Thirty Reasons Not to Date a Player

28. He Has a Way with Words

I believe that we all have near-death experiences every now and again. Maybe you've almost gotten hit by a car or been in a house fire. Me, well, I've been left alone with Ryder's ex-girlfriend. 

She takes a step toward me, and I flinch. 

"Relax, I'm not going to kill you," Nicolette says after an agonizing ten seconds of silence. Somehow, I don't find it reassuring. 

"What are you doing here?" I choke out. 

Her eyes roam across the floor for a moment until they meet mine. "I know about you and Ryder," she says, "he told me." 

I could murder him. Why on earth would he think to tell his ex-girlfriend that he has a new girl? If I were in Nicolette's place, I certainly wouldn't want to know. 

And here comes the part where she tells me to break up with him or she'll make my life a living hell. 

"It was hard to hear," she admits, "but I'm not mad." 

"R-really?" I stutter, in disbelief. I can't imagine what may have inspired her change of heart. 

"Yeah," she says, decidedly. "I'm tired of being the jealous ex. Ryder deserves to be happy, even if I can't make him feel that way anymore." 

Nicolette fidgets with the hem of her plaid skirt. "And besides, I have a better chance of staying in his life if I support him, no matter what." 

She's being mature about the whole thing but for some reason it bothers me. I know that she and Ryder still talk. I mean, they grew up together, and that's a bond that can't really be broken. I dare myself to ask, "But you still like him, don't you?" 

"No," she replies, "I love him. And when you love something you have to let it go. You have to give it the chance to come back to you." 

I clench my jaw. "And what if it never does?" 

"Then I guess he was never really mine in the first place." 

The words flow out of her mouth so effortlessly that I suddenly feel inferior to her. She's so calm and collected—the exact opposite of how she had been when I first met her. Now that she and Ryder are speaking to each other again, do I even stand a chance? 

Maybe it is only a matter of time before she wins him back. 

"But I'm not trying to scare you off," Nicolette says, calmly walking toward me until we're only a few feet apart. Her high-heeled boots make her a good five inches taller than me but I figure that if she wanted to hurt me, she would have done it already. "I'm just telling you to treat him right. Because if you break his heart, I'll still be here to pick up the pieces." 

"I would never hurt him the way you did." 

"That's assuming he cares enough to let you," she hisses, "Good luck, Amara." 

Without giving me the chance to respond, she walks past me and heads for the back exit. I stand there, speechless for a moment, until I decide that I should probably get back to the holiday décor meeting.

Woudn't want to make April suspicious. 

*

"What's really going on with you?" Mel demands, on Wednesday morning. "You're being so bi-polar these days and don't tell me its because of Daniel."

I guess I have been a little irritable lately. I mean, how are you supposed to react when your boyfriend's ex-girlfriend shows up to tell you that she'll win him back eventually? And to make it worse, I haven't really spoken to Ryder about it because I don't want to seem like a jealous bitch.