Let Me Be the One (The Sullivans #6)(22)

Oh God, was she that transparent?

Chapter Eight

That night, when Ryan walked through the door, his smile made her tingly in the kinds of places friends shouldn’t get tingly in when looking at each other. Still, she tried not to beat up on herself too much for being a normal woman with normal hormones. Of course she got tingly with him. Who wouldn’t?

It was one thing to feel those zings of desire for the gorgeous man walking toward her. It was another thing entirely to be stupid enough to actually do something about them.

Of course, he sure didn’t make it any easier for her to stuff down her perfectly normal and human female hormones when he drew her against him for a hug. Oh, what wouldn’t she give just to melt here against him...

“It smells amazing. Did you find everything you needed in the kitchen?”

“Are you kidding?” She made herself step out of his arms. “Professional chefs don’t have it this good. I didn’t know you were into cooking.”

He looked a little sheepish. “I’m not. One of the women I was dating for a while was taking cooking lessons, so...”

She turned back to the stove while trying to look like it didn’t bother her at all that some other woman had cooked for Ryan here, a woman who had probably been tall and slim, with perfect br**sts and a small butt. Since Vicki couldn’t help her lack of inches in height—or the extra ones around her hips, either—she silently told herself to stop acting like an idiot.

Of course, it didn’t help that she remembered all too vividly his dating in high school, even without having seen some of the pictures of his beautiful companions these past years in the international press. It was the downside of knowing someone so well for so long. There wasn’t much that could stay hidden, even if you wished it would.

Wanting to push past the slightly awkward moment, she said brightly, “I caught the last few innings of your game. Congrats on the win.” Ryan hadn’t been pitching, but she’d enjoyed the glimpses of him in the dugout.

“It’s a good group this year.” He snagged a slice of bell pepper from her cutting board. “If everything keeps going well, I think we’ve got a pretty good chance of winning the World Series again.”

When he uncorked a bottle of red wine, she shot a glance at the bottle and then at him. “Can we agree in advance that if I fall asleep on you again tonight, we’ll both pretend it never happened and that I can totally hold my liquor?”

“Agreed,” he said with a grin. He handed her a glass before pouring his own and lifting it in a toast. “Here’s to finally making it past first base with the potting wheel today.”

She laughed as she clinked her glass against his. “And to ex-girlfriends who went absolutely crazy at Williams-Sonoma.” At his confused expression, she laughed again and said, “It’s a cookware store.”

She was about to take a sip when he leaned in as if he were sharing a secret. “She couldn’t cook worth a damn.”

Relief shouldn’t have bubbled up in her that she had something on the supermodel who had previously graced his kitchen. But she forgot all about being petty as she got her first sip of wine.

A moan escaped her lips. “My God. What is this?” After one incredibly smooth taste, she wouldn’t be surprised to find out it cost more than her monthly rent in Prague.

“One of Marcus’s special vintages.”

She took another sip and closed her eyes to really savor the taste. “Yet another reason why you have the best family ever. You don’t know how many times I wished I was a Sullivan.”

Her eyes flew open as she realized what she’d just—stupidly—blurted. Quickly putting her glass of wine down, she busied herself with turning down the burner, plating their salads, and bringing them over to the small table by the windows rather than into the big dining room on the other side of the kitchen.

Ryan followed her with their glasses of wine. As soon as they sat down, he told her, “I always loved it when you came over to our house. We all did.”

She jammed her fork into a cucumber and tried not to flush too brightly at his sweet words. It didn’t help that he was pure female fantasy in his dress shirt, tie, and dark slacks. Ryan in jeans and a T-shirt was yummy. In dress clothes he amped the yum way up. Especially when she thought about reaching over to help him off with his tie and then uncovering his tanned muscles one button at a time―

“How did your meeting with the fellowship board go? They must have loved your new idea.”

She thought about it for a minute before saying, “You can never really tell what they’re thinking when they put on their poker faces.”

It occurred to her how nice it was to be able to share these feelings with a true friend who had known her since those early years when she’d been working so hard just to capture laughter with clay. With almost anyone else, she would have felt she needed to make her answer shiny and snappy.

It was even nicer when he said, “If they don’t love it—if they let James or your ex sway them in any way—they’re all idiots.”

“Spoken like a true friend,” she said as she smiled across the table at him. “Actually, Anne said something interesting to me this afternoon that I’m still processing.”

“Is she the one with the blue and green hair?”