Love me back

Previously

…They walked out of the library together, the late afternoon sun casting long shadows across the school grounds. The air between them, once filled with the easy camaraderie of shared work, now held a subtle tension, a lingering unease. Ryan knew, with a sickening certainty, that Marcus’s interference was only just beginning. And he knew, with an even greater certainty, that he would do whatever it took to protect Vivian from it, even if it meant revealing more of the carefully guarded secrets of his heart than he had ever intended. The project was far from over, and so, he suspected, was the real work of understanding each other.