“Can I help?” he asks. “I’m no chef, but I can follow instructions if you tell me what to do.”
I consider the recipe. “Do you think you’re up for the challenge of chopping celery?”
He nods. I hand one to him along with a knife and a cutting board, and we get to work side by side at the kitchen table. Our knives thwack rhythmically into our respective vegetables, and I realize again that I don’t know what to say that will strike the right balance between friendly and polite.
Ryan clears his throat. “Hallie was great today,” he says. “Clean, on point.”
I’m both relieved and disappointed that he brought up work. It’s easy, safe territory—I don’t have to worry about accidentally saying anything unprofessional or inappropriately personal. But on the other hand, well, it’s work. I don’t want to be just his coworker.
“Cheers to that,” I say, raising my wineglass.
He clinks his to mine. “Cheers. Seriously. Let’s just hope she keeps up the good work,” he says, sighing.
“I’m sure she will,” I say. “You’re a great coach.”
“I do all right,” he says, shrugging. “But you had Dimitri. The best. I’m jealous.”
“You’re jealous I had him?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he says, his voice full of awe. “He’s a legend. I tried for years to get him to take me on, but he only coaches women’s gymnastics. What was he like?”
“Tough,” I say honestly, moving on to mince a clove of garlic. “Really brutally tough. I like your style better.”
“Really?” He looks skeptical.
“Oh, one hundred percent. Hallie loves you. Dimitri was… intense.”
“What do you mean?”
“Eh, I don’t want to get into it. Let’s just put it this way: he had insanely high expectations, and it was impossible to meet them all.”
“Huh. I’m sorry to hear you had a hard time with him.”
“It’s fine,” I say.
“I didn’t mean to pry,” he says.
“It’s fine,” I say again, using a tone that I hope will shut down the subject. I stand up to start cooking the veggies in a pot on the stove. “I’m fine.”
Luckily, Ryan doesn’t keep digging.
“Coaching’s really the only thing I’m qualified for at this point, so I better make the most of it.”
“You went to college, though—what did you study?” I ask.
“I majored in business so I could always have the option of starting my own gym, if I wanted to,” he explains. “But I don’t think I was the most dedicated student. I went to school on a gymnastics scholarship, and that was mostly what I cared about.”
“Would you really open your own gym?” I ask.
“Maybe far in the future. But for now, I’ve realized I’d be happier coaching than doing anything else, and you don’t need a degree to do that—just experience, and obviously, these incredible muscles.”
“Modest,” I observe dryly.
“It’s one of my best qualities,” he jokes. “How long were you in college for?”
“Only a year and a half.”
He snaps his fingers. “That explains it all, then.”
“What?”
“Why you’re so terrible at beer pong,” he says, eyes sparkling with pure delight at delivering a playful burn. “Most people get a full four years to practice.”
“Oh, very funny,” I say, pursing my lips and pretending to be annoyed. “As I recall, we won that game. Mostly because of you, but still. We won.”
“True, true. So, why’d you leave school?”
My answer tumbles out before I can second-guess myself. “I was completely, totally, and majorly depressed. And also, I partied too much to ever make it to class.”
He lets out a low whistle. “That got dark fast.”
I wince. “Too dark?”
“Nah, it’s good to be honest,” he says. “Sorry you went through that.”
“Yeah, thanks,” I say.
I shrug and turn my attention to the pot on the stove so I don’t have to see what I assume is a look of pity. But when I look back at Ryan, he doesn’t look like he pities me at all. He nods in a way that makes me think he understands.
“You spend all this time obsessively focused on this one thing, and it becomes your whole identity, and then it’s gone,” he says quietly. “And then it’s like, well, what now?”
“Exactly,” I say, relishing in the fact that he gets it.
“But you’re doing all right now?” he asks.
“Kind of the best I’ve been in a long time, actually,” I say, suddenly realizing just how true that is. “You?”
“Yeah, it’s all good,” he says.
This time, Ryan raises his glass and clinks it against mine.
“Well, cheers to that,” I say.
I want to say something more, to come up with a clever idea to toast to, but I get tongue-tied when he makes eye contact over our drinks. Instead, I finish making the soup and ladle it into two bowls. I’m pleased with how it turned out—savory, hearty, bursting with flavor. It’s a simple meal, but Ryan seems impressed.
“This beats Stonehearth, hands down,” he says appreciatively, scooping up a tortellini with his spoon.
Over dinner, Ryan regales me with stories from his travels. Years of competing across states and countries sparked his love of seeing new places, and now he saves up for as many trips as he can.
“Next up, obviously, I’m saving to do a trip around Asia after Tokyo—if Hallie makes it to Tokyo, of course,” he explains. “You ever been?”
“No, I haven’t,” I admit. “What’s been your favorite trip so far?”
He thinks for a moment. “Traveling for gymnastics is always cool, but you don’t get tons of time to actually explore or indulge in great food, so… hmm. I guess my favorite would be the summer that Goose and I backpacked across Europe together.”
I wish I had done something like that.
“And obviously, we saw some of the best beaches in the world,” he says.
“Why obviously?” I ask. “I’d think that would be, like, the Caribbean.”
He leans in closer and stage-whispers, “Nude beaches.”
“You perv!” I squeal. The wine has definitely started to go to my head.
He holds up his hands in protest. “Hey, I’m just a man.”
“I don’t know if I could ever do that,” I muse.
“What, go to a nude beach?” he asks.
“Yeah. I mean, maybe years ago, when I was in shape, but certainly not now.”
He raises an eyebrow, then looks down in intense concentration at his bowl.
“What?” I ask.
He sips his soup. “You could go,” he says, coyly glancing up at me.
“Did you strip down?” I ask.
“When in Rome…” he replies.
I feel precariously close to the edge of saying something stupidly flirty, so I shove a tortellini into my mouth to keep myself from speaking. Discussing nude beaches makes me wonder what Ryan looks like naked, which is absolutely the very last thing I should be doing.