Supernova Souls - Ryan Upchurch

-29-

Through her thought-clouded daze and unbeknownst to her, she grabbed Ryan's hand and squeezed it and refused to let go when he tugged awkwardly against her hand. She was scared, much more than she had ever been around Ryan before. She gave his hand one final squeeze and he squeezed her hand back and she stood there, eyes wide, staring straight at a bleach-blonde boy making his way over to her with a mischievous grin plastered on his obnoxious, freckled face. The boy shook his head in an obviously useless attempt to brush his long, shaggy bangs from his eyes.

Ryan knew he wouldn't get a straight answer out of Delilah himself, at least not here, not now, so he spoke up for her. "Who the fuck are you?" At the question, the boy stopped dead in his tracks and gave Ryan a fake offended look.

With a jaw practically dropped to the mixture of dirt and gravel, he replied with an annoyed tone to his voice. "I'm an old friend of hers." He shot Delilah a crooked, sly grin. "Ain't that right, sweetheart?"

She seemed to shake herself out of it, and scooted closer to Ryan. She whispered something incomprehensible in his ear, but quickly pulled her face away from his ear to respond to the blonde in front of her. "Uh.. yeah, I guess."

The blonde's eyes flickered back up to Ryan. "Name's Colton. Who are you?"

Delilah looked up at Ryan and swallowed hard. The look in her eyes seemed to him like she was asking for some sort of permission, and without really knowing what she was asking he simply gave her a short nod.

He waited for her to speak first, or perhaps for Colton to speak. Nobody said anything.. until he tried to speak. "None of yo' fuckin' business, that's who." Ryan said. But at the same time, Delilah spoke so their words ran together. "My boyfriend."

The pair stared at each other, confused. Then Delilah nervously laughed and looked back at Colt. "Well, uh.. we have to go um-"

"-Bring this little girl home and get her fed, so, bye Colton." Ryan finished the sentence Delilah seemed to be stuck on for her, eyes on the kitten so Colt knew who he was referring to. The way he said Colt's name made the blonde scowl at him, his sly grin replaced with an annoyed frown and his resting bitch face. Ryan just smiled at him, knowing it'd just piss him off more. Slowly, Dee scooted closer to Ryan and pressed herself into his side like she was searching for comfort, any kind of reassurance that she was gonna be okay and that Ryan wouldn't let Colton take her back to Nashville again.

He looked down into her hazel eyes that were filled with worry and looked like they were about to let the tears hiding behind those rapid blinks fall and simply wrapped his arm around her shoulders and squeezed her lightly. They began walking away, this time much faster than they were before.

She didn't pull away from his touch, and instead huddled closer to the warmth of his body as they walked. When they finally reached her truck she let out a breath she didn't know she had been holding in and pulled away from his side and tossed the keys into his free hand. "You drive."

"You sure?" He asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes, idiot, if I didn't want you to drive you wouldn't have the keys."

She sighed and crossed her arms, letting her eyes flutter closed and stay like that for a few peaceful moments. Her truck's door opened and closed quickly, but she just assumed Ryan was climbing into the truck. While she had her eyes closed, she felt a pair of strong arms wrap around her. She jumped and her eyes snapped open but she quickly settled when she realized who those arms belonged to;a sweet but sometimes hotheaded tall redheaded boy that was covered in tattoos and almost always smelled of his signature woodsy cologne and whiskey, and cared for her more than most of the people she thought were significant in her life.

Her face was smushed against his chest, which in all fairness, she didn't hate, but he did smell faintly of her new kitten she still hadn't came up with a name for yet and the scent of that cat wasn't really.. pleasant. She pulled her arms away from his chest and wrapped them tightly around his toned middle.

When his arms loosened, she whispered against his chest and asked him to just hold her a little longer. Her words were muffled, but he mostly heard her and held her tighter. She smiled and mumbled a quick 'thank you' as she relaxed into him and let her mind wander away from the thoughts about that abusive asshole she used to call her 'boyfriend'.

They stayed that way for Lord knows how long. It could've been seconds, minutes, hours, days or even years for all either of them knew. Neither cared, they just stood there and she let him comfort her and take her pain away for even just a little while.

When she pulled away he saw the tears fighting to fall from those beautiful greenish-brown eyes of hers. He wanted to take all of her pain away, all of her worries- and he also sort of wanted to bash that little bastard Colt's head in with a baseball bat and strangle him, but that wasn't possible. Not right now at least. His hands were now resting gently on her hips and she had her hands clasped around his wrists, her thumb rubbing faint circles on his arm. "You wanna go back home?"

"Not really.." she said sheepishly. "But where else can we go?"

"Well, I do have a pond back at the Ranch we could go to." He offered, and rambled on for a few seconds more about the quaint, small body of muddy water he had on his land before he realized that he was, well.. rambling, and shut up. "We could get food then go back there."

She thought about it for a moment, but that moment felt like an eternity to him. "Y'know, that don't sound too bad actually." She said with a small smile. Her dimples appeared with the beautiful curve of her full lips and he smiled back. "Can we stop by my dad's place first so I can drop off the kitten? Then I can stay longer."

"Deal." He said. "If!"

"If what?"

"If you'll help me pick out a name for that puppy. It's been days and I still don't know what to name him."

"Deal."

"Sound fair to you?"

"Yessir it does."

"Then let's go."

She nodded and he held the passenger door open for her and helped her into her own truck, then he sauntered over to the driver's side and got in, buckled up-she did too- and started the lifted Chevy. They talked while he drove, and after a while their conversation faded into a comfortable silence filled only by the songs and heavy bass booming in the Bose speakers.