was a workout, but after the intensive program we had just finished, we were due for a light week to let our bodies recover. Unfortunately for Ryan, my brain only calmed down when I was too tired to think. He was going to be in for a busy week.
Ryan hadn’t moved by the time I got back to our room, so I pounced on top of him and tried to pull away the pillow that was hiding the sun from his eyes.
“C’mon grumpy bear,” I teased him. “You’ll feel better once you get some food in your stomach.”
“Come back with an omelet, and I’ll consider it,” he said with a muffled voice. I gave up trying to tug the pillow away from his face and went in search of food.
Ryan eventually wandered out to the kitchen when he smelled the food cooking - just like I knew he would. Because it was Monday morning, both of his parents were at work, and we had the apartment to ourselves.
I sat a plate piled high with delicious food in front of Ryan and waited until he had demolished half of it before I tried to talk to him again.
“Do you want to see if we can do yoga in the park?” I asked hopefully.
We had to take it easy this week to let our bodies recover, but I was already antsy, and it hadn’t even been twenty-four hours.
“It’s going to be too hot in the afternoon,” Ryan grumbled. “Let’s get up early tomorrow to do that.”
I shrugged. “We need to stretch our muscles so they don’t tighten up.” I wanted to shake him to communicate the urgency that I was feeling, but I tried to stay calm.
Ryan gave me a strange look, so I probably wasn’t hiding it very well.
“Let’s just move the furniture in the living room,” he suggested. “We’ll have everything back by the time Mom comes home tonight.”
“We should try to do some laundry or something, so your mom doesn’t think we’re total losers for sitting around all day.”
I’d prefer to keep busy so that I didn’t have time to think. I didn’t want to worry about what would happen at dinner tonight or think about what I was going to say to the mother I’d just met. A pair of gray eyes flashed across my memory, but I quickly banished the image. Things were already complicated enough, and I didn’t need to be thinking about guys - especially not one that could potentially be my step-brother one day.
Ryan chuckled. “Believe me, Mom wouldn’t care if we didn’t get out of bed for two days. Dad, on the other hand…”
“Alright, let’s clean up the kitchen, put in some laundry, then do yoga,” I suggested.
Ryan narrowed his eyes at me. “Then the rest of the day with Netflix and popcorn?”
“Deal,” I answered.
Hopefully, that would be enough the get me to relax a little, but I doubted it. It was going to be difficult to take even a few days off - I already missed our grueling schedule that left no energy for anything but dancing.
Ryan and I were collapsed on the couch, watching the new episodes of Sabrina when his mom came home later that evening.
“What’s that wonderful smell?” Mrs. Logan asked with a pleased look on her face.
“Ry and I made lasagna for you and Mr. Logan,” I told her with a smile. “We wanted to do something nice since you’ve been so supportive this whole season.”
I knew how lucky I was that the Logans had agreed to take me in, but I couldn’t help but feel like a burden. They had a small two-bedroom apartment and had squeezed a second bed into Ryan’s room for me, but it couldn’t be easy to suddenly have another teenager living with them. I brought only the basics with me; everything else was in storage. My emotions were still much too raw to be able to go through Babulya’s things.
“Oh, you sweet girl,” Mrs. Logan cried out as she swept me up in a hug and looked at her son with mock accusation.
“I helped too,” Ryan grumbled.
Babulya left me the money she saved after my grandfather’s death, but
