I stop in the middle of the sidewalk, feeling shocked by what came out of Noah’s mouth. “She wants to . . . what?”
“She wants to offer you a contract to sponsor and promote BlindDate,” Noah repeats, grinning now. “Well, for us to. We can share what we’ve found together with the world. It’ll draw thousands . . . maybe millions of people to the app and to your brand.”
What? Wait . . .
My brain replays his words, assuming I’d misheard.
No, that’s exactly what he said. So again . . . what?
A sponsorship with BlindDate, with Life Corp? That could be major, much larger than any partnership I have now. But that comes with goods and bads. I should think about it, but my brain and my gut are already shouting the answer at me, and I’ve learned to trust my instincts. They’ve never steered me wrong.
“Noah . . . I don’t want Life Corp to sponsor me,” I tell him, and Noah stops, looking confused.
“You don’t?”
I shake my head, taking a deep breath. “No, Noah. I . . . I don’t want Life Corp using our story at all. I don’t want the world to hear that we met on BlindDate.”
“But it’s the truth,” Noah says tightly. “I was hesitant at first too, but I thought about what Elisa said, and it makes a lot of sense. There are all these people out there looking for a connection. That’s what Riley Sunshine offers them, and in a different way, what BlindDate offers too. We can help each other while helping all those people out there.”
“You think it’d be good for me, for Riley Sunshine, to have Life Corp use my brand for something like this?” I ask, trying to keep calm and not doing a great job of it. “I’ve worked too hard to build my reputation to tie it to another company so directly. Especially when I’m a small fish in a Life Corp-sized pond. I’d be completely swallowed up by it. I don’t want to be used that way.”
“You had no problem using me for your gain,” he snaps. “I’m no social media savant, but I knew going on your page—picture after picture, like after like, comment after comment—was a risk. I mean, I was with you when you got recognized at the park. But I still did it. It’s your life, and you share it, all of it, with your Sunshiners. And I want to be something you share, not something you hide.”
He’s pacing back and forth as he speaks, his eyes tracking from me to his shoes to the sky as though he doesn’t know where to focus.
“I do want to share you. I mean . . . with the followers. But only if you want to. We don’t have to do that.”
“That ship has already sailed. How many likes, how many comments did you get on the reveal pictures of us, Riley?”
It sounds like an accusation, like I’ve already been found guilty of something in his eyes, but I don’t know of what. We decided to do that together—the pictures, the words, the post. I thought it was special, but it feels tainted now.
“A lot,” I mumble.
“How many?” Noah barks, finally locking his eyes on me.
“Almost one hundred thousand likes, and around eighteen thousand comments,” I answer quietly.
“So you’re not ashamed to use me, to be seen with me. I guess that’s good. Is it just the BlindDate then?” Bitterness does not sound good on him.
Use him? I’m not using him. In fact, I literally told him I didn’t want to do that.
I’m happy because of him, and that’s worth sharing. With my followers, with the world. But not . . . how we met. That’s . . . embarrassing.
“Noah, I have this image as Riley Sunshine.” I hiss the name quietly because people are starting to look at us arguing on the sidewalk. “One I’ve worked really hard to build. But if I tell everyone that I was so lonely I had to use a dating app, so scared of being recognized by people and judged a loser that I didn’t want my face out there, what does that make me?”
“I don’t know . . . human? Imperfect? Isn’t that the authentic self you’re always preaching about?” The dig is way below the belt, deep into my soul.
“And that dating app? It’s my heart and soul, something I poured every bit of myself into to create,” he confesses, beating on his chest with every word. “But I guess that’s not good enough for Riley Sunshine, is it? Maybe I’m not good enough for Riley Watson either.”
Noah turns, walking away from me, and I want to run after him.
I don’t understand how our walk turned into this, but I want to fix it. But I also don’t want to be plastered on billboards as some lonely, desperate woman who had to use an app to get a date.
“Noah!” I call to him, my voice cracking and tears threatening to fall. “Don’t you get it?”
Fifty yards away, Noah turns, his face still filled with pain and anger. “I got it!” he yells back. “I get that you only want to share the sunshine. But that’s not real, Riley.”
He turns and starts walking again, and this time, I don’t try to stop him. Because my sunshine’s gone, replaced with the gray, gloomy rain of tears down my cheeks.
Chapter 24
Noah
The knock at my door doesn’t surprise me.
Neither does who’s on the other side of it when I open up.
I’ve been waiting for this. For him.
I take a steadying breath, focusing my mind. And then I clench my jaw and tighten my abs before I open the door just in case he throws a cheap sucker punch with no warning.
River is standing in the hallway, his arms crossed over his chest and feet spread wide, bouncer style. His eyes are ice, and there’s a muscle popping in his jaw. He’s wearing workout clothes, so either he changed into things he doesn’t mind getting stained with my blood or he was at the gym when Riley called him.
He’s trying to make himself look as big and scary as possible.
I’m scared of a lot of things. But I’m not scared of him.
“You going to hit me?” I ask River.
“Maybe.” He shrugs like he hasn’t quite decided what to do, but he’s here, and I know how this goes. We’ve done this before, twice now, over Riley. When we were not much more than kids, at dinner recently, and now tonight. Maybe the third time’s the charm and I’ll finally quit fucking up.
Doubt it.
“Why maybe?” I feel like pushing my luck. Since storming away from Riley and getting in my car, I’ve been feeling dangerous. Self-destructive. Maybe I want to get hit. Maybe I want to hit River so he doesn’t have a choice. He’ll come back at me, I know he will, and then I can replace all this hurt in my chest with pain in my joints and face. I’ll take bruises and blood over heartache any day.
“Because I want to hear your side of things, and you can’t talk with a broken fucking jaw,” River growls. He pushes past me, not waiting for an invitation, and struts into my apartment.
I can’t fight him now, not when he has his back to me. He sits on my couch, making himself at home. Dammit. I can’t fight him sitting down either.
I’m not going to get the fight I’m spoiling for. At least not yet.
“Sit down. Tell me,” River demands, pointing at the chair.