Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

After years of hard work and sacrifices, you were finally graduating college. It took you a few tries to figure out what you really wanted to do but once you found it, you were sure you had made the right decision. You were officially an acquisitions editor, which meant that you were literally paid to read books. Not only were you done with school, the company where you had done your internship hired you before you had even graduated. You finished school with excellent grades and a job, you were proud of yourself and so were your friends. That's how you found yourself in a restaurant/bar on a Friday night. Usually Fridays were for takeouts and watching TV but your friends had been really clear that going out wasn't negotiable. 

You have always been really shy, it's one of the reasons why you love books so much. You aren't really good at making friends, that's why you only have a few and you like it that way because you aren't a fan of big crowds and loud gatherings, unfortunately for you it's not something you could avoid tonight. Your friends had decided they were all bringing their significant other. You were the only single person of your group. It's not something that ever really bothered you, except for those moments when you were all together. That's when you really felt lonely.

Your friends chose a restaurant/bar so you could all have dinner together and then go dancing and drinking. You did neither of those things but you weren't going to complain. They were kind enough to want to celebrate with you.

The night had been going well, you were having fun and the food was really great. Your friends were talking amongst themselves and were kind of leaving you out of the conversation, but that's something you were used to. Their excuse was that you weren't in the same place in your life as they were and you couldn't relate. They weren't wrong, but they could have kept those topics of conversation for when you weren't around. 

You were still eating when one of your friends suggested they go dancing and they were gone in 5 seconds, leaving you to finish eating alone. 

The smile that you had been sporting all night quickly faded. Truthfully, you would have had a lot more fun if you had stayed home to watch TV. 

The waiter came over and cleaned the table once you were done, as soon as he was gone you pulled out your phone to see if you had received any new manuscripts to read for the weekend. You were so busy reading your emails that you hadn't noticed that the guys at the table across the room had been staring at you. 

Every Friday night, Ransom would meet up with his friends and spend most of the night drinking and throwing away their money. It's something they had started in college a few years ago and still did to this day. They liked to challenge each other by making bets and daring one another to do stupid stuff for a ridiculous amount of money. Each week, one of them would get a new dare and tonight was Ransom's turn. 

It was getting difficult to come up with different bets when you've been doing this for two years, every week. 

They had been at the restaurant an hour and they still hadn't found anything. They were racking their brain but coming up empty. Until one of the tables across the room made a lot of noise and caught their attention. 

In the blink of an eye everyone at the table was gone. Well, almost everyone. There was a girl that stayed behind. Ransom thought she looked beautiful, especially her smile but suddenly it was gone.

He had been too busy looking at her to notice the looks his friends exchanged. 

"We got your dare!" Ransom's friend, Chad, announced to get his attention.

Ransom's gaze finally broke away from you and he turned to his friends.

"Finally. What is it?"

Chad pointed to the girl that was sitting alone at the table. 

"For 1K, you have two months to make her fall in love with you."

Ransom turned to look at you again and smirked to himself.

"Have you seen how sad she looks? It’ll be easy. Let's go for 2k."

‘’Someone’s cocky. 2k it is.’’ His friends agreed. 

Ransom stood up. ‘’I’ll be right back.’’ He smirked and started walking towards the girl who was now his new prize. He’s gonna get that money, no matter what. 

As you checked your emails, you’ve come to realize that most people do not work on Friday nights. You didn’t have a single manuscript sent to you, which you were hoping there would be, to use it as an excuse to get out of here. You were a bad liar, no poker face whatsoever so you couldn’t really fake an excuse without them knowing about it. You were suddenly pulled out of your thoughts by someone lingering around your table.

You looked up to see one of the most gorgeous men you’ve ever seen in your life. He kept staring at you, not saying a word and it was getting very uncomfortable.

‘’Hi?’’ You tried. 

He grinned at the sound of your voice. ‘’Hi.’’ He held out his hand for you to shake it. ‘’I’m Ransom.’’ 

You took his hand in yours and shook it gently while you told him your name. ‘’You got a last name Ransom?’’ You laughed softly, letting go of his hand.

‘’It’s Drysdale.’’ 

Why did this name sound so familiar? You frowned, thinking. Then, it hit you. Linda Thrombey was his mom. Your expression changed from confusion to realization, and finally empathy. 

‘’I was very sorry to hear about your grandfather’s passing. My condolences.’’ 

Harlan had passed away last month from a heart attack. Everyone was shook up over it, especially Ransom. His grandfather had always been the only one who seemed to believe in him, he was the only one who never insulted him or talked to him like he was nothing but trash. He had hoped that his grandfather would live a very long life, just like Nana. Unfortunately, he wasn’t that lucky. 

Ransom’s grin faltered and he seemed to lose a little bit of his cockiness. It was the first time that someone actually showed him kindness after Harlan’s passing. His friends just asked him how much money Harlan had left him and made jokes about it. His family didn’t care enough about him to realize he was truly hurting. You were the first person to acknowledge him and his grief. 

‘’Thank you.’’ He said, sincerely. 

‘’How have you been holding up?’’ 

Again, Ransom wasn’t expecting this amount of kindness from a total stranger. His surprise must have shown because you quickly spoke before he could answer.

‘’I am so sorry. That is absolutely not my business.’’ You looked down at the table, slightly embarrassed. 

A small part of him started to feel guilty about the bet. He glanced over at his table to see that everyone was staring at him. Quickly he grinned again, reminding himself why he came over.

‘’I came over because my friends and I noticed you were alone, and we were wondering if you’d join us?’’ He asked with his best flirting voice, pointing to the table where his friends were still all looking at you two. 

You looked over and saw how intently they had been staring. You weren’t dumb, you knew they weren’t invinting you over because you looked like fun. They either felt bad for you or just wanted to prank you. It had happened to you a couple of times and you weren’t in the mood for humiliation. 

‘’Oh…’’ You trailed off, trying to come up with something convincing to reject him. ‘’That’s nice of you all, but I’m ok here. My friends went dancing, they should be back soon.’’ 

Again, Ransom was surprised you had turned him down. Usually women threw themselves at him, especially when they knew who he was and how rich he was but it hadn’t seemed to even phase you. As if on cue, your friends came back a few seconds later keeping him from trying to convince you.

‘’I’ll let you to it, then.’’ He smiled at you, determined to come back over to the table again before you left. 

Your friends were looking at him with big eyes, and then you. Curious to see what you would do, or hear what you would say; he walked away but not too far. As he turned around he noticed that there was a small bar near your table that allowed him to stay close without looking like a creep. 

‘’Do you know who that was?’’ One of your friends asked. 

You nodded. 

‘’What did he want? What did he say?’’ Another one of your friends asked, excited.

You shrugged. ‘’He asked if I wanted to join him and his friends at their table.’’

Your friends’ eyes widened in shock. ‘’Ransom Drysdale asked you to join them?’’ 

You tried not to take offense at the way she said it. She made it sound like it was impossible for you to have a guy, a handsome one at that, show you any kind of interest. Though you agreed with her, it still hurt to hear someone say it out loud.

Your other friend straight up laughed. ‘’Yeah, you probably heard him wrong.’’ 

Your cheeks were burning with embarrassment. 

‘’No offense honey, but he’s waaaaaaay out of your league.’’ 

You just nodded, agreeing with them.

Ransom was hearing everything and for some reason, he got pissed at the way your friends had been talking to you. He barely knew you but he could tell that you were a very kind person, someone that cared a lot about other people’s wellbeing and they just treated you like trash. Before even realizing what he was doing, he had turned back and was walking over to your table. He was very careful to ignore your friends, not even glancing at them and waited until you were looking at him before speaking. 

‘’Sorry beautiful. I didn’t want to seem pushy since you turned me down but, I would hate myself if I left without asking for your number.’’ He leaned forward, laying both his hands on top of the table for support as he got a little bit closer to you. 

He was laying it on pretty thick but your friends had rubbed him the wrong way. He was giving you his most charming smile, loving how flustered you looked. 

You opened your mouth to answer him but your friend spoke up before you could.

‘’You want her number?’’ She asked, like it was the most absurd thing she’s ever heard. 

Everybody heard it in her tone, even Ransom. He turned his head and looked her up and down, turning his head again to look at you. ‘’Sorry honey -’’ He used the same tone your friend had used earlier when calling you honey and telling you you weren’t worth his time. ‘’You’re really not my type.’’

He was talking to your friend while looking directly in your eyes. He grinned at you. ‘’So… Can I get your number?’’ He tried again. 

The smile you gave him just illuminated your eyes and your entire face. 

It was the first time someone had stood up for you to them, though he hadn’t flat out called them out; watching him rejecting her felt even better for some reason. 

At the sight of your smile, Ransom started getting mixed feelings. None of them were good. The guilt that had tried to come out to the surface earlier was back and even stronger and the way his heart skipped a beat didn’t announce anything good. Too late. He was in too deep, he couldn’t quit now. 

Ransom handed you his phone, unlocked, for you to enter your number. Which you did quickly after taking his phone, then you gave it back to him.

“Thanks gorgeous, I’ll definitely call you.’’ He winked at you and walked back to his table, never once looking back at your friends. 

He couldn’t understand why someone as sweet as you would waste her time with horrible people like them. 

Probably for the same reason he was still hanging out with his dumb friends from college; fear of loneliness. 

The next day Ransom had texted you, asking if he could take you out to dinner. You accepted. 

You had been surprised when Ransom asked you out. Your friends were absolutely right when they said he was out of your league and you really didn’t expect him to actually reach out to you and go as far as taking you to dinner, but you decided to go anyway.

Ransom showed up at the exact time he said he would, not a minute later. He was dressed with a different sweater from last night and black dress pants. It was a simple outfit but it made him look elegant at the same time. 

You had debated for a long time on what to wear. You weren't a big fan of wearing any kind of heels, most of your shoes were either sneakers or flats. You had a dress code at work, and you'd had to buy multiple outfits that were office appropriate. Same for the shoes. You decided to wear a really simple black dress. You had no idea where you were going and it seemed like the safest option. Looking at how chic his outfit was, you were now thinking it might have been too safe of a choice. 

"I should go change." You looked down at your outfit, grimacing.

"What?" He looked at you, confused. "Why?"

He sincerely thought you looked beautiful and it was clear you weren't seeing yourself the same way he did. Though after witnessing how your friends had talked to you, he could understand why. 

"I don't know.. isn't it too… meh?" You bit your lower lip, a sign that you were starting to get a little nervous.

"Not at all. You look beautiful." He smiled at you. 

He offered you his arm and gave a quick nod towards his car. "Let's go, I'm starving." 

He grinned at you to encourage you and it worked, you felt yourself relax a little bit. You wrapped your hand around his arm and stepped outside, closing and locking the door with your free hand. He walked you over and opened the door for you, waited until you were seated and quickly closed it. He walked around and sat in the driver's seat. 

The ride over was a bit awkward. You weren't really good with small talk, especially not when you felt nervous. Ransom didn't mind the silence though, it was refreshing. 

As he parked the car, you saw the name of the restaurant and your eyes widened. This was one of the most expensive restaurants you'd ever heard of. Apparently, most of the meals had 3-digit prices and the portions were ridiculously small.

"Ransom… This is way too expensive." 

He shrugged. "It's nothing, really." 

His answer made you cringe slightly but you decided not to comment on it. 

"Didn't you say you were starving? This is hardly the place for that kind of hunger." You pointed out, hoping to change his mind. 

He sighed and you started to feel bad. You should have kept your mouth shut. 

Ransom was slightly annoyed. Usually, people never think twice about spending his money. Hell, women threw themselves at him even more once they knew who he was and how much he's worth. That was his power play and also what he counted on to seduce you. He had sincerely thought that 2k was going to be easy money, now he wasn't so sure.

You could feel him getting frustrated and in this moment you knew that you had ruined the night and he was never going to call you again. Your embarrassment could be seen as clear as day all over your face. You started to play with the hem of your dress' skirt.

"You should just go in… I'll take a cab home." 

You were avoiding his eyes, looking anywhere but his face. 

He turned his head to the side to look at you and, though you weren't facing him, he could see you felt bad. All his frustration quickly dissipated and now he was the one who felt bad. His features softened as he spoke again. 

"No, we'll go eat somewhere else. Anywhere you want." 

You hesitated. Ransom reached over to you and tucked a strand of your hair behind your ear, softly brushing his thumb across your cheek.

"Come on, gorgeous. Where are we going?"

Your cheeks were burning up because of both the nickname and his touch. 

"There's a place on the next street over that I really like." You suggested, shyly. 

"Then that's where we'll go." He pulled his hand away from your face and took his key to start the engine but you stopped him by placing your hand over his forearm. 

"Could we walk?"

It was a really warm night and you loved walking at this hour.

"Of course." He nodded before getting out of his car.

He rushed to your side to open your door before you could and offered his hand for you to hold on to as you got out. He shut the door behind you and locked the doors, waiting for the little "beep" that confirmed that all doors were locked and the anti-theft alarm was on. 

"Lead the way." He smiled, waiting for you to start walking in the right direction so that he could follow. 

He was shocked to see you had brought him to a diner. Ransom Drysdale in a diner. That was going to be a first. 

He almost wanted to tell you that it was his turn to veto your choice of restaurant but when he looked down and saw your smile, he changed his mind. 

"I promise, you're going to love it." You smiled at Ransom and walked over to the door, holding it open for him. 

"Aren't I supposed to be the one to do that?" He teased you as he walked inside. 

"I promise I'll let you open the next one." You smiled playfully and followed him inside.

The more he saw you smile, the more he realized that there weren't a lot of things he wouldn't do to make you smile at him. The thought terrified him. 

A waitress quickly came over to greet them and asked them where they wanted to sit. Ransom quickly took a look around the restaurant and pointed to a booth in the back corner. 

"Over there would be great." 

The waitress simply nodded, took two menus and walked you over to your table. 

You both sat on opposite sides and grabbed your menus.

"Anything to drink?" Your waitress asked. 

"Water with a lemon slice, please." 

"Make that two." Ransom said to her as he looked down to start making his choice. 

Your drinks were brought in less than a minute. 

Ransom asked you what was good and you pointed out some of your favorites. You decided to both take something different and that way you'd be able to share. Once the waitress had written down your orders and left again, you and Ransom started talking. For some odd reason, the awkwardness from the car ride was gone and the conversation was flowing between the two of you. You've both come to realize that you had a lot of common interests, which helped ease some of the remaining tension and made talking a lot easier for you. 

Ransom was actually really funny and made you laugh to the point where your sides were hurting.

"I have to give to you gorgeous, this was really good." 

The smile that appeared on your face was priceless. 

"I'm glad you liked it." 

You stood up. "I'll be right back."

You went to use the bathroom and when you came back you found your waitress shamelessly flirting with Ransom. You didn't know what to do. Should you give them a moment or just go sit down? 

The woman could have easily been a model; she was so beautiful. 

Ransom usually would have jumped on the chance to bring that girl home, she was gorgeous but she couldn't hold a conversation to save her life.

He smiled politely at her without engaging too much, waiting for you to come back to save him from her. He thought it was weird, you had been gone for almost 10 minutes and it was starting to be difficult to stay polite. He leaned back against the booth and looked behind the waitress, that's when he saw you a couple of feet away, waiting. The waitress kept going on and on but he had stopped paying attention the moment he saw you. 

"Gorgeous." He called out to you, cutting off the waitress in the middle of a sentence.

You looked up and saw that he was waving you over. You went back to sit on your side but Ransom shook his head no. He slid a little further down on his side.

"Come here." He smiled at you, now completely ignoring the other woman. 

You sat next to him and he wrapped his arm around your shoulders. 

Ransom held out his free hand, gesturing for the waitress to stop talking as she pretended you weren't there.

"If you could let me enjoy my date, that'd be great." He nodded, gesturing for her to leave their table and go back to work.

You expected Ransom to let go of you when she left, thinking it was just a way for him to get rid of her but surprisingly his arm only tightened gently around you. 

"I was wondering what was taking so long."

He looked down, his eyes meeting yours. 

"Sorry. I just thought maybe you wanted some time alone with her." You shrugged, looking down at the table.

"Why would I want to do that when I can spend some time alone with you?" 

"Have you actually looked at her?" You asked, surprised. "She's flawless." 

"Oh, I listened to her talk for 10 minutes. She has flaws, lots of them. Don't sell yourself short. She should be the one to envy you, not the other way around." He kissed your cheek. 

You wanted to fight him back on that, but the night had been going well and you didn't want to ruin the mood so instead you whispered a quick thank you.

"Ready to go?" 

You nodded, letting him know that you were. What you weren’t ready for though for the night to end, it almost made you sad to think it was already over. 

Ransom politely waved the waitress over and waited. She finished with the table she had been at and walked over to yours. 

She had a playful smirk on her lips, she clearly hadn't given up on Ransom.

"What can I do for you handsome?" 

Her question made you cringe, but you tried not to let it show. Ransom squeezed one of your shoulders gently and brought you closer to his chest. 

"Just the check, please." His tone was cold, which didn't seem to bother her or make her want to back down.

"Sure thing. Anything else?" 

"No." He turned his attention back to you.

"Where are we going next?" 

Your eyes snapped up, surprised but excited that he still wanted to spend time with you. 

"You choose." You smiled at him. 

He took a moment to think about it. "Want to go see a movie?" 

"Yes. Or we could go back to my place and watch a movie there?"

"Oh! Even better. Let's go back to mine. I have a home theater I never get to use." 

You laughed and turned in Ransom's arms to face him. 

"Did you forget that you had a theater at home?" 

He shrugged, a small smile. "Maybe…" 

You laughed again. "I'm scared to ask how many rooms your house has and how many of them you forgot were there." 

"It's probably best if you don't ask." He laughed with you. 

When the check came, you quickly glanced at it and pulled out your wallet from your bag, Ransom quickly stopping you with a hand on top of yours. 

"What are you doing?" 

"I'm… paying for my half?" 

"Like hell you are." He pushed down on your hands so that you'd put the wallet back. 

"Put that money away. It's on me."

You hesitated. "Are you sure, I really don't mind paying for myself." 

"I'm sure, gorgeous." 

He nudged the small of your back gently. "Let's go." 

You stood up, allowing Ransom to slide down to the edge and stand up. He put a few bills under the check, leaving a really good tip even though the waitress had been a tad disrespectful towards you. He put his wallet back into his pocket and smiled at you. You both stepped outside, happy to see that it was still very warm. The walk back to his car wasn't long but it was nice to be able to enjoy it nonetheless. 

"Could we stop quickly by my house, I'd like to put on more comfy clothes."

"Of course, gorgeous. Whatever you need." 

"Are you sure? They won't be cute clothes, I have to warn you." 

He laughed while putting his arm back around your shoulders, pulling you closer to his side. 

"I'm sure you'll still look adorable. Plus, I am going to change too." 

As he did at the beginning of the night, he opened the passenger door for you and waited until you were seated before closing it and taking his place in the driver’s seat. 

The drive back to your place was quick and the conversation came a lot easier than it did earlier. 

Ransom parked in your driveway and turned off the engine. 

‘’You can come in while I change, if you want.’’ You offered, with your hand on the door handle. 

He nodded quickly and opened his own door. He followed you inside and shut the door behind him. You took off your shoes and turned around to face him. 

‘’I’ll be right back.’’

He took off his shoes too.

‘’Take your time, I’ll wait. I might snoop around a little bit.’’ 

You laughed, as you walked up the stairs to your room. ‘’You might be disappointed with what you’ll find.’’ 

He looked around the kitchen a little bit, then moved to the living room. As he walked in, what he found made him freeze in his tracks. 

A giant book shelf took almost an entire wall, there were books on every shelf. There were manuscripts laying around on the coffee table and on your couch. It was more of a reading nook than a living room. He stood in front of your book collection and checked out the books you had. A small smile formed on his lips when he saw that you had every single one of Harlan’s books. He’d been so deep in thoughts that he never heard you come in.

‘’There you are.’’

He jumped slightly at the sound of your voice and turned around to look at you. ‘’You didn’t tell me you like reading this much.’’ 

You chuckled. ‘’Those-’’ You pointed at the books behind him. ‘’Are all the books I’ve either received or bought since I was a kid.’’ 

You pointed to a few rows of books. ‘’Those are from college.’’

You pointed at the manuscripts on your coffee table and couch, then to the bottom shelf. ‘’Those are for work.’’

Ransom raised a brow, surprised. ‘’Work? What do you do for work?’’ 

He never really had a job and it never occurred to him to ask you about what you did for a living.

‘’I work for a publishing company. They send me manuscripts, I read them and tell them which ones I like. The books on the last shelf are all the books I helped to get published.’’ 

‘’Wow. How long have you been doing this?’’

‘’I graduated this week, but I’ve been an intern there for almost 2 years.’’

Ransom turned around quickly to look at the books you had helped to get published. ‘’You work on all of these in two years?’’ 

‘’I did.’’

‘’That’s impressive. Amazing, even.’’ 

He was genuinely impressed. He had worked alongside his grandfather and his uncle for their own publishing company, so he knew how much hard work it took. 

‘’Thank you. I love it. I just wish I could read faster so that I could read more books.’’ You laughed. 

‘’You must read pretty fast already.’’ 

He faced you again, this time looking at what you were wearing. The dress was gone and instead you were wearing a pair of grey sweats, a t-shirt and a pair of socks. He surprised himself by thinking you looked so warm and cozy that he just wanted to snuggle up with you. 

What was wrong with him? He could barely recognize himself tonight. He actually enjoyed talking to you and listening to you. He turned down a really hot waitress that was REALLY into him and not just because he wanted to be polite to you, but because you were the only one on his mind right now. He hadn’t tried to kiss you or tried to make a move on you, and now he wanted to snuggle up with you? At first, he was being overly sweet to win the bet, he knew that his usual snobbish, asshole-y attitude wouldn’t get him far with you, but now he kept forgetting it was all for a bet. 

Ransom genuinely liked you and that terrified him. This was the first time you hung out together and he was already in deep, what would it look like in two months? Maybe he should just call his friends and call off the bet, cut off ties with you and go back to the diner to work you out of his system with that waitress. He thought about coming up with some kind of excuse to leave without, until you smiled at him and asked if he was ready to go. He definitely wasn’t leaving without you. 

You had expected for his house to be huge but you weren’t prepared for it to be this big. 

‘’Holy crap.’’ You whispered as he parked near the front door. ‘’You live alone in this?’’ 

You couldn’t take your eyes off of the sight in front of you. 

‘’Yes.’’

‘’No wonder you forgot you had a home theater in there.’’ 

He laughed. 

‘’Do you want to keep staring at it, or do you want to come in ?’’ He teased. 

You were finally able to look elsewhere and you felt your cheeks becoming hot, a little embarrassed you had been staring this intensely. 

‘’Sorry.’’ 

‘’I’m just teasing, gorgeous. But we should definitely go inside.’’ He laughed softly. 

You both got out of the car, he unlocked the door and turned off the alarm before letting you in. His house looked even bigger from the inside. You took off your shoes and left them next to his.

‘’You can leave your coat on the couch. I’ll be back in two minutes.’’

‘’I’d say I was going to snoop around too, but I’m scared I might get lost.’’

‘’It’s not that big.’’ You heard Ransom say from upstairs. 

‘’My house could fit in yours like, 10 times.’’

You heard him laugh again, then two minutes later he was back in the living room wearing an outfit very similar to yours.

‘’Follow me.’’ He said, leading you to a room at the back of his house. One of the few rooms that had an actual door, as you noticed.

He opened the door, letting you walk in first. It was a small room, compared to the others, a big screen covered an entire wall and there were loveseats on each side of the room and in the middle there was a full sofa lounger, which was basically a sectional with an extension for your feet.  

‘’Where should I sit?’’ You asked, looking around. 

He pointed to the sofa. ‘’I’m gonna go grab what we need. Do you want a blanket?’’ 

‘’Yes, please!’’ 

Ransom smiled and left the room for a few minutes. You weren’t sure where exactly to sit, so you decided to sit in the middle, waiting to see what Ransom would say when he got back. 

The big screen turned on and all the lights were turned off. Ransom came back holding a blanket and a remote. 

‘’What should we watch?’’ He asked you while he took a seat on your right side but in the corner so he’d have cushions against his back and side. He held out the blanket that you gladly took. You regretted choosing to wear a t-shirt, you were always cold, you didn’t know why you thought this time would be different. 

‘’We can watch whatever you want. I’m not difficult when it comes to movies.’’ You smiled at him. ‘’Just no romance movies.’’ 

He looked at you surprised. ‘’Well that’s a first. I don’t think I’ve ever met a woman in my life that didn’t want to watch romance movies.’’

You shrugged. ‘’I just never liked them, but if that’s really what you want to watch it’s fine.’’ 

He laughed. ‘’Don’t worry, gorgeous. You’re safe with me. I never liked them either.’’ 

He ended up choosing a comedy that he had been wanting to watch for a long time. About 30 minutes in, he whispered your name. You turned your head to look at him. 

‘’Come here.’’ He held his left arm up, inviting you to come snuggle with him. 

You moved until you were flush against him and you put the blanket on his and your legs. He wrapped his arm around your shoulders, bringing you a tad closer. You hadn’t noticed earlier when you sat with him in the diner how good he smelled but now being this close to him without the smell of fried food you were hit with a good whiff of his cologne and you loved it. 

‘’That’s much better.’’ He smiled down at you, relaxing against the cushions. 

He was right. 

When the movie ended, Ransom started another one and before you knew it, it was 2 AM. You were getting sleepy, though you denied it when Ransom asked you, he could clearly see it on your face. 

Truth be told, you weren’t used to being up at this hour. You didn’t have a very active life. You rarely went out or hung out with friends, you were always home by yourself and you were usually in bed before midnight. 

Ransom stopped the movie and gently squeezed your shoulder. 

‘’Let’s get you home.’’ 

You looked up at him and gave him a very sleepy smile that made his heart melt. 

The drive home was very silent, but it was comfortable. You were trying not to fall asleep in his car and it turned out to be a lot more difficult than you thought it would be. 

You opened your eyes when you felt knuckles gently brushing against your cheekbone. 

‘’Hey sleepyhead. We’re here.’’ He said softly as you woke up. 

You hadn’t even realized you had fallen asleep. You rubbed your eyes with the palm of your hands, not noticing Ransom had gotten out of the car and was opening your door. He held out of his free hand to help you out and you gladly took it. He gently pulled you out of his car and closed the door behind you. He walked you up to your door.

‘’I’m sorry for falling asleep.’’ You apologized while unlocking the front door. 

‘’You don’t have to apologize for that. You’re cute when you snore.’’

You turned around with your eyes wide. Before you could say anything Ransom chuckled. 

‘’Relax, gorgeous. I’m just teasing.’’ 

You sighed in relief. 

‘’Thank you for taking me out tonight. I had a really great time.’’ 

He leaned down and softly kissed your cheek. 

‘’I’ll call you in the morning.’’ 

And he did call you. He also texted you, a lot. Which you liked because he still seemed interested, he even talked about taking you out again during the week if you were up for it.

Which of course you were. 

It took a little less than two weeks for Ransom to completely forget about the bet, and about his dumb college "friends".

He was almost embarrassed by how much he liked you. Almost. He was very confused as to why a girl like you would ever go out with a guy like him, more than once even. 

He'd sometimes show up at your job to take you out for lunch, wanting to spend as much time as he could with you.

He had decided to take things slow with you, he was too scared to do something that might scare you off and push you away so he took everything you were willing to give him without asking for more.

You were shocked to see that Ransom wanted to spend so much time with you. When he had asked for your number you had been convinced he wasn't going to call, then he took you out and you didn't think you'd hear from him again but as it turns out, he seemed to really enjoy being around you. The one thing you had made really clear with him is that you didn't want his money. You didn't want him to take you out to very expensive restaurants, if you couldn't afford it on your own then you didn't want to go there. 

It was refreshing for him to finally meet someone that didn't want any of his money. For some reason, it just made him want to spend money on/for you even more. 

Movie night was now happening, at least, once a week. Either at your house or his. You had very similar tastes, it made it easy to choose what to watch as you were sure you'd both enjoy the same thing. Ransom loved movie night for multiple reasons, being able to snuggle with you on the couch was his favorite though. 

Your friends kept texting you and calling you, curious to see how it was going with Ransom. 

You rarely answered. You knew they were only asking because they wanted to see how long it would take before he found his new flavor of the month and dumped you. 

That thought scared you, simply because you started to really like him. You had heard the rumors, heard all about how he was a "trust fund prick", that he was an asshole not capable of being nice. None of it was true. At least, it wasn't the Ransom you had met. The Ransom you hung out with was very funny, though he liked to show off his expensive things or his money, he had always been respectful towards you. He was actually a big softie.

He's always the one to initiate any kind of physical touch with you. Whether it'd be him having his arm around your shoulders or wrapped loosely around your waist, kissing your cheek or the top of your head, pulling you into his side to have you as close as possible and even sometimes, he would hold your hand. 

Ransom had never noticed how much he craved human touch. He had been with a lot of women but never in the way that he was with you. He craved your hugs or the kiss on his cheek you gave him every night you were together when you had to say goodbye. He craved hearing you laugh or seeing you smile. All those feelings were very new to him and they scared him but at the same time they felt so right. Unknowingly, he had probably been looking for this kind of intimacy in every woman he had dated or slept with but never found it. Until now, until you. 

It has been 3 weeks since you met and you were pretty much inseparable by now. You spent most of your evenings together, like tonight. 

You had gotten home from work to find Ransom waiting for you with a pizza. Your day had been so rough that you had completely forgotten that tonight was movie night, you were going to be able to turn your brain off and focus on something else. 

You had watched a new movie in your living room while eating the pizza he had brought over and once you were done eating you moved to the couch and as soon as your butt touched the cushions, one of his arms would reach out over to you, grab your waist gently and pull you closer to him. 

You could have simply sat right beside him every time, but you liked that he didn't want you that far away from him. 

At the end of the movie, you both got up from the couch and cleaned up the coffee table of the dirty dishes and used napkins that were laying around. 

You walked him to the door, getting ready to open it for him but he stopped you. Instead, he pulled you into a tight, yet gentle, hug. 

He rested his forehead against yours while his hands moved up to softly hold each side of your face, his thumbs stroking your cheeks. You closed your eyes and relaxed under his touch. Ransom hadn’t been very affectionate towards you so far, except when he put his arm around your shoulders or when he hugged you as you watched movies. This was the first time that he was touching you in such an affectionate way and you liked it. Your hands rested on his clothed forearms, squeezing them gently. After a minute, Ransom moved to kiss the tip of your nose then your forehead. He leaned back, slowly letting go of your cheeks and he smiled at you when you opened your eyes. 

‘’Good night, gorgeous.’’ 

You smiled back at him and opened the door for him. 

‘’Good night.’’ 

You watched him as he walked down the steps and to his car, he opened his door and turned your way to sit; smiling at you one more time before sitting down and closing the door. You waited until he was completely backed out of your driveway before closing, then locking your front door. 

It got more difficult to say goodbye at the end of the night a little more each time. Ransom was really opening himself up to you and you could see his true self coming to the surface.

Until one day he showed up at your place and as soon as you opened the door and your eyes landed on him, you knew something was wrong. The usual glimmer that was in his eyes was gone, he didn’t have a smile or his little playful smirk lightening up his face. He seemed tense. 

You opened your mouth to ask him what was wrong but he just pushed past you and walked to your living room without saying anything. You really didn’t like his attitude and you felt like tonight wasn’t going to end well. 

You closed the door and joined him in your living room, you crossed your arms and looked at him as he was sitting on your couch. He waited for you to sit down but you were standing in front of him with no intentions to move.

‘’What?’’ He asked, you could hear his annoyance dripping from his tone.

Your jaw clenched, trying not to let it show that the way he was talking to you actually stung. 

‘’Are you being serious right now?’’ You uncrossed your arms and put your hands on your hips. 

Ransom rolled his eyes and scoffed. ‘’Just put the damn movie on, so we can get it over with.’’ 

You didn’t know who the man that was sitting on your couch was because he looked a lot like the Ransom you’ve come to know but that was certainly not the same man.

‘’What’s wrong?’’ 

He finally looked at you. ‘’What’s wrong is that you don’t want to sit down and start the fucking movie.’’ 

Ransom saw on your face the exact moment he had gone too far. You cleared your throat. 

‘’I’m gonna go up to my room and when I come back down in five minutes I want you gone.’’ You said calmly as you turned around and left. 

Chapter Text

You shut the door behind you once you’ve reached your room, so gently that Ransom barely heard it and the fact that you were so calm made it so much worse for him. He wished you would have just screamed at him instead, he should have known that his sweet girl was better than that. He had provoked you, trying to pick a fight but instead he ended up hurting you and guilt quickly overpowered the anger he had been feeling when he first got here. He rubbed his hands on his face, whispering a small ‘’fuck’’ before finally getting up. Normally, he would have just left and forgotten about you but that wasn’t even an option for him. Instead, he walked up the stairs and softly knocked on your bedroom door. 

‘’Can I come in?’’ He asked hesitantly. ‘’Please?’’ 

After a few seconds, that felt like an eternity, he heard some shuffling behind your door and after a few more seconds, you had opened the door. 

Your eyes were a little bit red and puffy, a sign that you had been crying not long ago and Ransom hated himself even more. 

‘’I told you to leave.’’ 

Your tone was cold, he had never heard your voice like that. He shook his head. ‘’I’m not leaving until we talk, then if you still want me to leave I’ll leave but I can’t go with you like this.’’ 

‘’I have nothing to say to you.’’

‘’Then listen. Please.’’ He pleaded with his eyes.

You huffed, turning around to go sit on the edge of your bed. You crossed your arms over your chest and kept your eyes glued to the floor in front of you. 

Ransom walked in, standing in front of you but he quickly noticed that you were doing everything you could to avoid looking directly at him. He stepped closer to you and dropped to his knees to be at eye level with you. You still weren’t looking at him, though he hoped that would change soon.

‘’I’m sorry for being a dick. I’m not used to people… caring or even noticing when I’m in a bad mood so I get defensive and that’s not fair to you. Right before I came here, my mom called and told me we were having dinner with the whole family together tomorrow night and it’s not optional. My family just has a way to get into my head and bring out the worst part of me, and usually what I do is pick fights with people until I’ve let out all my anger. It’s a really bad habit that I’ve been trying to stop doing and I shouldn’t have came here while I was so pissed off but I didn’t want to miss our movie night ‘cause you’re the only person that’s keeping me sane right now.’’ He sighed, putting his hands on your knees. ‘’I was hoping you wouldn’t ask questions and I would have time to calm down before the movie ended but I should have known that my girl was going to notice.”

The new title he gave you made you look at him, surprised that he would call you that. 

He smiled shyly when your eyes met. ‘’There she is.’’ 

You uncrossed your arms and he was quick to take your hands in his. He brought both hands to his lips, kissing your knuckles and looking up at you again. ‘’I really am sorry.’’

You could see in his eyes that he was being sincere. ‘’Just talk to me next time instead of snapping at me.’’ 

His heart swole in his chest; next time . 

‘’Don’t talk to me like that ever again.’’ 

Ransom shook his head quickly and furiously. ‘’Never, I promise.’’ 

He intertwined your fingers on each hand and gave them a gentle squeeze. ‘’I’ll just have to stay away for a few days, ok? I’m trying really hard to change but my family… They manage to get to me every time and I know I will say something that I’ll end up regretting.’’ 

You looked down at your hands and chewed on your bottom lip for a few moments as you were thinking. Ransom tried not to look at your mouth for too long, his entire body was screaming at him to just grab you and kiss you but he knew he hadn’t done anything worthy of you kissing him. Especially not after the little stunt he pulled a few minutes ago. Your voice pulled him out of his thoughts.

‘’What if-’’ You cleared your throat, trying to find the courage to finish your sentence. ‘’What if I went with you… tomorrow night?’’ 

Ransom’s eyes widened and his eyebrows shot up at your suggestion. He hadn’t expected for you to offer something like this, especially not after the way he had talked to you. Here you were offering to help him after he had just treated you like dirt. God, you were way too good for him. 

‘’You- You’d do that?’’ He finally managed to answer.

You shrugged. ‘’Only if you want me there.’’ You mumbled, going back to chewing on your bottom lip. Your gaze was still focused on your hands. 

He let go of one of your hands, placing a finger under your chin and gently tilted your head back so you’d look at him. ‘’You have no idea how much I want you there with me, but my family is nuts. They are toxic and complete assholes, are you sure you want to go?’’ 

You nodded. ‘’We’ll stay a while and if we need to, I’m not above faking an emergency to get out of there.’’ You chuckled softly, the sound making Ransom’s heart jump in his chest. 

‘’And you better be nice to me, otherwise that emergency might only require one of us and I’ll leave your ass behind.’’ 

Ransom laughed and nodded. ‘’Deal.’’ 

You stayed like this for a couple of minutes, just looking in each other’s eyes with little smiles at the corner of your lips. 

‘’Can I hug you?’’

You nodded shyly. Ransom was quick to gently nudge your legs apart and move forward on his knees until he was flushed against the mattress. He wrapped both of his arms around your waist and hid his face in the crook of your neck. You put your arms around his shoulders and giggled when Ransom hugged you so tightly he almost made it difficult for you to breathe. 

‘’I know you don’t want to go to your family dinner tomorrow night, but please don’t break my ribs.’’ You joked.

He loosened his grip on you, chuckling. ‘’I’m sorry.’’ 

When both of your laughter died down, Ransom got serious again. He placed a kiss on your shoulder, over the shirt you were wearing and whispered ‘’I’m sorry’’. He placed another kiss on your shoulder but this time a little closer to the collar of your shirt, apologizing again. He did this all the way to the crook of your neck and up the side and stopped just below your ear. By the time he stopped, your entire body was covered in goosebumps. 

‘’I’m gonna go now, before I do something that’ll make you change your mind. I’ll pick you up at 6.’’ He kissed your cheek, putting his hands on either side of you to help push himself back up. 

You looked up at him. ‘’What about the movie?’’ 

‘’You still want to watch it?’’ He sounded surprised that you wanted him to stay. 

‘’Only if you want to… If you have other things to do, it’s ok. We’ll watch another ti-’’ 

You got cut off by your own little squeal when Ransom grabbed you and lifted you in his arms. 

‘’I’m gonna watch as many movies as you want me to, princess.’’ 

You laughed and quickly grabbed his shoulders when he moved to the top of the stairs. 

‘’I swear to God Ransom if you drop me or if you fall…’’

‘’You have so little faith in me.’’ He shook his head, faking being disappointed in you.

‘’If we make it down the stairs, I’ll think about apologizing.’’ 

Thankfully, you made it in one unscattered piece. You quickly wiggled out of his arms and sighed with relief when both your feet were on the ground. 

‘’So dramatic.’’ He rolled his eyes playfully and put his arm around your shoulders, walking to the living room with you. 

The rest of the night went without a hitch. Ransom held you a little bit closer and a little bit tighter than he did the previous times. He kissed your cheek every 5 minutes. You timed it. He was the worst when it came to expressing his feelings with words, he always ended up saying something he shouldn’t have so instead he decided to show you how guilty he felt about earlier. 

You were usually the kind of girl to just let things go, the kind of girl that tells people that everything is ok and that they are forgiven even if not everything is ok and they had hurt you just because you didn’t want to make them feel bad but you have to admit that it felt good to have someone actually apologize to you and mean it. Not just throw empty words and promises around because they think that’s what you want to hear but because Ransom truly cared about you and your feelings. You had completely forgiven him not even halfway through the movie, but you selfishly let him continue his groveling because you loved seeing him being so affectionate and you loved all of his little gestures. 

The next morning when you woke up, you slightly regretted telling Ransom you'd go with him. The nerves finally hit you, you had heard all the gossip about his family, you heard  how bad they could get and Ransom's actions from last night just confirmed it all. You were a little bit terrified. 

You got up and the first thing you did was to go straight to your closet and find something appropriate to wear for dinner. 

As if Ransom could feel how frustrated you were getting, your phone started to ring Ransom's name showing up on the caller ID.

"Hey gorgeous. How are you doing?"

"Bad. Really bad." 

"Why, what's wrong?" You could hear the slight panic in his voice.

"I don't know what to wear to your family dinner from Hell and I don't want to give them too much ammo to tear me apart." You whined. 

Ransom chuckled. "Whatever you choose to wear will be fine. As long as I'm there, they won't attack you. They'll be too busy attacking me." 

"I don't want that either!" 

"I don't either, but that's how it goes every time."

You sighed. "Is it too early to fake an emergency?" 

"A little bit, yeah." Ransom was laughing and that made you smile.

"Did you need anything?" You asked after remembering that he had been the one to call you. 

"No. Just wanted to check in on you. See if you have changed your mind." 

"As much as I am terrified of your family and I don't want to go, I don't want you to face them alone so you have nothing to worry about." 

"My savior. I gotta go, but I'll see you at 6 ok? Call me if there's another fashion emergency."

You laughed. "One was more than enough, see you at 6."

You both hung up and you felt a little bit more calm and relaxed than earlier. 

It was close to 6 when you finally settled on a dress. Most of your clothes were black, so color wasn't a problem, the problem was to choose which black dress to wear. You chose a long-sleeve dress that was a little bit tighter around your upper body and the skirt was a lot more loose. 

At 5:55 Ransom knocked on your door and you quickly opened it for him. 

He looked you up and down and smiled. "Excellent choice." 

You moved aside to let him in, as he walked by you he stopped to kiss your cheek. "You look beautiful." 

You couldn't stop the grin that rapidly appeared on your face, your cheeks suddenly felt very heated. 

"Thank you." You said shyly as you shut the door behind him. 

You turned around and saw that he was holding 3 gift bags.

"You brought presents for your family?" 

You were kind of surprised to see him do something so nice for people he despised. 

"No." He laughed. "These are for you." 

"For me? Why? It's not my birthday." You were still very surprised. 

He gave you the first one. "This one's for me being an asshole last night." Then, he gave you the second one. "This one's an apology for my family's behavior tonight." Finally giving you the third one. "This one is just in case I am being an asshole again because my family makes me lose my damn mind."

You chuckled. "That's very, very sweet of you but you don't need to give me gifts." 

"I know, but I wanted to. Now open them." He grinned while looking at you.

You walked to your kitchen and put each bag carefully on the countertop, Ransom following you.

"Is this an "open in case of emergency" kind of situation or do I open them all right now?"  

‘’All of them, right now.’’ He stood on the other side of the counter, facing you. 

You took the first bag he gave you and slowly opened it. You looked at the bottom and what you saw made you gasp. You looked at Ransom.

‘’Stop!!!’’ 

He laughed at your reaction.

You got rid of the bag quickly and took your new book in your hands. You had mentioned to Ransom a few weeks ago how you had been looking everywhere for this particular book but you weren’t able to find it anywhere.

‘’Look inside.’’

You gently opened the book, looking under the hardcover. Your jaw dropped. It was a first edition. You spent a few seconds completely frozen in place while Ransom was looking at you with the biggest smile on his face. You gently put it down and then ran around the counter to hug Ransom as tightly as you could. 

‘’Thankyou.Thankyou.Thankyou.Thankyou.Thankyou.’’ You repeated rapidly over and over again until you were out of breath. 

Ransom was laughing, his arms quickly wrapping around your body. He kissed your forehead.

‘’Are you going to buy me really rare books everytime you snap at me? ‘cause if so…. snap away.’’

He laughed even harder. ‘’How about I buy you books without snapping at you?’’

‘’Deal!’’ You grinned.

‘’Now, the others.’’ He gently nudged you towards the other two bags.

‘’Oh, right! There are others.’’ You chuckled.

The second gift you opened was another book. It was your favorite author’s most recent release but you hadn’t gotten around to go to the bookstore to buy it. 

These two books were amazing gifts but what you loved the most about them is that it showed you that Ransom was actually listening to you when you were rambling on and on about books. You were so used to people just tuning you out whenever you’d get excited about the things that you liked that you just assumed he did the same thing. You took his last gift out of the bag and your heart melted. It was the cutest teddy bear you had ever seen in your life. It was so soft and fluffy, and it was the perfect size to hug.

‘’I know sometimes you have bad days and you get sad, I just thought it’d make it a little bit harder for you to be sad if you have something this cute to hug.’’ 

You smiled, squeezing the teddy bear against your chest. ‘’He just took your job, FYI.’’ 

‘’Damn, I hadn’t thought of that. Give it back.’’ He walked towards you, holding out his hand to grab the bear.

‘’Uh-uh.’’ You shook your head. ‘’Too late.’’ You stuck out your tongue. 

‘’It’s fine… You can’t protect him forever.’’ 

You laughed and walked around Ransom, going into the living room to sit the bear on the couch. You turned around and saw the time.

‘’Oh shit, we gotta go.’’ You called out.

‘’Do we really have to?’’ Ransom asked, more like whining.

‘’Sadly, yes.’’ You grabbed your jacket from the back of the couch and kissed Ransom’s cheek quickly. ‘’Thank you for my presents. I love them.’’ 

‘’You deserve them.’’ He simply said, smiling. 

Shortly after, you were out the door and in his car. 30 minutes later, Ransom was parking his car close to the estate’s front door. He turned the engine off but didn’t move to get out. You put your hand on his shoulder and squeezed it. 

‘’You can do it.’’ You tried to encourage him. 

He sighed and let his head fall back on his seat. 

‘’How about if you take my hand and squeeze it twice, that’s the signal to get the hell out of there?’’ 

He turned his head to look at you and smiled. ‘’You’re too cute.’’ He lifted his right hand and softly brushed his knuckles against your cheek. ‘’Are you sure you want to do this? There’s still time to back out. You say the word and I’ll drive you home.’’

You rolled your eyes. ‘’Nice try, Drysdale.’’ 

You got out of the car first, forcing him to do the same. You took a moment to look around, Harlan’s home was absolutely stunning and you loved how it was far from everything. A nice escape from the urban life. 

‘’Whose house is this now?’’ You asked curiously as you moved towards the front door. 

‘’It’s everybody’s. Harlan left it to all of us.’’

‘’That must have gone over well.’’ 

Ransom shook his head, remembering when the notory had read the will and how much screaming had been going on. ‘’You have no idea.’’

You both stood in front of the door. Ransom was staring at it, mentally preparing himself for what was waiting for you on the other side. He took your hand in his and squeezed it twice, making you laugh.

‘’You can’t use that for another 30 minutes.’’ 

He huffed. ‘’Fiiiiiine.’’ 

He leaned down and kissed your cheek a few times. 

‘’Quit stalling! The quicker we get in there, the quicker we get out of there.’’ You used your free hand to push him away from you. He nodded.

‘’You’re right, you’re right.’’ 

He tightened his grip on your hand and opened the front door with the other one. You both cringed as you could hear all the screaming already going on. 

You walked in first, Ransom following quickly behind. Once he had closed the door, he took both of your jackets and hung them up near the front door; somewhere you’d have easy access to if you had to make a run for it. 

It had been very easy to find where they were all sitting as you just followed all the screaming and loud noises. No one even noticed when you both walked into the room, too engrossed in whatever ‘’discussion’’ they were having. Ransom cleared his throat loudly to let everyone know he was there, you almost jumped back when all their heads turned to look at him all at the same time. 

‘’Well, well, well. Look who it is.’’ His mom said, walking towards the two of you.

You knew she was his mom from pictures and articles you had read about her a few times.

‘’Mother.’’ He said, his tone cold and detached. 

She had this little smirk that tugged at the corner of her lips that, somehow, made you even more nervous. Her eyes fell on you, then on your hand that Ransom was still holding. 

‘’Who’s this?’’ She asked her son, as if you weren’t just standing there in front of her. ‘’The new flavor of the month? Or should I say, one of the flavors of the month?’’ She snorted at her own jab.

So it begins. Not even 2 minutes had gone by since you walked in and she had already managed to attack Ransom once. This was going to be a very long night.

You felt Ransom tense up at the words she used to describe you and what you meant to him.

‘’Don’t.’’ He warned her, his face hardening. 

His mom seemed to be slightly taken aback by how protective he was of you. You hadn’t been the first woman he brought to a family dinner but he usually didn’t care what was said about her or if she stormed out in the middle of dinner. 

Looking around the room, there was only one seat left. Ransom gestured for you to go sit down. 

"I'm gonna go get a beer, do you want anything?" He asked you.

"Just water, please."

He nodded and walked into the kitchen, leaving you alone with his family. They were all looking at you and it made you nervous. You tangled your fingers in the hem of your skirt and counted the seconds until Ransom came back. 

As he came back into the room he saw the way his family was looking at you. He sighed annoyed and quickly moved over to you.

"Stop staring at her like that." 

He gave you a bottle of water and opened his beer.

"Thank you." You whispered while taking the bottle, for both bringing you back a drink and getting them to go back to their conversation.

You looked up.

"Do you want to sit?" 

He nodded and waited for you to stand up, taking your place. You moved to stand next to him, quickly stopped by his arm circling around your waist and pulling you down. He sat you down on his lap. 

He took a few long gulps of his beer, then leaned over to whisper in your ear. "Do you know how to drive a stick?" 

You frowned, turning your head to the side to look at him.

"I do, why?"

He lifted his beer bottle before taking a sip. "Depending on how the night goes, I might need you to drive us back." 

You chuckled and nodded. "No problem but I'm not cleaning up any puke." 

He laughed. "Noted." 

He kissed your cheek and leaned back against the chair. 

"So, Ransom. Who's your little friend?" His uncle Walt, asked; bringing the attention back to you. 

He told them your name and pointed to each family member, introducing them to you. You smiled at them and took a sip of water.

Walt hummed and looked you up and down. "Looks expensive."

You choked on the water and coughed a few times. You felt Ransom tensed up under you.

"Walt, what the fuck?" 

Walt smirked. "What? It's not the first one like her that you brought here. Didn't think it was a secret."

You put your hand against his chest when he tried to get up, you waited until he looked at you and you smiled.

"At least I don't look cheap." You shrugged, a playful glimmer in your eyes. 

He relaxed at your joke and even cracked a little smile. 

"Walt should know, with all the money he spends to get laid, he's an expert." 

Ransom smirked, looking at his uncle.

You laughed and tried to cover it up with a cough. 

"You little trust fund prick." Walt hissed at Ransom.

You quickly lost your smile. You bit your tongue as you tried to keep your own thoughts to yourself. It wasn't your battle to fight, though you would love the opportunity to put that asshole in his place. 

Thankfully, dinner was ready and the announcement put an end to whatever fight was about to explode. You stood up and stepped aside to let Ransom get up. He wrapped his arm around your shoulders and brought you closer to his chest. 

"You doin' ok gorgeous?" He whispered in your ear. 

You tilted your head back to look in his eyes and you nodded. 

"I'm sorry for what he said. It was just to get at me, I promise." 

You placed a small kiss on his jawline. "It's fine, you don't have to apologize for them." 

When you finally made it to the dining room, Ransom quickly picked your seats, trying to get you as far away as possible from his family. He sat between you and his family members, it was his way of shielding you from them. Once you were both sitting down, Ransom rested his arm on the back of your chair and his hand either played with your hair or was squeezing your shoulder gently. He did this for the entire dinner to keep himself grounded and to stop himself from bursting with rage every time someone talked to him. 

Surprisingly, Ransom was only on his second bottle of beer. He was ignoring most of his family and spent almost the entire dinner talking with you. 

His cousin, Meg, was sitting opposite you on the other side of the table and she often joined in your conversation. Most of the time, she couldn’t stand her cousin. He annoyed her to no end and she thought he was a judgemental asshole but seeing the way he was with you made her change her mind. She loved that you brought out this side of Ransom and she even liked you as a person. She thought you were really sweet and though at first she was surprised to see her cousin with someone as kind and sweet as you, seeing the both of you interact together she could see why you had chosen each other. You were adorable together. Meg had never seen this kind of look in Ransom’s eyes but she still knew what it meant. Ransom loved you. 

Ransom’s night was going surprisingly well. Having someone that actually liked him with him made a big difference. He was enjoying himself and was even having fun with you and Meg. He can’t even remember the last time he had laughed, genuinely, while sitting at this table. Probably when he was still a child. 

Everyone had finished eating dinner but stayed seated at the table, drinking their wine. Big mistake. 

‘’So-’’ Linda started. ‘’Ransom, what does your friend do?’’

Walt was about to say something but the glare you shot his way made him stop.

‘’I dare you.’’ You said, looking at him defiantly; cocking a brow. 

You crossed your arms over your chest, staring at him until he broke eye contact by looking away.

‘’That’s what I thought.’’ You mumbled under your breath. 

Ransom looked at the exchange with a smirk spreading on his face. 

‘’That’s my girl.’’ He whispered to you, bringing the hand that was on your shoulders to the side of your face and gently pushing you towards him so that he could kiss your cheek. 

You bit your lower lip to keep yourself from smiling. Linda cleared her throat to bring your focus back to her. 

‘’I work for a publishing company. I just graduated, actually.’’ 

That seemed to pique everyone’s curiosity. 

‘’How interesting.’’ Linda answered. 

‘’Let me know if you need a few pointers, I’m sure you need all the help you can get.’’ Walt said, trying to disguise the little jab he took at you. 

Ransom snorted and that pissed off his uncle who was now glaring at his nephew. ‘’She’s the one who could help you. She helped publish more books during her two-year internship than you did in your entire career.’’ 

You could almost see smoke coming out of poor Walt’s ears. His face was bright red and you could tell that he was about to blow up. Ransom could feel it too because a moment later the arm that was around your shoulders was now across your front, his hand resting on your outer thigh; the one farthest from him. You smiled at the small gesture and how protective of you he was being. 

‘’Aren’t you two just the sweetest.’’ His mother said, sarcastic as ever. 

‘’I’m giving these two a month, max.’’ Walt added.

He was trying to smile but his face was so twisted with anger that it looked more like a snarl. The comments only made you roll your eyes.  There wasn’t a single child sitting at the table, yet you felt like you were surrounded by them. 

‘’Roll your eyes all you want, sweetheart but soon enough you’ll see that  beyond his pretty face and trust fund money, there’s just a big asshole with a shitty attitude.’’ 

You were done holding back and biting your tongue, enough was enough. You’d apologize to Ransom later. 

‘’You never get sick of hearing the sound of your voice when you talk, do you? Every other word that comes out of your mouth is an insult towards somebody else. Do you feel that bad about yourself that you need to bring people down to feel good? Does that make you feel like a man?’’ 

Walt opened his mouth but you shut him up by raising your hand in front of you. 

‘’I’m not done.’’ You waited until his mouth was closed before lowering your hand. ‘’You keep throwing Ransom’s trust fund in his face like he’s the only one at this table who was fortunate enough to live off someone else’s hard work. How many of you started a business or their career without a cent of Harlan’s success or without his help?’’ You looked at all of them, none of them talked. ‘’Exactly. If he’s a trust fund prick, as you like to call him, then so are all of you. As for him being an asshole, I sincerely hope you don’t think you’re a ray of fucking sunshine because boy do I have news for you. Have any of you stopped to think that maybe, MAYBE the reason why Ransom acts like an asshole with you is because you all treat him like trash? Why would he try to be nice to any of you when you can’t even bother with being respectful to him, or anybody else for that matter. From what I’ve seen so far, Ransom is a better man than all of you combined. You take away the money, the glitz and the glam and what’s left of any of you? Despicable human beings with the worst attitudes I’ve ever seen in my life.’’ 

You stood up, pushing your chair back and looking down at Ransom. ‘’I’m sorry.’’

You walked out of the dining room, going straight for your jacket and stepped outside while putting it on. You were so angry, you were shaking. Ransom probably hated you by now but it was too late, none of what you said could be taken back. 

Meg had watched the whole scene with a smile on her lips as it was extremely satisfying to see someone call out her family for their bullshit so accurately. Whereas Ransom had been looking at you the whole time, his whole face beaming with pride. He felt like his heart was going to explode because of all the love he felt for you in this moment. Not only had you stood up for him but you did with respect and class, never raising your voice once or telling them they could go fuck themselves and let’s be honest, they would have deserved it. Just like you had done with him last night, you kept your calm and he knew how worse that felt than just having someone yelling in your face and screaming insults at you. It took him a few seconds to understand you were gone, too lost in his own thoughts. He quickly stood up and looked at his family with a big smile on his face. 

‘’She might be too sweet to say it, so I’m gonna do it for her: you can all go and eat shit.’’ He grinned, quickly following behind you. 

Like you had done, he went straight for his jacket and didn’t even slow down to put it on, waiting until he was outside and that the door was closed behind him. You were leaning against the side of his car, with your arms crossed and worry etched on your face. You looked up when you heard the door slam shut, seeing Ransom putting on his jacket. How were you going to apologize for all of this when in reality, you didn’t even regret saying what you did. Quickly running down the few steps, Ransom was walking fast towards you; almost scaring you by how determined he looked. He stopped right in front of you, resting his hands on his car on each side of you; caging you in. You uncrossed your arms and stood a little straighter. 

‘’Ransom, I’m sor-’’ You were cut short by his lips on yours. 

The kiss was gentle while still holding a lot of emotions. Your hands rested on his chest while one of his hands slid between your back and the car, pushing you against him to get you closer. 

You broke apart when the need for oxygen became greater than the need for one another. You were both slightly panting and your lips looked a bit swollen. You opened your eyes as Ransom was leaning closer to you, resting his forehead against yours. 

‘’What you did in there… That was fucking amazing.’’ He whispered with a huge smile on his face. 

You sighed with relief, you had been terrified he’d be pissed for making things worse. 

‘’I hate them.’’ You huffed. 

It was calm outside, barely any sound or noise could be heard. Only the wind that was softly blowing and the leaves from the trees that moved through the breeze. 

The silence was ruined by all the yelling coming from inside the house, which Ransom first ignored but as it became louder and closer, he decided it was time for you to go. 

‘’I think we better leave before they come outside.’’ He chuckled and kissed you again. He gave a few small pecks to your lips before taking a few steps backwards. 

You were both smiling at each other like two idiots in love but were brought back down to earth when the front door opened and the screaming got louder. Ransom ran around to the driver’s side, the two of you sitting down in your seats. The second your doors were closed, Ransom was speeding down the road and away from his crazy family. 

He drove you back to your house and came inside with you. 

You took off your coat and your shoes, Ransom doing the same. You turned on the lights in the living room and let yourself fall back on your couch. 

"Your family is nuts." You sighed, grabbing your teddy bear and hugging it against your chest. 

Ransom sat next to you and laughed. "That's one way to describe them. I would have used different words." 

"Good news is, I probably won't ever have to go again. I'll probably be banned for life." You laughed, looking at your bear, playing with his ears. 

"It'll give me an excuse not to go back either." He looked at his gift. "I probably should have gotten you a bigger bear, uh?" 

"Nooo, he's perfect." You smiled hugging him. 

You rested your head on Ransom's shoulder, moving a little to the side to get closer to him. He put his arm around you and kissed the top of your head. 

"Can't believe your uncle basically called me a hooker in the first 10 minutes I was there." 

Ransom shook his head, exasperated by his entire family's behavior. 

"I'm so sorry baby. I was stupid to think they weren't going to stoop that low." He sighed. 

"It's fine." You laughed. "I have been called a lot of things in my life but this one was a first."  

"It's still early, do you want to do something to try and salvage the night?" 

You personally thought the night had been salvaged the moment Ransom had kissed you but he hadn't mentioned it since so you decided not to bring it up. It was probably just in the heat of the moment kind of thing and it didn't mean anything. 

Truthfully, you were confused by your relationship with him. You spent most of your time together, he gave you a bunch of pet names, he's always holding you or hugging you, he even took you out a few times and yet it still felt like you were nothing but a very good friend to him. Which you probably were because otherwise he would have made a move a long time ago. You were aware of Ransom's lifestyle. He had different girls every night and he was always straightforward; if he had wanted you, he would have told you. Clearly, he didn't. It has been over a month since you started going out or whatever it is you two were doing together and nothing happened until he kissed you earlier and even then it barely lasted and since then nothing. You were just a friend and he probably had other girls on the side for his other needs. 

Ransom poked your side, gently. 

"You ok?" 

Too lost in your own thoughts, you had forgotten to answer his question.

"Oh, yeah sure. We can do whatever you want." You shrugged.

"I can go if you're too tired." 

"If you want to go, you can go. It's Saturday night. I'm sure you have more interesting places to be." 

You stood up and put your bear down where you had been sitting a few seconds ago, then you went to the kitchen where your new books were waiting for you. 

Ransom frowned at your answer. He had known you long enough to know that when you acted this way it was because something was wrong and you were trying to hide it. He didn't know whether he should follow you, stay where he was or just leave. He sighed, rubbing his hands on his face. This kind of relationship was all new to him and he was always scared to do the wrong thing. Maybe kissing you pushed you away, maybe you didn't want to kiss him which would be truly confusing for him because you had seemed to be wanting it just as much as he did. He got up and walked to your kitchen. He couldn't stop himself from smiling as he found you at the kitchen counter going through the books he had given you earlier. He moved until he was standing behind you and he wrapped his arms around your waist with your back to his chest. He rested his chin on your shoulder and looked down at what you were reading. 

"I'm sorry if I did something that put you in a bad mood." 

You chewed on your bottom lip while feeling bad for making him think he had done something to you. You sighed.

‘’You didn’t do anything, I promise. I just got into my own head and I’m a bit tired, it’s my own fault.’’ 

He tightened his hold on your body and kissed the side of your neck. 

‘’Let’s go out then, keep your mind busy. I don’t like to see you upset.’’ 

‘’Where do you want to go?’’ You asked, closing the book in front of you.

‘’I don’t know… We could go see a movie, instead of watching it on TV or we could go to that diner you like and get some dessert. Anything you want.’’

You hummed, dessert did sound good but you really liked watching movies. 

‘’I can’t pick.’’ You laughed at how indecisive you were.

Ransom turned you around to be able to look at you, tucking a small strand of your hair behind your ear. ‘’How about we go eat dessert and then we come back here to watch a movie, or to my place, because it’ll probably be too late to go to the movies.’’ 

You smiled and patted his chest softly. ‘’You know me so well.’’ 

He chuckled and kissed your forehead. ‘’Of course I do.’’ 

‘’If we feel a little bit wild and want to mix it up a little, we could watch a movie in my room instead of on the couch.’’ 

Ransom laughed. ‘’That sounds like a great plan. It’ll be better to snuggle.’’

You nodded with a smile.

‘’And maybeeeee, make out a little?’’ He bit his lower lip and wiggled his eyebrows playfully. 

Oh. So, maybe it wasn’t just in the heat of the moment like you originally thought. 

‘’That’ll depend on which dessert you get me.’’ You smiled with the same playful expression as him.

‘’Baby, I’ll get you all the desserts you want.’’ 

You laughed and moved from your spot between Ransom and the counter, walking towards the front. ‘’Well, someone’s eager and generous.’’ You teased him. 

‘’When it comes to you, always.’’ He answered sincerely as he followed you. 

Heat quickly rose to your neck and your cheeks. You grinned at him and kissed one of his cheeks. ‘’You’re cute, but I still want dessert.’’ 

He laughed, gently pushing you out the door. ‘’Let’s hurry then.’’

The drive over was quick, in less than 10 minutes the car was parked and you were stepping inside the diner. 

The same waitress from over a month ago was the one greeting you at the door and the way she was looking at Ransom made it clear that she hadn’t forgotten about him. 

‘’Welcome back, handsome. Where do you want to sit this time?’’ 

You had literally just walked in and she was already flirting with him. You started to feel like you should have stayed home. 

‘’Same place as last time, booth in the back corner.’’ 

She grabbed two menus and leaded the way to the table, rolling her hips a little too unaturely. Ransom put his arm around you while you were walking over and didn’t even seem to notice what the waitress had been doing. 

When you got to the table, Ransom let you sit down first and you slid all the way down the booth, the wall keeping you from going any further. Ransom sat down next to you, you had your backs to the entire restaurant, the booth was built in a way that it was high enough that no one could look over and the wall to your right gave you all the privacy you wanted to eat in peace. 

‘’What can I get for you?’’ The waitress asked, eagerly. 

‘’Let us look at the menus first.’’ His head was down as he was trying to decide what to order, so the waitress missed the way he had rolled his eyes at her; but you hadn’t and it made you smile.

Not because you wanted him to be rude to her, but because he really didn’t seem interested in her and that made you feel slightly better about your chances with him. 

‘’Do you know what you want?’’

His voice pulled you out of your thoughts.

‘’Chocolate cake.’’ You said quickly, without even opening your menu.

He looked up at you, smiling. ‘’Not your first time with that cake, uh?’’

You laughed. ‘’Did I answer too quickly?’’

‘’Just a tiny bit.’’ He laughed with you and closed his menu.

The waitress came back quickly. ‘’Two pieces of chocolate cake, please.’’

‘’And some water, please.’’ You added. 

Ransom didn’t even wait until the waitress was gone before turning his entire body to face you, his back now completely to her. 

‘’Thank you, again, for coming with me tonight.’’ He said to you, softly. 

‘’I’m sorry they were assholes to you.’’ You bit your lip. ‘’And I’m sorry for meddling and probably making things worse for you.’’ 

‘’Are you kidding? That was one of the best moments of my life. I had never seen my family this speechless. I’m just mad that I didn’t think to film it so that I could watch it over and over again.’’ 

You laughed, feeling better knowing that he wasn’t mad for the things you said. 

‘’You know-’’ His tone was more serious than it had been a few moments ago. ‘’You’re the first person to stand up for me, the first person to defend me.’’

‘’What?’’ You asked, eyes wide with surprise. ‘’I’m sure that’s not true.’’

‘’I swear, you’re the only one.’’

The sad smile on his face letting you know he was telling the truth. Your heart felt heavy in your chest as you saw the pain in his eyes. He looked down, as if he were embarrassed. You moved a little bit closer to him and put your hand on his cheek, making him look at you.

‘’You know that what they are saying is not true, right? You’re an amazing guy and you have such a big heart. They just don’t see the real Ransom, not that they deserve to see him. You’re too good for them and you don’t deserve all the abuse that you’ve been taking from them your entire life. I don’t want you to think that you are the man they are describing, because you’re not. Not even close to it.’’ 

The look in your eyes made his breath hitch in his throat. He could see how sincere you were being, it was almost overwhelming. How he had managed to get someone as good as you to look his way long enough to care for him, he’ll never know. 

He pressed his forehead against yours and closed his eyes. 

‘’What about when they keep saying how handsome I am, is that a lie too?’’ He asked, frowning in faux concern. 

You laughed. ‘’The only sincere thing I’ve heard them say.’’

He laughed softly, opening his eyes to look directly into yours. ‘’Thank you.’’

His voice was barely above a whisper, showing you just how vulnerable he felt in that moment. His hand moved to rest on the side of your face, his thumb stroking over your cheek softly. He leaned in to brush his lips against yours, waiting to see your reaction and when you gripped the sides of his jacket and didn’t move away, he closed the small distance there was between the two of you with his lips pressing gently against yours.  

Your eyes fluttered close at the gentle touch while his free hand moved to lie on your lower back to pull you closer to him. You don’t know how long your kiss lasted but you had been so lost in it that you never heard the waitress coming back with your order, and though she could have just left the plates on the table and left, she cleared her throat to get your attention. Well most likely just Ransom’s. 

Ransom relanctualy leaned back, breaking the kiss. When he opened his eyes and saw how adorable you looked as you were slightly panting from the lack of oxygen to your lungs and how inviting your lips looked now that they were slightly swollen because of him, he huffed; completely annoyed with the waitress. 

You were a bit embarrassed that you had just been caught making out, hiding in your booth like teenagers but you were more mad that the moment was cut short. 

‘’What?!’’ Ransom said, barely looking over his shoulder. 

‘’Your order is ready.’’

‘’Then, just put it on the table.’’ He turned his head back to look at you but your attention had now been stolen by the pieces of chocolate cake sitting in front of you both. 

He slowly let go of your body so that you could get to your dessert then turned to face his own plate. He was mumbling under his breath, cursing at the stupid waitress for ruining a perfectly good moment with you and that she better not expect a tip. You leaned over to him and kissed his cheek. 

‘’You’ll forget all about it once you’ve tasted the cake.’’ You promised as you grabbed your fork. 

‘’I highly doubt that.’’ He said grumpily before taking his first bite. 

He had to give it to you, the cake was incredible but not incredible enough to make him less annoyed. Though, watching you do a little shoulder dance before you started eating definitely made him feel better. 

‘’Should I feel bad about myself that both of the times I kissed you, neither of them deserved a little dance like this cake does?’’ 

You covered your mouth with one of your hands as you laughed. You shook your head. ‘’Don’t feel bad. This is my chocolate cake dance, only chocolate cake can make me do it.’’ 

‘’Is this a challenge? Because you know I don’t back down.’’ His brow quirked to match his playful smirk. 

You shook your head and rolled your eyes, trying to hide the small smile that was threatening to appear on your lips. ‘’Just eat your cake, Ransom.’’ 

He laughed and nodded, doing as he was told. 

Once you were both done, Ransom asked for the check; more than ready to get out of here and go back to your place where he’ll have you all to himself and no one could disturbed his peaceful time with you. 

Ransom had changed a lot since meeting you but he was still a petty little shit and when the check finally came he paid and left a single dollar as a tip. When he saw her expression at her tip, he smirked. 

‘’Next time focus a little less on flirting with me when it’s clear that I’m only interested in my girl and a little more on your work. You couldn’t even remember to bring her water.’’ He rolled his eyes and stood up, offering you his hand to help you up and out of the booth. 

You gladly took it and once you were up and ready to go, Ransom intertwined your fingers and led you outside to the car.

Chapter Text

For the whole ride back, he never let go of your hand for even one second while you tried your best to hide the big smile on your face but you failed miserably. When the both of you made it inside your house, you closed the door behind you and locked it while taking off your shoes and then your jacket, Ransom doing the same. 

‘’Do you still have the sweats that you stole from me?’’ He asked as the two of you were walking up the stairs to your room. 

‘’It’s not stealing if you give them willingly to me and then told me I could keep them for as long as I wanted, but yes I do.’’ 

You walked into your room and went straight to your dresser, going through your drawers to get his pair of sweats that he had loaned you one night at his house. You handed them to him and started going through a different drawer to pick out a comfier outfit than the dress you had been wearing all night.

‘’Speaking like a true thief.’’ He said, walking quickly to your bathroom in the hallway before you could react to his teasing. 

‘’Smart of you to run away.’’ You called out after him, closing your bedroom door to change.

You opened your door again when you had changed, Ransom was leaning on the wall opposite to your room as he waited. 

‘’What’s next on the list?’’ You asked him, referring to the movie list you had made together.

He took out his phone from his pocket and started scrolling. 

‘’We said we would either choose to watch the Underworld movies or The Purge movies.’’ He put his phone back in his pocket.

You pulled at the cover on your bed and stopped for a minute to think. You looked at the alarm clock on the nightstand. 

‘’If we watch The Purge I might not sleep.’’ You chuckled. ‘’So you choose, I’m fine with either.’’ 

You sat on your bed, putting your legs under the covers and you turned to grab the remote from your nightstand, turning the TV on. 

He sat on the other side of the bed. ‘’How about Underworld for tonight and next Friday we start The Purge so you won’t be too exhausted on Monday?’’

You smiled. ‘’Great idea.’’ 

You flipped through the movies until you found the first Underworld movie and pressed play, you put the remote back on the nightstand and quickly pulled up the covers on your body. Since you were going to be warm and cozy in your bed, you had decided to wear your usual shorts and tank top that you always wear to bed but if you stayed over the covers for too long you’d start shivering. 

Ransom was looking at you with a smile, finding you adorable. ‘’Baby, sit up for a minute.’’ 

You frowned in confusion but did as you were told, holding the covers against your body to stay warm. He grabbed all the pillows from your bed and placed them together against your headboard and once he was satisfied with his little pillow nest, he leaned back against them.

‘’Come here.’’ He reached over to you and put his hands on your hips, pulling you towards him. 

You chuckled at his attempt to pull you to his body, the sheets weren’t really allowing you to slide up to him. You moved on your own until you were all the way up against him. You laid your head on his shoulder and snuggled your entire body against his side. He pulled up the covers to make sure you wouldn’t be cold and put one arm behind your back to hold you while the other rested on your waist. 

Ransom couldn’t believe how much he had changed over the past several weeks. He used to go out all the time, bringing a different girl to his place almost every night and made sure that she was gone before morning and now he spent most of his nights home with you, either eating and talking or just holding you while watching TV and he wouldn’t trade those moments with you for anything in the world. He was still very much terrified by how he felt, yet he also felt like this is where he belonged. He was so engrossed with you and the relationship he was building that the reason as to why it all came to be, the bet, had been completely forgotten. All of his life he had felt like he didn’t belong anywhere, not even with his family, he could barely stand his friends and though he had more money than he could ever spend he had never felt like his life was a success. Not until he met you. You made him feel like he was worth something, like he had a place in this world and deserved to be there just as much as anyone else. You were kind, gentle and so incredibly sweet that it made him want to be a better man just to be worthy of you. If Ransom was being honest with himself, he had fallen for you quick and hard. He was most definitely completely in love with you and from the moment he met you, he knew that there wouldn’t be any other woman for him. You were it. He just hoped that he could prove himself to be good enough for you, to prove to you that if you chose him like his heart had chosen you that you’ll be loved for the rest of your life. 

It was safe to say that Ransom hadn’t been following the movie in the slightest while your eyes hadn’t left the screen once since it started. He kissed the top of your head, then your temple and when you moved your head from his shoulder he kissed his way down to your neck. He moved back up to kiss you. You gave him a few pecks, hoping it would be enough and turned your head back to look at the screen.

‘’Uh-uh. Where do you think you’re going?’’ He asked.

He gently grabbed your chin between his thumb and his index finger and turned your head so you’d look at him. 

‘’I’m trying to watch the movie.’’ You tried wiggling out of his grip, which he lets you do. 

He dropped his head to your neck, kissing all the little spots that he knew would give you goosebumps. ‘’Baby.’’ He whined against your skin. ‘’You said that we could make out if I bought you a really good dessert.’’ 

He lifted his head to look at you while pouting and giving you his best puppy dog eyes. 

You huffed, averting your eyes because you couldn’t resist him when he looked at you like that and he knew it. 

‘’Please?’’ He pleaded. ‘’I just want to kiss my girl without anyone interrupting me.’’ 

He brushed his nose against your cheek. ‘’Please.’’ He repeated in a whisper. 

You felt your resolve start to crumble very quickly, but you liked it when he was this needy so you decided to torture him for a little while longer. 

‘’I’m watching the movie… maybe later.’’ 

You moved to lie on your back instead of on your side, pretending to focus all of your attention on the screen.

After you moved, Ransom let his head fall dramatically on the pillow where you were laying a few seconds ago. 

In a blink of an eye, Ransom was laying between your legs and hovering above you as he held himself up with his hands on each side of you, completely blocking the TV screen. He lowered himself to kiss your cheek. ‘’Come on.’’ He kissed the other cheek. ‘’Please.’’ Then your forehead. ‘’5 minutes?’’ He kissed the tip of your nose. 

You couldn’t stop the little giggle that escaped your mouth. ‘’Fine.’’

You rolled your eyes, pretending to be annoyed when really you had given in from the first moment he had asked. 

He grinned down at you. He put all of his weight on his left arm, using his right hand to gently grab the side of your face and tilt your head back to give himself better access to you. He brushed his lips over yours, barely touching them. 

‘’Your 5 minutes have already started, you’re losing precious seconds.’’ You whispered, trying to get him to stop teasing. 

He chuckled and did it again a few times before finally pressing his lips against yours. As soon as your eyes were closed, the movie was completely forgotten. While you moved your hands to his back, almost as if you wanted to make sure he wouldn’t get up and leave, Ransom’s hand slid down to hold the side and back of your neck for a similar reason. Neither of you had any intention to let go after 5 minutes. 

Ransom soon couldn’t hold himself up on only one arm anymore. He slowly rolled to his side, bringing you with him so he didn’t have to stop kissing you. It’s in moments like these that Ransom truly realizes how much he loves you. He felt as if he was literally melting under your touch, his heart was pounding into his chest from all the emotions that were going through him as he held you. He wrapped his arms around your waist and moved his body closer to yours. You were so intoxicating to him. He couldn’t get enough of your gentle touches and how special you made him feel by just holding him and letting him kiss you. 

Usually for him kissing was sloppy and primal, it led to clothes being ripped off and two sweaty bodies moving together until they couldn’t anymore. 

He felt it the first time he kissed you after you told off his family, he felt it again when he kissed you at the diner and he could feel it now; kissing when you loved somebody made it so much better. He felt wanted in a very different way and he wished he could feel like this forever. 

Every time Ransom had kissed you so far, you felt like the world stopped around you. He always touched or held you like you were the most precious thing he has ever had in his hands, almost like he was scared to hurt you or break you. You had heard all the gossip and rumours about Ransom’s dating life, how women were disposable for him and that if one didn’t want him then he’d just move onto the next and yet with you it was the complete opposite. He made you feel like you were the only one for him, and more importantly he acted like it. In public or behind closed doors, he managed to make you feel like you were his person and not in a possessive way, but more like I’m proud to be seen with her kind of way. You only hoped that you could make him feel the same way. 

Your kiss was gentle and slow, there was no rush or heat to it. It was pure adoration and love. Two people letting their lips do the talking for their hearts. 

Neither of you wanted it to end and though you pushed for as long as you physically could, the need for oxygen became too important and you sadly had to pull away. You were both a little out of breath, but neither of you seemed to be bothered by it. 

You moved your hands to the back of his head and ran your fingers through his short hair. 

Ransom sincerely thought his heart was about to burst open. He wanted to tell you that he loved you, he wanted to tell you everything that had been going through his mind from the very first moment he had heard you talk but he stopped himself. He needed to tell you in a special way; a special way for his special girl, and he wanted to do it soon to avoid letting it slip at any random moment. 

‘’Ransom?’’ You whispered as if you were scared to burst the bubble you were both in.

Your voice pulled him out of his thoughts, his eyes quickly finding yours again. He hummed, letting you know he was listening. 

You looked away from his gaze, biting on your bottom lip and trying to muster the courage to ask him what you wanted.

‘’Do you think-’’ You sighed. ‘’Could you sleep here tonight? I don’t want you to go.’’ You whispered quickly, embarrassed by how needy you must be sounding. 

Ransom grinned.

‘’I’m glad you asked because I don’t want to go either.’’ 

You quickly looked back up into his eyes, your own filled with excitement; he wanted to spend as much time with you as you did with him. 

‘’Really?’’ 

‘’Yes, gorgeous.’’ He smiled softly at you. 

The way you smiled after he told you yes and the way your entire face lit up made him want to say yes to absolutely anything you would ever ask him again. 

‘’You just have to promise you won’t make fun of my bed hair in the morning.’’ 

‘’I’m not making any promises, baby. It’s a wait and see kind of situation.’’

You squinted at him, trying to look menacing but it only made him laugh. Your hands moved away from his hair as you crossed your arms over your chest, between your two bodies. 

‘’Now I’m not so sure I want you to stay.’’ You pouted.

‘’Aw no, baby.’’ He wrapped his hands around your wrists and pulled on them, trying to get you to play with his hair again. ‘’Don’t stop.’’

You smirked. ‘’I’ll keep going, only if you promise.’’

‘’Fine.’’ He huffed. ‘’I promise. Now, keep going.’’ 

You laughed and started running your fingers through his hair again.

‘’That good, uh?’’

‘’You have no idea.’’ He said, putting his arms back around your waist. 

His eyes fluttered shut and he completely relaxed under your touch, to the point where you thought he had fallen asleep. You stopped again when the movie credits started rolling in so that you could turn around to grab the remote and turn off the TV. You turned back to face Ransom and almost jumped out of your skin when you saw him staring at you. 

‘’Jesus. I thought you were sleeping.’’

He laughed silently. ‘’I’m sorry.’’

You looked over Ransom’s shoulder to see it was almost 2am. 

‘’We should go to sleep.’’ 

He nodded and sat up in bed to take off his sweater, leaving him with only a white tank top. It was the first time you had seen Ransom with so little clothes and you were pleasantly surprised to see how muscly he was. 

He laid back down and you poked at his bicep. 

‘’Damn Drysdale, where have you been hiding those?’’ The playful glimmer shining bright as you tease him.

He laughed and started flexing. ‘’Nice, right?’’ He winked at you.

Now you were the one laughing. ‘’Calm down before you hurt yourself.’’ 

He quickly grabbed you and started tickling you on your sides. 

‘’No, please, stop.’’ You squeaked as you tried to get away from him. ‘’I take it back, I take it back.’’ 

He lifted his hands in surrender. ‘’That’s better.’’ 

He laid on his back and opened his arms for you to come snuggle against him, and you did. You laid your head on his shoulder and one of your arms across his chest while he held you with both of his arms on your back. He kissed the top of your head. 

‘’Good night, gorgeous.’’ 

‘’Good night, Ransom.’’ 

You don’t think you’ve ever fallen asleep this fast and slept this well in your entire life. When you both woke up again it was almost noon. Ransom held his promise and never laughed at your bed hair but only because he thought you looked absolutely beautiful with your hair all messy and your eyes a bit puffy from sleeping. 

After that night, it became a habit for the two of you to sleep together. You had trouble staying away from each other during the day but now it was all the time. You were having the best sleep of your life whenever he was there and the same went for him. 

A little bit over a week later, you had been sleeping at Ransom’s place and forgot to set your alarm clock. Thankfully, your body still woke up on its own around the usual time but you were late for work. You were almost running around trying to get ready as quickly as possible while Ransom was laying in bed, watching you and trying not to laugh. 

‘’Am I still picking you up for lunch?’’ He asked while you were still running around.

‘’Uh-uh.’’ You nodded as you grabbed your shoes. You ran over to Ransom’s bed and gave him a quick kiss, pulling away before he could even touch you because he would only make you even more late. 

‘’Bye.’’ You screamed from the stairs and soon after Ransom heard the front door open and close a few seconds later.

The day had been extremely chaotic, there was a work crisis that everyone was working on to try and figure out how to solve it but so far no one had managed to. 

You had been so busy you had totally forgotten that you were supposed to meet Ransom for lunch, only remembering when you saw him standing in the doorway of your office. 

‘’Oh, Ransom. I’m so sorry. We’ve been trying to fix a problem all morning and I completely forgot.’’ You looked down at the mess on your desk, knowing there was no way in hell you could leave. ‘’Can we eat together tomorrow instead?’’ 

He walked over to your desk and stood behind you, leaning down to see what you were working on. 

‘’What’s the problem? Maybe I can help. I worked for Harlan’s publishing company for several years before Walt took over.’’ 

You explained to him what you had been trying to figure out all morning and in less than 10 minutes he had fixed it all. You grabbed all the paperwork from your desk and took Ransom’s hand, bringing him to the conference room where most of your bosses had been sitting all morning.

‘’Ransom fixed it!’’ You said, walking over to them and giving them the papers with all of Ransom’s notes and explanations on them. 

‘’Amazing work, Mr. Drysdale.’’ They all nodded in agreement and you went back to your office with Ransom to let them work. 

You closed the door behind Ransom. ‘’They’re right you know, you are amazing at this.’’ 

He shrugged. ‘’It’s not a big deal.’’

You walked to stand in front of him and put your hands on his cheeks, forcing him to look down into your eyes. ‘’It is a big deal. Do you know how many of us have been working on this since I got here this morning? You fixed it in under 10 minutes, that’s incredible.’’

He smiled shyly. ‘’Yeah?’’ He was still unsure.

‘’Yes!’’ You smiled to reassure him. ‘’Why did you stop working for Harlan? You love books and you are clearly amazing at this job.’’

‘’Walt took over and he fired me.’’ You shrugged. 

‘’Then you should start your own.’’

‘’My own what?’’ He looked at you a bit confused. ‘’My own publishing company?’’

‘’Yes!’’ You said enthusiastically. 

He laughed. ‘’Yeah, right.’’

‘’Why not?’’ You frowned as you let go of his face and put your hands on your hips. 

‘’You want me to start my own publishing company?’’ He crossed his arms.

‘’Yes! You have the money, the time, the love and passion for the job and all the skills you need to be successful! I don’t see why you shouldn’t do it.’’ 

He stared at you for a few minutes, seriously thinking about what you were suggesting. You were right. He was good at it and he had loved working for Harlan, he was looking forward to going to work every morning and he misses that feeling. Though, he found it again in a sense with you. You were now the reason why he was looking forward to his day but with a publishing company to run, he would have everything he ever dreamt of. 

‘’I’m gonna do it.’’ 

You grinned. ‘’Yeah, you are!’’ 

He smiled and pulled you into a hug. He leaned down to peck your lips a few times. ‘’Only if you do it with me.’’ 

‘’What?’’

‘’We should start it together. You’re extremely talented and I know how much you love books.’’

‘’You want to go into business… with me?’’ You sounded shocked. Because you were. 

Truth is, Ransom wanted everything with you, including starting a business. He saw himself with you in ways that he never believed he would ever want with anyone. It all hit him at different moments. One day he was watching TV and there was a commercial with an older couple and he surprised himself by wishing this could be the two of you. Another time, he was driving by a church and he saw a couple of newlyweds walking out hand-in-hand and the same night he dreamt of a similar scenario with you as his bride. 

The one thing that he thought he'd never, EVER want in his life but changed his mind because of you, is having kids. 

He saw how you were around kids, how sweet and loving you had been and his first thought was that he couldn't wait to see you with his kids. 

He'd never admit it to you, at least not for a long time because you met 2 months ago and he didn't want to scare you off but when you know, you know and you being the one for him is the one thing he had never been more sure of. 

‘’Why not?’’ He smirked, repeating to you your own words you had used to try and convince him. ‘’We’d be one hell of a team.’’

You stayed silent for a minute, chewing on your bottom lip while you were thinking. Ransom was getting nervous that you were going to turn down his offer. 

‘’I’m in.’’ You smiled. 

Ransom’s grin was so big, it was almost hurting his cheeks. He bent down to wrap his arms around the back of your thighs and lifted you up, making you laugh. 

He looked up at your eyes, the excitement and happiness you saw in his eyes made your breath catch in your throat. Ransom was a gorgeous man but at this moment, he had never looked more handsome. You leaned down to rest your forehead against his and you closed your eyes, taking in every emotion coming from the both of you. 

A knock at your door brought you back to reality and you groaned, slightly annoyed at whoever was disturbing this perfect moment. Ransom gently puts you down while chuckling at your annoyed face. You turned around to go open the door but were quickly stopped by Ransom’s hand on your wrist as he turned you back to face him and pulled you to his chest. He kissed you in a way that made your legs turn to jelly and before you could kiss him back he had pulled away. 

‘’I’ll let you go back to work, I’ll see you tonight.’’ He kissed your forehead.

‘’Baby?’’ He called out right before you opened the door.

You turned your head to look at him with a smile. ‘’Yes?’’

‘’Don’t forget to give them your two weeks notice.’’ He winked at you, making you laugh. 

‘’I won’t, I promise.’’ 

You finally opened your door, one of your coworkers waiting on the other side. ‘’Bosses called a meeting, we have to be in the conference room in 5 minutes.’’ 

‘’I’ll be right there.’’ You tell her.

Ransom slipped past you to leave, stopping to kiss your cheek and left the building with a giant smile on his face. 

‘’So, it’s true then?’’ Your coworker looked at you with a smirk on her face. 

You looked confused. ‘’What is?’’

‘’You’re the one who tamed Ransom Drysdale.’’ 

Your brow raised at her choice of words. ‘’Please don’t talk about him like he’s a wild animal.’’

‘’Well, from the things I’ve heard that’s what he was.’’ 

Your good mood was officially ruined. ‘’Or maybe he just treated people the way they treated him and all of you that are surprised by his sudden change in attitude are discovering what mutual respect is.’’ 

You were getting defensive, you absolutely hated the way people talked about Ransom. 

She scoffed. ‘’Get down from your high horse girl, he hasn’t changed. You just think he has. Deep down, he’ll always be an asshole who uses people like the only good thing they are good at is being disposable. You’re not special once he’s done with you, he’ll toss you aside like every girl before you.’’ She said before walking away. 

You hated her for saying those things but you hated yourself more for the small part of you who thought she might be right. 

You spent the rest of the day in a bad mood, everyone and everything annoyed you. At the end of the day, you stopped by your boss’ office to announce your departure. She was sad to lose you and your talent but she wasn’t surprised. She had been expecting it since the moment she heard you were involved with the Thrombey family. 

When you parked your car in your driveway, you were still in a bad mood. The words from your coworker replaying in your mind over and over again. She hadn’t been the first to ‘’warn’’ you about what Ransom would end up doing to you and you were tired of hearing them doubt him like he was incapable of loving someone other than himself. 

You walked through the front door, tossing your shoes against the wall. You were suddenly hit by the smell of food. Pizza, to be exact. You dropped your stuff next to your shoes and walked to the kitchen. 

Ransom had been waiting for you with a big smile on his face. Smile that quickly disappeared when he saw the expression on your face.

‘’Baby, what’s wrong?’’ 

He took a few steps towards you and held your face in his hands, making you look up. 

‘’Can you hug me, please?’’ You whispered.

He let go of your face to put his arms around your shoulders and held you closely to his chest, hugging you tightly. You leaned against him, resting the side of your face against his chest and wrapped your arms around his waist. You inhaled deeply, already feeling better. 

He kissed the top of your head. ‘’What happened?’’

‘’Nothing.’’ You mumbled against his chest. ‘’Just a coworker being a bitch.’’ 

His eyes widened at the word ‘’bitch’’, you very rarely insulted people so he knew it must have been bad. 

‘’Whose ass do I need to kick for hurting my girl?’’ He asked, seriously. 

You chuckled and tightened your hold around him. ‘’She’s not worth the energy.’’

You both stayed silent for a few minutes, Ransom gently swaying the both of you slowly from side to side to help you relax. 

‘’Is that pizza?’’ You asked, trying to look over his shoulder. 

He laughed softly. ‘’Yes. You hungry?’’ 

‘’Starving. I missed lunch.’’ You pout.

‘’Let’s eat, then.’’ 

You let go of each other and sat down at your dinner table with the pizza and some plates. You were eating in a comfortable silence when you realized something. 

‘’Ransom?’’ You asked after you finished chewing.

He looked up at you, still chewing. ‘’Mh?’’

‘’How did you get into my house?’’

He laughed. ‘’I used the key you hide on top of the light next to your front door. By the way, a very bad idea. The key gets burning hot when the light’s on.’’ 

‘’Oops.’’ You laughed. ‘’I’ll change its hiding place.’’ 

‘’Much appreciated.’’ He smiled, relieved to see you in a better mood. 

You spent the entire night talking about your future plans for your new project. You were doing research online and writing down a ton of ideas. 

Later when you were in bed, you rested your head on Ransom’s shoulder with your eyes closed. 

‘’Ransom?’’ You whispered, not sure if he was asleep. 

‘’M’yeah?’’ He answered, half asleep.

You hesitated, your heart was racing in your chest and your mouth suddenly felt really dry. 

He opened his eyes and looked at you. ‘’Baby?’’

You hid your face against his neck and said something, your voice muffled by his skin.

‘’What?’’ He laughed. ‘’I can’t hear you.’’ 

You lifted your head a little. ‘’I love you.’’ You whispered, so low Ransom thought he might have imagined it.

His whole body froze up and you felt him tense up under you. You panicked, immediately regretting saying it. 

He snapped out of his haze when he felt you trying to get away from him. He grabbed you by your hips and lifted one of his hands to hold your chin. Ransom tried to make you look at him but you were looking everywhere but at him. 

‘’Baby… Look at me.’’ 

You sighed and looked up.

‘’Do you really?’’ He asked softly. 

His heart started racing in his chest the moment your words had reached his brain. 

You nodded, looking down again. 

He wanted to tell you that he loved you too, hell he wanted to scream it at the top of his lungs so that everyone would know you owned his heart but after he left your office, he had spent the entire afternoon planning how he would tell you and he wanted it to be perfect. 

You look terrified. He couldn’t let you think that he didn’t feel the same way. Instead of telling you, he decided to show you. 

His hands that had been holding your chin moved to the back of your head to hold you in place while he lowered his head to kiss you. 

He put all of his feelings into the kissing, making it so intense that it took both of your breaths away. 

Relief washed over you in waves and you relaxed against him. He just wasn’t ready to say the words, you thought not knowing that he had been ready to tell you for a few weeks now. He had just been waiting for the perfect opportunity and now he had found it. He just needed you to be patient. 

The last two weeks at your job went by incredibly fast. You were working hard during the day, then you’d get home and work even harder in trying to start your own business with Ransom. It was stressful and yet so much fun at the same time. 

You had been scared that telling Ransom you loved him would push him away or make him close up but to your surprise, it did the exact opposite. He has been even more affectionate, as if that was possible. Whenever he could he’d kiss you and he made sure to show you how much he cared about you. 

Your last day at your job was two weeks later on a Friday. You walked out of the building at 4 to find Ransom waiting for you, leaning against his car all dressed up. You smiled and walked over to him. 

‘’What are you doing here?’’ 

He smiled back at you and slipped his fingers in the belt loops of your work pants, gently pulling you towards him. You put your arms around his neck. 

‘’What?’’ He asked innocently. ‘’I can’t pick you up anymore?’’ 

His hands rested on the small of your back as he fake gasped. ‘’Gorgeous, are you embarrassed to be seen with me?’’ 

You laughed and playfully rolled your eyes. ‘’So dramatic.’’ 

He smirked. ‘’Yeah, but you love me.’’ 

You were about to tell him off for making fun of you and your feelings but then you saw the look in his eyes, how happy he looked and realized he wasn’t teasing you. He wanted to hear you say it again.

‘’Meh.’’ You shrugged. ‘’Maybe.’’ 

‘’Baby…’’ His voice was deeper, like a warning to not mess with him. He moved his face closer to yours, his eyes never leaving yours. ‘’Say it.’’ 

‘’ I love y-’’ He didn’t even let you finish and cut you off by pressing his lips against yours. 

You pulled away to breathe, your eyes opening to the biggest smile you had ever seen on him. 

‘’Let’s get you home and changed, we are going out to celebrate.’’ 

You pointed behind you to the employees parking lot. 

‘’I drove here.’’ 

‘’Oh.’’ He looked over your shoulder, seeing your car. ‘’Right.’’ 

He had been so nervous all day, he completely forgot about that. 

‘’I’ll just follow you to your place, then.’’ 

He quickly kissed you and watched you walk to your car, smiling at you after you caught him watching you and waved at him. 

Ransom arrived about 10 minutes after you, he knocked and walked in when he realized you had left the door unlocked for him. 

He went to your living room and sat on your couch, pulling his phone out of his pocket and scrolling mindlessly until you were ready. 

‘’Is this ok?’’ You asked him as you walked in the living room, finally dressed.

He hadn’t told you where you were going but judging by the very expensive suit he was wearing you needed to choose something fancy. You were wearing the dress he had bought for you a few weeks back. It was red, because he thought you looked pretty in red and it had long sleeves, because he knew you were always cold. It had a round collar and the skirt was very long, stopping a few inches above the ground, because he knew you didn’t like to show skin and he didn’t think you needed to in order to look beautiful. 

He looked up at the sound of your voice and he smiled. 

‘’Perfect.’’ He stood up and put his phone back in his pocket, walking over to you. ‘’You look very beautiful.’’ 

His gaze was intense and your cheeks became incredibly hot. 

‘’Thank you.’’ You smiled shyly. 

He kissed your forehead and offered you his hand. ‘’Ready?’’ 

‘’Yes.’’ You took his hand and let him lead you to his car. 

You could tell that he was nervous but you weren’t going to say anything. He’d tell you why when he was ready. 

Ransom didn’t know why he was so nervous. All he had to do was to tell you he loved you and he knew for a fact you weren’t going to reject him because you had already told him that you loved him, so why was he feeling so anxious? 

He tried taking deep breaths to calm his heart down, it was beating so loudly he swore you probably could hear it from where you were sitting. His mouth was dry and his hands a little bit sweaty, he honestly couldn’t remember the last time he had been this nervous. 

Only you could have this kind of effect on him and it made him smile. 

He parked his car in front of the restaurant where you would eat tonight and turned to face you.

‘’Before you say anything, I checked the prices and it isn’t as expensive as it looks and they aren’t cheap on the portions.’’

You laughed. ‘’You know me so well.’’ 

After you both got out of the car, Ransom walked over to you and took your hand in his. The moment you stepped inside the restaurant, a waiter was coming up to you and leading you to the table that had been reserved for you. Ransom only let go of your hand to pull out your chair and help you settle, and sat across from you. 

He looked slightly annoyed. 

‘’You ok over there?’’

He bit his lip. ‘’I don’t like sitting across from you. I prefer to sit next to you.’’

You started to move things around on the table and set his plate and utensils next to your own. You pulled out the chair on your right and smiled. 

‘’Problem solved.’’

He stood up and came around the table to take the seat next to you. He rested his arm on the back of your chair and sighed. 

‘’Better?’’ You turned your head to the side to look at him. 

He nodded. ‘’Much.’’ He grinned. 

Ransom used to be very independent, always doing his own thing and being on his own most of the time. He did what he wanted, when he wanted and he didn’t care if he did it alone or with someone else. That all changed when he met you. He never saw himself as the type of man to be clingy and yet he found himself craving your touch or even your presence all the time. He loved to be around you and he loved even more that you allowed him to be. He knew you were way too good for him, completely out of his league, but for some reason you had chosen to love him with all of his flaws and he promised himself that he would spend the rest of his life proving to you that you had made the right decision when you chose him. 

Before he could tell you all of this, he needed a little bit of help. He waved the waiter over and ordered a beer, for a little bit of liquid courage. 

‘’You want anything, baby?’’ 

‘’Just water, please.’’ You smiled at the waiter. 

He nodded and left to get your drinks. 

‘’How was your last day at work?’’ His fingers started to gently stroke the back of your neck. 

‘’Good. Long.’’ You laughed. ‘’As much as I loved working there, I’m excited to start working full time on your business.’’

‘’Our business.’’ Ransom corrected you. 

‘’Our business.’’ You repeated, making him smile. 

The waiter came back quickly, dropping off both of your drinks on the table while telling you to call him over once you were ready to order. 

Ransom took the glass in front of him and held it up, waiting for you to do the same with yours. 

‘’To our new publishing company and all of our future adventures together.’’ 

You clinked your glasses together and took a sip, well you took a sip. Ransom took a few large gulps before putting the bottle down. He opened his mouth, finally ready to tell you how he felt and put to use the speech he had prepared, memorized and practiced over and over again to make sure he didn’t forget anything, but a voice coming from behind him cut him off.

‘’Ransom?’’

The colors drained from his face when he realized who it was.

Chapter Text

He tried to ignore his friend but failed, as he walked around the table to face him. ‘’I thought that was you.’’ He smirked. ‘’We haven’t heard from you in a while.’’ 

‘’Sorry, man.’’ He forced himself to smile, hoping it’ll make him go away faster. ‘’I’ve been busy.’’ 

His friend’s eyes fell to you. ‘’I can see that.’’ 

Ransom put his arm around your shoulders protectively, his heart was pounding in his chest and he had trouble breathing. 

‘’I’ll catch up with you later.’’ Ransom told him, hoping he’d get the hint.

He didn’t.

His friend took his phone out of his pocket and checked the date before putting it back in. He stared at you for a few seconds and smirked again.

‘’Well, I’ll be damned. I guess we all owe you 2k.’’ 

Ransom stopped breathing. No, no, no, no, no.

You frowned and looked at his friend, then at Ransom. 

‘’2k for what?’’ 

His friend chuckled. ‘’Should I tell her, or do you want to?’’

Ransom’s jaw clenched. ‘’Shut up.’’ He hissed through gritted teeth. 

‘’Tell me what?!’’ You were starting to lose patience at the way Ransom’s friend talked about you like you weren’t sitting right there in front of him.

‘’Over two months ago, we made a dare with Ransom.’’ He started.

‘’Shut the hell up.’’ Ransom repeated, louder and more aggressively. 

You held your hand up, having a really bad feeling. ‘’Let him finish.’’

‘’We saw a pretty little thing sitting alone in a restaurant while her friends left her, looking all sad. We bet Ransom that he had two months to make her fall in love with him and if he did he’d get 1k. He doubled the bet saying that she looked so lonely, he could do it easily. He was right.’’ He looked you over. ‘’You look sickeningly in love with him.’’

Your hand fell on your lap, speechless. All this time, you were nothing more than a bet to him. An easy way to make money. The man that had more money than he could ever spend, made you fall in love for money he didn’t even need. You felt sick to your stomach, humiliated and disgusted. 

You slowly stood up and took your coat and phone, you walked away without looking at Ransom. You put on your coat once you were outside, your hands were shaking and you had trouble breathing. You felt like someone had just ripped your heart out from your chest. It took you 3 tries before you managed to order an Uber, your eyes kept filling up with tears and it made your vision blurry. 

Ransom felt completely powerless as he watched you learn the truth. Part of it, anyway. His heart broke at the same time yours did, the pain so intense he wanted to scream.

His friend looked at him with a smile, completely clueless as to what he had just done. ‘’That’s taking care of, your Friday nights are free again. You should come with me, I was just leaving to go meet the others.’’

Taking his coat from the back of his chair, Ransom stood up and got into his friend’s face. ‘’You just took away the one good thing I’ve ever had in my life. You hurt the only person I’ve ever loved and I am going to make sure that your life is a fucking nightmare.’’ He hissed, a few inches away from his face. ‘’You just made the biggest mistake of your life.’’ 

Ransom quickly walked away, putting his coat on and pushing the door open. He looked around and saw you standing at the edge of the sidewalk, staring blankly ahead. He jogged over to you.

‘’Baby…’’ He stood besides you, his body facing you. 

You flinched at the nickname. “Stay away from me.’’ 

You couldn’t even look at him and it killed him. 

‘’I swear it’s not like that.’’ 

‘’So, you didn’t bet that you could make me fall in love with you?’’ You finally looked at him and the pain in your eyes made him hate himself even more.

‘’I did but-’’ You cut him off.

‘’I don’t want to hear your pathetic excuses as to why you did it or why you strung me along for more than 2 months like it was nothing.’’ You laughed bitterly. ‘’Everyone told me to stay away from you, told me you were going to hurt me and use me but I ignored them. Hell, I was stupid enough to defend you. I didn’t want to believe them because I thought they didn’t know you like I did. I’m so incredibly dumb.’’ You shook your head. 

‘’No. I’m not like that, not with you. The bet might be the reason why I talked to you in the first place but I swear it’s not why we’re together.’’

‘’We’re not.’’

‘’What?’’

‘’We’re not together.’’

Ransom felt the tears making their way up, the lump in his throat made it hard to swallow and talk. ‘’No, please-’’

Tears streamed down your cheeks as you took a shaky breath. ‘’Why me?’’ You asked him. ‘’What did I ever do to you that you had to hurt me so badly?’’ 

The pain in your voice is what finally broke him, tears falling down his cheeks ,too overwhelmed to be able to answer you.

’I told you I loved you and that means something to me. It’s not some random words that I throw around for the hell of it. This whole time you were making fun of me. What kind of person goes out of their way to hurt another human being for money?’’

You finally saw your Uber pulling up next to you. ‘’I hope that money was worth it, do me a favor and buy yourself a heart with it. Clearly, you need it.’’

Your words stung him so badly, it felt like they had knocked the air out of his lungs. Like he had been punched in the gut, though that probably would have hurt less. 

You opened the door of the car and stepped down the curb to sit in the back.

‘’ Don’t go! Don’t leave me. I can’t do this without you. ’’ He begged you, following behind. 

You shook your head and slammed the car door shut, asking the driver to take you home. He watched the car pull away, taking you and his heart with it. His sadness quickly turned into anger, and from anger it turned into pure rage. He was fuming, clenching his fists on each side of his body; his jaw clenched just as tightly as his fists. He turned around and walked into the restaurant, finding his ‘’friend’’ still standing next to the table you had previously sat at. He wiped his tears with the sleeves of his coat as he stepped towards the man who had just ruined his entire life. 

‘’Back to collect your prize?’’

‘’No, keep the money. You’re going to need it to get your teeth fixed.’’

He frowned in confusion. ‘’My teeth are fi-’’

Ransom punched him hard, throwing him to the ground. He stood over him, panting and waiting to see the damage he had done. He heard the man cough and then spit on the floor. A smirk appeared on Ransom’s face as he saw that he had managed to knock out a tooth and break another one.

‘’That’s what you get for fucking with me, and that’s just the beginning.’’ His laugh was cold, devoid of any emotion. 

‘’What’s wrong with you, man? She’s just a chick, there’s plenty more. You need to chill.’’ He said to Ransom, holding his jaw. 

Ransom crouched next to him and stared into his eyes, making the man’s blood run cold. 

‘’She’s not just a chick and there isn’t plenty more. She’s it for me, there’s no one else and there will never be. She’s my everything and you took her away from me.’’ 

‘’I just told her the truth.’’

‘’No. No, you didn’t. You told her what you thought was the truth when in reality you have no fucking clue as to what you’re talking about.’’ 

Ransom stood up, the staff looking at him. He held his hands up in the air, showing that he wasn’t going to cause any more trouble.

‘’I apologize for this. I’m leaving.’’ 

He was escorted out and they even walked him to his car to make sure he was really leaving. As he drove away, he had no idea where to go. He didn’t want to go to his house, not without you. It’s been over a month since he’s been alone there and he’s not ready to face his empty house. He tried calling you, the first time he was sent to voicemail but the second time his call was disconnected, you had blocked his number. 

‘’Fuck!’’ He screamed in his car, hitting the steering wheel. 

The first thing you did when you got home was to find the spare key you were hiding that Ransom used to get in when you weren’t home. You brought it inside and locked the door behind you. Then, you ran upstairs and took off your dress to change into your own clothes. You went to the bathroom and grabbed a small trash bag, you collected everything that was either Ransom’s or that he had given you. The clothes he had started to leave behind for when he slept at your house, the dress you had been wearing minutes ago, the teddy bear he had given you the night you went to his family dinner and the pile of DVDs he had brought from his house. You went back downstairs to find the books he had given you and threw them in the bag with the rest. You walked all over your house, making sure you hadn’t forgotten anything and when you were sure you had everything, you tied the bag and threw it in your garage. You felt the tears fighting their way back to the surface so you closed your eyes, took some deep breaths and waited until you were sure you weren’t going to cry before opening them again. 

You went to your room and looked at your bed. There was no way in hell you’d be able to sleep with your sheets smelling like him. You grabbed the covers and pulled them off, then you did the same thing with the sheets and pillowcases. As you pull on them, you get hit by a big whiff of his cologne and you just lose it.  Your knees buckled under your weight, no longer able to hold you up and you fell to the floor. You were sobbing uncontrollably as you finally allowed yourself to feel everything you had been trying to push down for the past hour. 

You thought of all the times people were warning you about Ransom, of all the moments you spent with him just laughing and talking and how close you had gotten in such a short amount of time. Or so you thought.

All those moments that used to make you feel better when you were sad, were now the cause of your pain. All the times you allowed yourself to be happy and to trust him, you were being played. None of it was real for him but it was all oh so real for you. You couldn’t believe how blind you had been, you should have seen it coming. 

Before him, you couldn’t remember the last time a man had come up to you and asked for your number. How could you have been so foolish to think that a man like Ransom Drysdale could be genuinely interested in you and want to be in a relationship with you? 

You had to give it to him, the man sure could act because there had been so many times you could have sworn that he truly cared about you, but you were just a means to an end. He really did go above and beyond to get his damn money. 

You stayed on the floor, crying, until there weren’t any tears left to cry. Your eyes were burning and the pain in your chest hadn’t subsided but you managed to pull yourself off from the floor and finished the task you had started. You wiped the few stray tears that fell and made your bed with clean sheets. Sheets that didn’t smell like the man who had crashed into your life and destroyed everything, including you. You turned off the light and moved to lie under the covers, closing your eyes as you felt you were about to cry again. It didn’t stop the tears from falling, but if you kept your eyes closed long enough you might be able to fall asleep, or wake up from this nightmare. You had never felt more humiliated in your entire life and you still couldn’t believe that the sweet man you had been spending all of your time with was capable of doing something like that, but he had. 

You moved to lie on your side and curled into a ball, your whole body shaking from how hard you were crying. You stayed like this until you were so exhausted, you fell asleep.

Ransom had been driving around, not knowing where to go or what to do. He wanted to fix this, he needed to fix this. He needed to tell you that yes, he had made the bet and that was a disgusting thing to do but everything that happened between the two of you was real. You were everything but a bet to him. You were literally everything to him. He loved you so much it hurt and that was real. Ransom quickly stopped on the side of the road and leaned his forehead against the steering wheel. He started crying, unable to stop himself. He felt like his entire chest was on fire and that someone was sitting on it, making it difficult to breathe. He needed you like he needed air in his lungs. He wiped the tears away and got back on the road, this time with a destination in mind: you. 

20 minutes later, he found himself in front of your house. He got out of his car and noticed that there was absolutely no light coming from inside. It was late and you were probably asleep but he needed to talk to you so that he could fix this mess. 

He walked up to your porch and knocked on your door. He waited a few minutes and when nothing happened he knocked again and called out your name.

It reminded him of the time you were both busy and didn’t have time to see each other so you spent the night apart. Except Ransom spent hours tossing and turning without being able to sleep even for a second. He had shown up at your door, like tonight, at 3am and knocked until you answered and asked if he could sleep with you. That night he realized that he could never sleep again without you in his arms. 

You had managed to fall asleep but you were woken up barely 30 minutes later because someone was knocking at your front door. You tried to ignore it but they kept knocking and knocking, clearly they weren’t going to stop until you opened the door. You were so out of it and exhausted that you hadn’t registered that it was late at night. You slowly got out of bed and started walking down the stairs, freezing into place when your name was called out through the door. 

Ransom. It was Ransom. 

Your heart started racing in your chest and your eyes filled up with tears again. 

‘’I’m not leaving until you open the door.’’

And you knew he meant it.

You took a few deep breaths trying to gain control back over your body and keep yourself from crying for the next 5 minutes. 

You finished making your way down the stairs and walked over to the front door. You hated how much your hand shook when you lifted it to open the door. 

Ransom almost started to sob with relief when you finally appeared in front of him. You looked completely broken and he wanted nothing more than to be able to put you back together.

‘’Baby…’’ His voice wavered as he tried to hold back his tears. 

‘’Stay here.’’ Your own voice was incredibly raspy from how much you had been crying and sobbing. 

You disappeared in your house, leaving your front door open and you reappeared a minute later holding a trash bag that you dropped at his feet.

Ransom looked down. ‘’What’s that?’’ He asked, though he knew the answer.

‘’Your things, and everything you ever gave me. Not that they ever meant anything, apparently. Whatever I left at your house you can toss, burn, keep; I don’t care. I won’t be coming back for them.’’

You slammed the door shut and locked it again. You didn’t stick around to see if he was going to try and get you to open the door again, you quickly ran to your room and closed the door; hoping it would be enough to not be able to hear him if he knocked again. You crawled into your bed and once again lost any control you had and tears were flowing down your cheeks. 

Ransom picked up the bag and opened it. He wondered if you had kept anything but no, every single thing that was his or that he had bought just for you was in the bag. Even the books that had made you so incredibly happy when he gave them to you. 

It was over. Truly over. He had lost you. 

He walked back to his car, defeated and drove back to his house. As he walked in, he realized that he hated everything about it. This wasn’t a home, it was just a way for him to show off his money. He didn’t need a huge house, he didn’t need all of this space. He needed you. You were his home.

As predicted, he spent the entire night tossing and turning. His own body betrayed him every time he reached over to the side you usually slept on. 

He watched the sun rise and thought of all the ways that he could numb the pain in his chest. The most evident one being alcohol but that wouldn’t be enough. Not today. Not for this. 

Maybe it was time to spend some quality time with his dear family. He knew he’d get his fair share of opportunities to pick a fight with literally anyone.

For a few blissful seconds when you opened your eyes the next morning, you had forgotten what had happened. Until you reached over and behind you looking for Ransom and the empty, cold space he usually occupied painfully flooded your mind with all the events from the previous night. You were suddenly very aware of how much your body was hurting. You turned to lie on your back and stared at your ceiling. You hadn’t eaten in almost 24 hours but you were far from hungry, nausea made you shiver just at the thought of trying to eat something. You didn’t even bother to look at your phone, you knew nothing was waiting on there for you. You had cut your friends out of your life after how they treated you when Ransom had come over to your table to ask for your number, your family had been out of the picture for years, you had blocked Ransom’s number and you had quit your job to go work with Ransom.

‘’Shit.’’ You covered your eyes with your arm.

You had quit your job to go work with Ransom. You had nothing. No job, no family, no friends, nothing but the most painful heartbreak of your life. 

The nausea getting overwhelming, you quickly got out of bed and ran to your bathroom. You fell to your knees in front of the toilet and your entire body was shaking with spasms but nothing came out. You laid your forehead against the cold wall next to you. You were panting and trying desperately to calm down. When you finally felt like you weren’t going to vomit, you stood up on shaky legs and turned on the water in your shower. You took your clothes off and stepped under the water, closing the shower door behind you. The water scorching hot, exactly what you needed to scrub off the pain and humiliation from your skin. You scrubbed and scrubbed until your skin was raw. You sat on the floor of the shower and brought your knees to your chest, wrapping your arms around your legs. You leaned your head against the wall and let the water run on your body, your tears mixing with it as it fell down the drain. 

You stayed like this until the water turned cold, only then did you shut the water off and got out. You dried off your body with a towel and put on clean clothes. You lifted the covers from your bed and laid back under them. You rested your head on your pillow and closed your eyes, hoping you could go back to sleep. At least when you sleep, nothing hurts. 

Before even getting out of bed, Ransom took his phone and tried calling you again. Just in case you had unblocked him, it wasn’t really a surprise when the busy tone rang in his ears to let him know you hadn’t. He tossed his phone on his bed and got up. He wasn’t hungry but he still made his way to the kitchen and opened his fridge. He took a beer out and twisted the cap open. He brought the bottle to his lips and drank half of it in one go. He walked out of the kitchen and stared at the bag you had given him last night. He grabbed it and went to sit in his living room. He took a few more sips from his beer before setting it down on the coffee table and opened the bag like he had done the night before. He took every item out, one by one as he felt his heart break all over again. The last thing in the bag was the teddy bear he had given you, for when you were sad and he wasn’t there to hold you until you felt better. He held it in his hands and stared at it. If the bear was here, it meant you were all alone. You were in pain and there was no one there to comfort you, no one there to take the pain away and it killed him. He hadn’t even noticed he had started crying again until he was wiping the tears away. He dropped the bear on top of the pile of things that had been in the bag and grabbed his beer. He quickly finished it and went back into the kitchen to get another one. He decided to take the whole 6-pack and walked back upstairs to his room. He sat against the headboard on his bed and opened another bottle, quickly drinking it. 

It had been a while since Ransom had a drink. Since he started dating you, actually. The 6-pack had been there from before you and had been sitting in the fridge for the past two months, untouched. Just like his family, alcohol had always been a way for him to avoid dealing with his problems and just like his family, he was an angry drunk. He was well aware of it and he hated who he was when he drank so when he met you, he completely stopped drinking. You didn’t drink so it made it that much easier for him, but he never wanted you to see that side of him. He thought it was going to be hard but the more time he spent with you and the less time he spent with the toxic people in his life, like his family and friends, the less he felt like he needed to drink. He was happy. 

He drank his first beer in two months the night before, trying to muster the courage to tell you how he felt about you. Maybe if he hadn’t taken the time to order a drink and then waited to drink most of it before finally telling you, he would have had time to tell you everything he wanted to before the other asshole showed up and ruined everything. Maybe if he’d had the time to tell you how much he loved you, you would only have been angry. Less hurt. Because you would have known that he loved you and that his feelings were real.

He drank the last bottle, just around dinner time. He stood up and took a shower, making him sober up to his dismay. He got dressed and left for the Thrombey Mansion. When he walked through the front door, he could hear his family members screaming at one another. He smirked. Perfect , he thought. 

He walked to the living room where everyone was, didn’t even bother to talk to anyone and went straight to the bar. He looked around and grabbed a bottle, not even caring what it was, popped it open and drank straight from the bottle. 

‘’Ransom, what the fuck? Use a glass.’’ 

He flipped off his dad, as he kept drinking. He let himself fall back into the couch and focused all of his attention on the bottle in his hand. 

‘’Where’s your little friend?’’ Walt asked.

Ransom laughed bitterly and lifted the bottle to his lips to drink from it again. 

‘’None of your fucking business.’’ He finally answered.

‘’Ransom.’’ His mother warned him. ‘’Watch your damn mouth.’’

‘’You’re about 30 years too late to start mothering, don’t you think?’’ He snorted. 

‘’Show some respect to your mother.’’

Ransom laughed at his dad. ‘’You mean like you do when you’re cheating on her?’’ 

‘’Is there a reason why you’re here? Why don’t you go annoy your girlfriend instead?’’ Linda crossed her arms over her chest, glaring at her son.

Walt was quick to notice the way Ransom had flinched at the word ‘’girlfriend.’’

‘’Keep her out of your mouth.’’ He threatened her, gripping the bottle tightly. 

‘’Did she finally realize how much of a dick you are and walked out on you?’’ Walt asked, smirking. ‘’Or did you manage to royally screw it up, like you do everything else? That’s why she isn’t here and you are, isn’t it? She’s gone.’’

Ransom stood up, panting from the shallow breaths he was taking because of the anger. 

‘’Shut the hell up.’’

Walt chuckled. ‘’I’m right, aren’t I?’’

Ransom threw the bottle across the room, missing Walt’s head by a few inches. It exploded against the wall behind him instead. 

Suddenly, everyone was screaming at him. Shreeching even. He just looked at them, a smile on his face; the kind that was somehow devoid of all emotions. 

Meg walked over to Ransom and grabbed him by the wrist, pulling him into Harlan’s office and shutting the door behind the two of them.

‘’Are you trying to get killed or something?’’ She asked him, hitting him behind the head.

‘’Bitch.’’ Ransom mumbled under his breath. 

He walked over to Harlan’s desk and sat in his chair. 

‘’What happened with her?’’ Meg asked softly.

She walked closer to the desk, putting her phone on top of it.

Ransom’s anger quickly crumbled and before he could stop himself, he was sobbing. 

You spent your entire day in bed. Alternating between sleeping and crying. You were physically and emotionally exhausted. You were on the verge of falling back asleep when your phone started to ring on your nightstand, making you jump. You grabbed it and looked at the screen, surprised to see the name on the caller ID. You quickly picked up.

‘’Meg? Is everything ok?’’ Your voice broke from being unused for so long.

‘’No.’’ You could hear yelling in the background. ‘’Something’s wrong with Ransom.’’ 

You sat up in your bed. ‘’What do you mean?’’ Your heart was racing in your chest.

‘’He’s-’’ She stopped talking, and you were about to call out her name when you heard glass break and Ransom’s name being yelled by his family. 

‘’Meg?’’ 

‘’Hold on, don’t hang up.’’

‘’Ok.’’ You whispered, waiting. 

You heard some shuffling around, the yelling getting further and further away then you heard a door being slammed shut. You heard Meg talk to Ransom and something that sounded like a slap. You heard her ask him what happened and you almost hung up but something inside stopped you. It was quiet for a few seconds and you thought that maybe she had hung up, then you heard him. He was crying, sobbing. The sound made your heart painfully clench in your chest and your eyes burned from the tears that were welling up. Again. 

Ransom looked at Meg. ‘’I just did what I do best. I hurt her.’’

His cousin sighed and sat across from him. ‘’What did you do?’’

Ransom shook his head. ‘’I don’t want to talk about it.’’

‘’Well tough shit. You’re gonna tell me and we’re going to fix this.’’

‘’Why would you help me?’’

‘’Because-’’ She sighed. ‘’I only saw you together for like 2 hours but the Ransom you were with her was the best Ransom I’ve ever seen and I liked that guy. Plus, it was written all over your face that you were in love with her.’’

‘’Are.’’

‘’What?’’ She asked, confused.

‘’You said ‘’you were in love with her’’, past tense. I still am, so it’s are not were.’’ 

Meg held up her hands. ‘’My bad. So, are you going to tell me what you did or do I have to ask her?’’ She pretended to go for her phone, as you were listening to the whole thing.

‘’No.’’ Ransom almost shouted. ‘’I’ll- I’ll tell you, but leave her alone. She doesn’t want anything to do with me and I need to respect that. I don’t want to but I need to.’’

‘’Jesus Christ Ransom, what the hell did you do to her?’’

He held his head in his hands. ‘’I don’t even know where to start.’’

‘’When did it happen?’’ Meg asked.

‘’Last night…’’

‘’So just start from the beginning and tell me everything’’

Your heart was pounding in your chest as you were listening to them. You didn’t want to relieve everything but it would give you a chance to see everything from his point of view and it seemed like he didn’t know you could hear him, so he’d be telling the truth.

‘’I met her on a Friday night, when I was at the bar with the guys I went to college with.’

‘’Oh, this is going to be bad.’’

Ransom glared at her and kept talking. ‘’She was out celebrating because she had just graduated and she had a bunch of her friends with her and then suddenly they all got up and left her alone. With the guys we have this stupid tradition to come up with dares for one another and bet money on each other and it was my turn…’’

‘’Oh no...Ransom, please don’t say what I think you’re going to say.’’

He laughed sadly. ‘’The guys said to make her fall in love with me in two months and the bet was 1k. I had been drinking and I was being a cocky asshole so I said I’d double the bet because she looked lonely and it’d be super easy.’’

Meg opened his mouth to insult him but he cut her off. ‘’I know, it was a disgusting thing to do, ok? I’m not proud of it. Far from it. Anyway, I went to her table to talk to her and I introduced myself. I saw that she knew who I was but couldn’t quite figure it out and then she finally figured it out. Usually I get one of two reactions; either women throw themselves at me for my money or they turn me down because of my reputation. That’s what I was expecting from her. Instead you know what’s the first thing she said to me?’’ He looked up at Meg. ‘’She said she was sorry to hear about Harlan’s death and asked me how I had been doing.’’ 

He smiled fondly at the memory. ‘’She literally made me speechless. I didn’t know what to say or how to react.’’

‘’Which is a first with your smart mouth.’’

‘’Exactly. I just quickly changed the subject and asked her if she wanted to come sit with us at our table. I could see in her eyes that she knew something was up so she said no.’’

‘’You know what that means, right?’’ Meg raised a brow expectantly. 

‘’What?’’

‘’When a woman can tell when someone’s trying to coax her into some kind of bet… It’s because it happened to them at least once before.’’

Ransom closed his eyes and tried to fight back the tears.

Meg was right, it had happened to you before and that’s why you hated yourself for not realizing what was happening.

‘’Her friends came back so I decided to leave her alone and just pay the money I owed and move on. Except as I was walking away I heard her friends say my name and I got curious so I stayed within earshot.’’

‘’Creep.’’ Meg mumbled under her breath.

Ransom flipped her off. ‘’Her friends started to ask her what I was talking to her for and then… They started telling her that she wasn’t good enough for me, that I was way out of her league and that she wasn’t beautiful enough to deserve my attention. It made my blood boil. They just kept giving her backhanded compliments and I walked back over to her and asked for her number. At this point it wasn’t even about the bet anymore, I just wanted to shut her friends up. If anything, she’s out of my league and not the other way around. I think I may have insulted one of the girls at the table, I can’t really remember. She smiled at me and my mind just went blank.’’

‘’Awww, RanRan.’’ 

‘’Don’t call me that.’’ He rolled his eyes. ‘’I asked her out the next morning, expecting her to turn me down but she said yes. I took her out to that very expensive restaurant that usually makes the girls swoon but I should have known it wasn’t going to work on her.’’ He chuckled to himself. ‘’She literally fought me in the car because she didn’t want to eat there. The woman made me walk to a diner. Me, in a freaking diner. I almost turned around and left but then she smiled at me and I just went along. I swear that smile is my fucking kryptonite.’’

Meg discreetly checked her phone, to make sure you were still there, relieved to see that you were.

‘’Our stupid waitress just kept flirting with me the whole time. Even if I was on a date and my girl was sitting right in front of me. She left for the bathroom and the waitress was back at the table within the same second and she was hitting on me so hard it was almost painful to watch. After 10 minutes though, she still wasn’t back from the bathroom and I started to get worried. That’s when I saw her standing a few feet away. When she sat back down, I asked her what she had been doing and you know what her answer was? She said that she was waiting because maybe I wanted to be alone with the damn waitress.’’ He shook his head.

Meg gasped. ‘’Stop.’’

‘’I swear. My sweet girl thought I’d pick the waitress over her.’’ He scoffed. ‘’That’s when everything changed for me. I just felt this need to protect her, I wanted to show her how beautiful and amazing she was.’’

‘’That’s when you fell in love.’’ Meg pointed out and Ransom nodded. 

‘’I had already forgotten all about the bet. I just wanted to spend every second of every minute with her. So, I brought her back to my place-’’

‘’Of course you did.’’ Meg cut him off and rolled her eyes.

‘’Not like that. I didn’t have sex with her.’’

‘’You waited on the second date? That must have been a new record for you.’’

‘’No. I didn’t have sex with her. Ever.’’

‘’What?!’’ Meg almost yelled, making Ransom glare at her. ‘’Why?’’

He shrugged. ‘’It wasn’t like that with her.’’

‘’You didn’t want to?’’

‘’Of course I wanted to. Are you kidding? Have you seen her? She’s gorgeous. I just didn’t want to rush her and she didn’t seem ready.’’

You were going through a rollercoaster of emotions as you were listening to him. Hearing him talk about the bet made you cry but hearing him talk about you with love and admiration in his voice made your heart ache in a very different way. He really did care about you. 

You felt heat creep up your neck and face as you heard him talking about wanting to have sex with you. Your friends always said that you were a prude but for you having sex was different than it was for them and you loved that Ransom noticed it and respected it.

‘’After that we spent almost every day together, we even slept over at each other’s houses. I was falling in love with her more and more every day. We were going to start our own publishing company together. She believed in me, she believed that I could do something good.’’ He smiled but it didn’t reach his eyes.

‘’I never thought I’d ever say this but I want to get married. I want to marry her, I want to have a family with her.  She’s my everything.’’ Ransom felt the familiar burn come back to his eyes.

‘’What happened last night?’’ Meg asked again. ‘’She found out, didn’t she?’’

‘’It was her last day at her job, she was going to work full time with me for our publishing company and I took her out to celebrate. I had also planned to tell her I love her. I had been planning for two weeks, I had a speech and everything.’’ He cleared his throat, trying to get rid of the painful knot he felt in his throat. 

‘’She had told me she loved me a few weeks before and I swear to God, I almost died from how happy I was. I wanted to tell her so badly but I also wanted it to be special and I decided to wait. I wanted to make her feel special like she made me feel special. She deserves the best and only the best. Then the asshole shows up.’’

He clenched his jaw, feeling the anger come back.

‘’Son of a bitch couldn’t keep his damn mouth shut and told her everything. He thought that I had been playing her this whole time when the bet had just been the reason why I had talked to her in the first place. When I asked her for her phone number, it wasn’t for the bet and when I asked her out I was using the bet as an excuse for myself but I knew it had nothing to do with it, I just wasn’t ready to admit it to myself. He made her think that everything that I had done for her, all the love and attention was all me pretending, so I’d win a stupid bet. The bet was the best and worst thing to ever happen to me. If it hadn’t been for it I probably wouldn’t have talked to her and I wouldn’t have met the love of my life but it’s also the reason why I’ll never see her again.”

‘’What did the other guy do after that?’’

‘’He lost his fucking teeth after that.’’ He mumbled.

‘’You hit him?’’ Meg was surprised. Ransom was an asshole, he picked fights but he never got physical.

‘’You didn’t see the look on her face, ok? She was broken. Completely broken. There was so much pain in her eyes it literally knocked the wind out my lungs. He’s lucky we were still in the restaurant because had we been outside, he would have needed a lot more work than two fake teeth.’’

‘’You were still in the restaurant?’’ Meg gasped.

‘’Yes… I went back in after she left. That asshole just had to keep his mouth shut. She didn’t need to know.’’

‘’Ransom, that’s not true. She deserved to know.’’

‘’Why, what good did it do? I acted like a dumbass teenager and made a disgusting bet but I never went through with it. I never would have. I know you all think I’m this giant dirtbag but I don’t go out of my way to hurt people. Especially not the people that I love. Everything I did after that night, it was all me. She didn’t need to know why I went to her table in the first place. It only hurt her and now because of that asshole she thinks that everything that happened between us was just to win some stupid bet when it’s the complete opposite but she’ll never know that because she doesn’t want to see me or talk to me.’’

Ransom rubbed his hands over his face, wiping at the tears that kept falling against his will.

‘’The worst part is, she’s all alone. She doesn’t have friends or family. She’s just alone, at home, in pain and there’s no one there to take care of her.’’

Suddenly an idea crossed Ransom’s mind. His eyes quickly found Meg’s. ‘’Could you go see her? Just make sure she’s eating. Sometimes when she’s sad she doesn’t eat and when she doesn’t eat she gets grumpy and it’s a whole vicious circle. Please, just go see her.’’ He pleaded. ‘’Do it for her, not for me.’’

Meg nodded and Ransom looked around to find a piece of paper and a pen. 

‘’I’ll make you a list ok? I’ll buy all of her favorite food and you can bring it to her, just in case she doesn’t want to eat. An- And maybe hug her, she always feels better after a hug, but you need to ask first because sometimes she doesn’t like to be touched. I’ll add it to the list.’’

He started writing down everything he could think of that usually helps you feel better.

‘’Ransom.’’ Meg looked at him as he was writing furiously. ‘’Ransom, calm down.’’ She took the pen out of his hand when he wasn’t stopping.

Ransom let out a long sigh, clenching his fists. 

‘’I just wish I could tell her that she was my whole damn world and there wasn’t a single minute that I was with her that was faked. I can’t even sleep without holding her . I spent the entire night reaching out for her and it killed me more and more every time I realized she was not there and that she’ll never be there again.’’ He took his head between his hands, looking down at the desk.

He couldn’t stop the tears that were spilling out onto the paper that he had just been writing on, his body shaking with every sob. 

‘’You just did.’’ 

‘’What?’’ Ransom sniffled, keeping his head down. 

‘’You just told her.’’ 

Ransom looked up. ‘’Stop messing with me. This isn’t funny.’’

‘’I’m not messing with you.’’ She took her phone from the desk and showed him the screen so that he could see your name and how long you had been on the phone for. She lifted the phone to her ear.

‘’Hey girl.’’ She said softly. ‘’Are you still there?’’ 

You hadn’t missed a single second of everything he had said. You were crying so hard you had the hiccups from not being able to breathe properly. You were extremely confused as to how you were feeling after Ransom’s confession. A part of you was still very hurt by the fact that they had used her for a bet but the other part of her wanted to forgive him because he really did love you and the moments you had together were all real. From the moment he asked for your phone number to right now. Meg’s voice pulled you out of your thoughts.

‘’Mh-mh.’’ You said to let her know you were still there and listening, but you didn’t think you could use your voice at the moment.

Ransom’s heart was racing, his eyes wide. Now you know everything. Every detail, every feeling, every thought he’s had since meeting you. He had all laid it out there and you heard every single word. Under different circumstances, Ransom would be beyond pissed at Meg for doing something like this but in this moment, he was grateful that she gave him a chance to tell you everything he had been trying to say to you since last night.  

He stood up, way too fast, ignoring how dizzy he felt, and he held out his hand towards Meg. Silently asking for her phone. She hesitated for a few seconds and finally placed it in his opened palm. He quickly pressed the phone to his ear.

He could hear you crying and he recognized the sound of the hiccups you had whenever you’d be too overwhelmed and forgot to breathe. It’s all he needed to hear for his body to finally calm down, he wiped the tears from his cheeks but this time there weren’t new ones to take their place. His mind now focused on one thing: getting you to breathe.

‘’Baby. Baby, listen to me. You need to breathe. I need you to breathe ok?’’

You nodded, though he couldn’t see you. The sound of his voice was already soothing you. You took a deep breath, trying to fill up your lungs as much as possible and hold it for a few seconds before exhaling slowly. 

‘’That’s it baby, you’re doing great. Keep going.’’ He encouraged you.

You closed your eyes and did it again, and again, and again until you were finally able to breathe normally, Ransom telling you how great you were doing the whole time. 

‘’Baby please let me come back, I’ll do anything .’’ He was begging you, shamelessly. He wanted his girl back and he didn’t care who heard him.

‘’Ransom.’’ Your voice came out rapsy and broken, making you sound like you were telling him no.

Meg looked over at Ransom, her eyes asking him what she was saying. He shook his head no. 

‘’She doesn’t want me there. Can you go to her house? I’m scared she might hyperventilate again.’’

‘’No, Ransom-’’ You tried again, but he cut you off.

‘’I swear I won’t go. Just let her in ok?’’

‘’Come home.’’ You said to him, your voice a little louder than before.

‘’Wh- What?’’ He froze in place, his heart beating at a furious pace. 

‘’Come home.’’ You repeated.

He let out a shaky breath. ‘’Are you sure?’’

‘’Yes.’’ You didn’t hesitate for a moment.

The reason as to why he had talked to you in the first was absolutely horrible, but he knew that. He had known from the very beginning. He had decided to just pay them and move on. To you, it was enough because it all had been real. The whole time you had been together, he had thought of you as the woman he loved and that’s all you needed. It wasn’t worth tearing both of yourselves apart when you clearly loved each other more than anything else. 

Ransom started looking around for his keys, checking his pants’ pockets. 

‘’What are you doing?’’ Meg asked.

‘’I’m looking for my keys. I need to go.’’ 

‘’You can’t drive. You drank half a bottle of God knows what like an hour ago and you were already a bit drunk when you came.’’

Ransom groaned. ‘’I’m such an idiot.’’ 

‘’No arguments here.’’ Meg whispered but he still heard her and glared at her.

‘’Can you drive?’’

‘’I can drive, but not a stick.’’ 

‘’I’ll come get you.’’ You finally said, already putting on your shoes.

‘’What? No! You can’t drive like this. I’ll just get one of those übers that people won’t shut up about.’’ 

‘’I’m not driving. I’m on my way.’’ You hung up the phone and checked the app that had let you know that your über was here. You quickly left your house and sat in the car, giving the mansion’s address to the driver for the second time to make sure he took you to the right place.

You looked down at yourself and thought that maybe you should have changed. You were wearing a pair of sweats and a t-shirt, that was a little damp from all the tears, you grabbed the first coat you put your hand on and your sneakers. But deep down, you really didn’t care about how you looked. 

Ransom stared at the screen for a good 10 seconds after you hung up.

‘’What’d she say?’’ Meg asked as she took her phone back.

‘’She’s coming here.’’ He sounded both excited and terrified. ‘’Where’s my coat?’’

‘’On the couch, in the living room.’’ 

Ransom quickly nodded and opened the door from Harlan’s office. He walked back to the living room, straight to his coat that he had thrown over the back of the couch at some point after he had arrived.

‘’Leaving so soon?’’ His dad taunted him. 

Ransom looked at him and gave him his best death stare, hoping his father could see all the hate in his eyes but unfortunately all he seemed to notice was how red and puffy his eyes were.

‘’Oh, no. Looks like we made the kid cry.’’ His mother said.

Ransom laughed as he put on his coat. ‘’To make me cry you’d have to hurt my feelings and to hurt my feelings I’d need to have some for you. Which, I don’t.’’ 

‘’That’s right.’’ Walt said. ‘’The only person Ransom loves is himself.’’

Headlights made the room brighter for a moment, a car was coming up the driveway.

Ransom hummed absentely at Walt’s dig and he ran to the front door, opening it but not bothering closing it as he jogged down the steps.

You saw him before he saw you and you had expected to have trouble breathing and for your heart to be racing but strangely seeing him only made you relax and you felt like you could breathe a little easier. As soon as the gear was shifted to park, you opened the door and got out.

Ransom’s breath caught in his throat when he saw you. You were here, really here. You hadn’t changed your mind. His heart started beating a little faster, like every time he’d look at you, and he smiled.

You made your way to him and stopped a few steps in front of him.

Ransom looked you over and his heart clenched as he saw the aftermath of last night all over your beautiful face. 

Without being able to resist any longer, he grabbed your coat and gently pulled you to him. He placed his hands on both of your cheeks and tilted your head back.

‘’I’m so sorry baby.’’ His vision was getting blurry, tears on the verge of coming out once again. ‘’I’m so, so, so, so sorry.’’ He whispered to you. 

‘’Don’t you ever hurt me again, Ransom Drysdale or I swear-’’

He was quick to cut you off.

‘’That’s never what I wanted.’’ His thumbs brushed against your cheekbones. ‘’It’s the last thing I ever wanted.’’ 

He kissed your forehead, lingering a few seconds, then he kissed the tip of your nose and finally your cheeks. 

You looked at each other, taking each other in. The last two days have been one hell of an emotional rollercoaster but in the end, it was all ok. As long as you have each other, it’ll always be ok.

‘’How many books do I owe you now?’’ Ransom finally broke the silence.

It took you a few seconds to understand what he meant. At the beginning of your relationship he had said to you that he’d buy you a book every time he was an asshole to you or every time his family members were assholes.

You pretended to think about it. ‘’It depends. How good are you at building shelves?’’

Ransom grimaced. ‘’That many, uh?’’

‘’It’s a good thing we have our own publishing company, otherwise you might have needed to find a part time job to be able to afford all the books you owe me.’’

Ransom let out a shaky breath, relieved that you were still on board and willing to work with him.

‘’I’d do anything if it means you’ll take me back and give me another chance.’’

‘’Even if you had to get a job at, let’s say, McDonald’s?’’

He chuckled and stroked your cheeks with his thumb. ‘’Yes. I’d do anything for you baby.’’ 

And Ransom meant every single word.

He leaned down to kiss you but right before his lips could touch yours, someone spoke up from behind them.

‘’Big mistake, sweetheart. You should have stayed away.’’

‘’Shut up, Linda.’’ You and Ransom said, at the same time making each other laugh.

‘’I love you, gorgeous. And I’ll spend the rest of my life proving it to you.’’

And he did.