After Ryan had shown me every room in the house and had changed the light bulb in the front hall, he took me to one last room on the third floor. It had its own staircase as it was the only room on that floor. Ryan led me up the flight of stairs, and stopped at the large wooden door at the top. He looked at me, then at the door, then back at me.
"This room's my favorite," he said excitedly as he opened the door slowly. "It's different from everything else here."
He reached for the light switch and flicked the light on. Ryan was right, the room was different. It was the only modern-day room in the whole house. It was small, with low, angled ceilings, but it had a charm to it, like it looked like it wasn't supposed to be there, but it was where it belonged. There was a small twin-sized bed in one corner, a nightstand sitting next to it, and an acoustic guitar sitting on a stand in another corner. There was a large window in the center of one wall that I assumed looked out onto the front yard. There was a small television set on a table and a large stereo sitting on the floor next to it.
"Why is this room here?" I asked finally.
"It was my room," Ryan started to explain, "for whenever I came over to visit my grandma. She set it up especially for me."
I thought for a moment. "Were you really close?"
He looked at me. "Yeah, she was my favorite. I'm the middle child in my family, and I never felt as needed or as loved as my brother or sister, so I stayed here a lot."
There was a long pause.
"She died a few years ago from breast cancer. I was crushed. I got completely antisocial towards everyone – my family, my friends – everyone. I always came here whenever I was feeling really bad." He continued, "They couldn't find her will, so after a few months of looking, they gave up and put the house on the market. I didn't like my parents after that. I came here even more than I used to and spent time in every room; a different room every day. I made my way to the top – my room. I opened one of the drawers in the dresser because I felt like something important was in it. The will was in there. It was like she knew I'd look there." I must have looked surprised. "I took it home to my parents before I even read it and they were surprised to hear me talking to them. They took the house off the market after they went through everything with a lawyer. Now I own this and I don't pay a thing."
"Why don't you pay for it?"
"She left me about four million dollars in a trust fund. So that money is used for college and the house. I didn't know she had that much money. Plus the taxes aren't much. There's not much to pay for out here."
"Holy shit."
"I know!" His smile stretched from ear to ear.
From that night on, we spent most of our days at that house, exploring, talking, and kissing. One day, when we were laying on his childhood bed listening to the radio, I sat up suddenly. "Why do you have that guitar?" It had been on my mind for weeks.
He sat up too. "It was my grandpa's."
"Do you know how to play it?"
Without answering, he walked over to the guitar stand and lifted the guitar into his hands. He sat back on the bed, blew the dust off, and played a few chords. It sounded terrible. "I'm a little rusty," he mumbled under his breath. He tried it again, and then realized what the problem was. Ryan started tuning the old guitar. After ten minutes of tuning, he got up and turned off the radio. Then he started playing.
I recognized the opening chords instantly. It was a Jack's Mannequin song, The Mixed Tape. "This is morning," he sang, "it's when I spend the most time thinking 'bout what I've given up…" I listened in amazement as Ryan sang and strummed his grandpa's guitar beautifully. "And this is my mixed tape for her; it's like I wrote every note with my own finger." The song ended. I just sat there, staring at him. "Was it that bad?" he asked me.
I didn't answer. I just leaned over and started kissing him. He set the guitar down and started to kiss me back, hard. Soon enough, we were going further than we'd ever gone, and I didn't want to stop. My tank top and shorts were already on the floor, next to Ryan's shirt. I started unzipping his shorts. He didn't stop me. Soon we were both nearly naked, Ryan with his boxers on, and me with my thong. The bed was too hot and too little for us, so I pulled Ryan onto the floor. He felt around for his shorts and when he found them, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a condom. I kept kissing him. I moved from his mouth to his neck, and he took off my thong. I pulled down his boxers and slid the condom over his erection, and then he moved inside of me.
The action of having sex was nothing new to me, but this time felt like the first time. I had never felt much for anybody before, and I could tell I was falling in love with Ryan.