Feel My Love by Ash Johnson Read Free Book Online

area a light feeling.
    To his right he notices my small, all white kitchen with an island and barstools tucked under.  He decides to turn left into my living room where he walks past my now parked bike and around my cream colored couch toward the giant white built in bookshelves that lines the far wall. 
    The only thing that breaks the large bookshelves apart is the two doors in the middle of the wall. The door to my master bedroom is on the left and the door to the guest room on the right. 
    He starts walking around, eyeing the collection of books I’ve acquired, all of the knick knacks on different shelves, and the many different framed pict ures I have.  The room is quiet for a few minutes while he browses my pictures, but the silence is slowly tearing me apart. 
    “Would you like something to drink?  Water? Soda?  Beer?  Anything?”   Ryan turns and raise s a brow at me.  “Beer?” he questions.  “Since when did you start drinking?  I’ve never seen you drink a drop before in your life and you polished that drink off at the bar like you were an old pro.” I laugh inside while he’s saying this, but outwardly shrug. 
    “Things change, Ryan.  I’ve been drinking since I moved out here.  I’m not a raging alcoholic or anything , although there have been a few fun nights of over drinking.  It just tastes good so I keep it handy.  You want one or not?”  I ask with a bit of a snarky edge, tired of having to defend myself to him.  “Sure.” Ryan says.  So, I walk toward him with two beer bottles in hand and notice that he’s eyeing a few different pictures very closely.
    “Who’s this?” he says, pointing to a picture of a chubby little boy in a sailor suit with light brown hair and enormous green eyes, sitting in my lap.  I smile, remembering the first and only time I’ve ever met my handsome nephew in person. 
    “That’s my sister Becca’s little boy, Milo.  That’s the first time I got to hold my handsome little man.  He’s just a little over a year in this picture, but he just turned four a few months ago.”  That’s the only time I’ve ever seen him, so the picture is a bittersweet reminder of the family I never see. 
    Ryan bobs his head up and down a few times and then says “He’s a cutie.  Do you see them very often?”  I clear my throat and hand Ryan his beer “Not very often, no.”  I say and start looking at other photographs, hoping he gets the hint that I don’t want to talk about my family.  He takes the hint and moves on to another picture.  He raises his eyebrows, turns his head to look at me and points at a picture of me on the side of a rock face, rappelling down.  I have my hair piled up in a messy bun, sunglasses on and a huge smile on my face.  I grin recalling when that photo was taken. 
    “That was the first time I went rock climbing when I was a sophomore.  A guy I was kind of seeing at the time was big on rock climbing and dared me to try it.  I did and fell in love with it.  I go climbing every chance I get, now.  Have you ever done it?”  I ask.  He just shakes his head side to side and studies the picture closely.  “You should try it.” I say “It’s quite a rush.”
    Ryan skims over a few more pictures of me -with all of my sorority sisters at a party, me singing at the bar on an open mic night before I joined the band, and me coming out of the ocean during my first triathlon. “And this one?” He says finally stopping at a picture of me and a few of my friends crossing the finish line of my very first marathon. 
    “That” I say with a smirk because I hated running when I was younger and Ryan knew it, “was me crossing the finish line at the San Diego Marathon my junior year of college.  I ran it with a few of my sorority sisters and I’ve run seven marathons since that one.” Ryan is quiet for a few minutes, but I decide this time I’ll just let him look without interrupting him. 
    When he finally turns,