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?”
“It was orange a couple of days ago,” Vicki said with a laugh. “She was probably the only person there tonight who didn’t care about people’s opinions of her work and wasn’t living and dying on every smile or frown.”
“Isn’t she up for a fellowship, too?”
“She is. And I know how much she wants it. But at the end of the day, the most important thing to her is that she’s proud of her work. Not whether a random group of powerful people think she’s talented enough to receive a grant.”
“Aren’t you proud of your work, Vicki?”
It was a good question. One she’d been trying to figure out the answer to for a very long time.
“I’ve had a few great moments,” she said slowly, “but sometimes I wonder if the in-betweens are enough to make it all worth it.”
Ryan put down his fork. “Do you know how many pitches I throw on average in a game?” When she shook her head, he said, “Almost a hundred and twenty. How many of those do you think are great pitches?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “Twenty. Maybe thirty. Some guys beat themselves up for that, but my first Little League coach made sure I knew that baseball wasn’t about being perfect. It was about having fun first, winning second.”
“It sounds like you had a really great coach.”
“One day I hope I’m as good with my kids as my dad was with all of us.”
Vicki’s heart turned to mush. “I wish I could have met your father.” She looked at him and mused, “Although, I suppose in a way I have, just by knowing you and your siblings. He was obviously an extraordinary man to have created such a wonderful family.”