Let Me Be The One Part 9

Ryan grinned and leaned in closer. "Actually, there is."

Despite all the nonsense with James and Anthony, Vicki couldn't remember the last time she'd had such a good day in the studio. It was probably all the repressed s.e.xual desire she was channeling into her work that had her kicking it up a notch.

Lord knew she had to put all that tamped-down l.u.s.t somewhere.

She stopped to stretch her back and neck and enjoy the way the sun was filtering into the windows in her small room, when she jumped up out of her chair with a curse, her iPod and headphones clattering to the floor.

c.r.a.p, it was already six p.m.!

She'd been planning to go back to Ryan's house to take a shower and blow-dry her hair into submission, maybe even put on some makeup before heading out to his game. Instead, she barely had time to wash her hands and change out of her clay-stained leggings and tank top to put on the old, faded flowery sundress and flip-flops she'd worn into the studio. Vicki groaned as she realized her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were half falling out of the dress. She hadn't been planning to wear it in public, but consoled herself with the fact that no one would be looking at her. Especially not if any of Ryan's brothers or sisters came to the game and were sitting near her.

Ryan had been the best friend in the world to her this week, and she couldn't even manage to get to one of his games on time. She sucked.

Since there was no time to make a difference with styling products and mascara, she didn't bother to look at her reflection in the window as she grabbed her bag, sungla.s.ses, and Ryan's car keys from the tiled counter. She didn't even want to know how bad her frizzed-out hair was.

Fifteen minutes later, when she'd arrived at the special lot behind the stadium that Ryan had told her to come to, she had to scramble around in her bag to find the special key card that would let her past the gate. By the time she'd dealt with the guard's rigorous round of twenty questions and ID checking, a loud roar of applause from the stadium told her that the game had begun. A bead of sweat trickled down between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s as she parked between two shockingly expensive imported cars. No wonder it was like Fort Knox getting in here.

She was making a dash for the stadium entrance when she felt buzzing against her hip. She rooted around in her bag again for her phone and was surprised to see several text messages and missed calls from Ryan.

Call me as soon as you get this.

Ryan's first text had come in several hours ago, but she'd had her headphones on all day while she'd been working and she hadn't thought to check her phone. He knew she always listened to music while she worked, but he probably didn't realize she couldn't blare it in a group studio the way she used to in her parents' garage, and always had to wear headphones.

After fifteen minutes he'd texted again.

No cell reception for a while. If I don't pick up, come by the stadium early and ask for me.

And then, five minutes ago, he'd sent one more.

Game's about to start. Where are you?

Picking up the pace, she showed her ticket at the door. The bowels of the stadium were a maze of dark hallways and it took forever to find the right door and emerge into the light.

She was still hunting for her row and seat when she felt strong arms wind around her neck.

"Vicki!" She instantly recognized Ryan's sister, Lori. Aka Naughty. "I can't believe how long it's been since I've seen you. I was so psyched when Ryan told me you were coming today. He asked me to keep an eye out for you."

As Lori grabbed her hand and pulled her down the steps to their seats, she quickly filled her in on everything in the same rapid-fire way she'd had as a girl.

"Sophie wasn't feeling up to the game today. I swear she's been pregnant forever. You know she's having twins, right? Good thing she's having two, because I'm totally out on the whole kid thing after watching her and Chase's wife get so huge." Lori stopped a step before their row. "You remember Zach, right? This is his fiancee, Heather. I won a bet that he'd fall in love with her."

Vicki couldn't hold back her laughter at Lori's runaway-train-of-thought soliloquy as she said h.e.l.lo to Zach and Heather.

She was just getting settled in her seat when a low, instantly recognizable voice said, "Sorry I'm late."

Oh G.o.d. Vicki couldn't believe Ryan had neglected to tell her that Smith Sullivan was coming to the game. He was going to pay for that little surprise.

But before she could turn around to say h.e.l.lo to one of the biggest movie stars in the world, the inning turned over and Ryan walked out to the pitcher's mound.

He stopped halfway out to look up into the stands, and she could see the relief on his beautiful face as he caught sight of her.

She waved before she thought better of drawing attention to herself like that. He winked at her before heading out to do his job.

As dozens of eyes turned to her-not only because Ryan had just winked at her, but also because Smith Sullivan was sitting right next to her-Vicki realized how surreal her life had become.

One week ago, she'd been renting a studio apartment in Prague while making a daily tradeoff between food and clay.

Now, not only was she living in an oceanfront mansion and driving a sports car around San Francisco, she was also hanging out with the coolest kids on the block.

On the surface it looked like she'd come a really long way from being the freaky-geeky art girl in high school.

Funny how deceiving appearances could be.

Of course, now that she and Ryan didn't need to pretend to be dating for much longer, all of this strange fun of fancy cars and famous friends would soon be over.

Truly, she wouldn't miss any of the luxury.

It was Ryan she'd miss.

"I can't remember," Lori said. "Did you ever meet Smith when we were kids? Or was he already in college?"

When all Vicki could manage was to shake her head like an idiot, Smith smoothly said, "It's great to meet you, Vicki. So, how do you know this unruly lot?"

Smith was even bigger, even better looking in person than he was on the screen. But strangely, although his fame made her feel more than a little nervous, she was stunned to realize she wasn't getting all hot and bothered for him. Only one Sullivan made her girly parts tingly.

Too bad that Sullivan was too good a friend to even think of s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g things up by adding any benefits to it.

"Ryan and I were friends in high school. I just moved back to San Francisco."

Smith grinned at her and she lost her breath a little. Okay, so maybe she didn't want to jump him, but she was only human. And billions of happily attached women around the world would have just gone breathless if they'd been in her flip-flops right then.

"Moved from where?"

"Prague was the last place I lived."

"She's a sculptor." Lori shoved a handful of Jelly Bellies into her mouth. "An awesome one. Want some?"

Vicki took a few of the colorful candies, but didn't dare put any in her mouth just in case she did something super embarra.s.sing like start choking on them.

"What does Ryan think of your sculptures?" Smith asked.

Vicki felt caught in Smith's gaze, was sure he could see exactly how she felt about his younger brother. She flushed as she finally replied, "He's always been really encouraging."

Lori leaned over to say, "He has a bunch of them and thinks her sculptures are the freaking bomb, Smith. And so do I. We all do." She turned back to Vicki. "After Ryan mentioned you were back in town and working on the fellowship, Heather and I went by the fellowship gallery last night and bought a couple of those gorgeous river sculptures for my place. One day when I'm loaded, I want one of the big ones. I had to pull all my tricks to buy them out from under Heather, didn't I?"

Heather smiled at Lori with what Vicki could only describe as affectionate irritation. "I saw them first and then she bought them when my back was turned."

"Sorry my sister's such a brat," Zach said to his girlfriend, and Vicki couldn't miss the way he looked at her like she was the most beautiful woman in the entire world.

"Don't pretend you didn't teach her everything she knows about being sneaky," Heather murmured, which made Zach laugh before he kissed her as if they weren't sitting in the middle of a sold-out baseball stadium.

"They do that all the time," Lori said with an eye roll that had Vicki laughing again.

Zach's girlfriend was very pretty in an un-flashy way, and utterly down to earth. Who would have thought lady-killer Zach, who had been a year ahead of her and Ryan in school, would settle down with such a lovely, unpretentious woman? One who seemed to give it back to him as good as he dished it out.

Lori interrupted her musings by telling Smith, "Vicki's art is beautiful and smart and super s.e.xy."

"I'm not surprised to hear that," Smith said in his deep, billion-dollar voice.

Vicki felt herself flush all the way down to her chest at the implication that he thought she was s.e.xy, and Lori threw a Jelly Belly at him.

"Take some time off the clock, Smith." She made a face at Vicki. "Just ignore him. He can't stand it when a woman doesn't throw herself at him. Zach used to be like that," she said with a jerk of her thumb over her shoulder, "until he found true love."

Lori said the words a little sarcastically, even though it was clear that Zach and Heather were wildly, and truly, in love with one other.

"You were married for a while, right, Vicki?"

"I was."

"Do you miss it?"

She was surprised by Lori's question. "Being married or being with my ex?"

"I'm a.s.suming you divorced your ex because he was an a.s.s." Lori replied.

A laugh bubbled out of Vicki's mouth. "I didn't realize you knew him," she joked.

Lori grinned back before clarifying, "I mean the living with a person part. Knowing you'll wake up and see the same person every morning. Having someone who's always the first person you call with good and bad news. Knowing that when you fall asleep in front of the TV with him at the end of the day instead of having hot monkey s.e.x, it doesn't mean you don't love him."

"My ex was also a sculptor and he-" Vicki paused. "-he embraced the artist lifestyle, if that makes any sense. There wasn't a lot of rhyme or reason to our hours."

Or any kind of accountability. It was what she'd thought was so exciting about him at first. The only thing he'd done traditionally was to marry her. But he'd had his reasons for that, most of them having to do with who held the power in the relationship, from the very first day she'd met him as the starry-eyed young sculptor.

Vicki was stunned to realize that the only person with whom she had ever done any of the things Lori had listed was Ryan.

Fortunately, just then the inning started and she could let the conversation drop away to train her gaze on the field where Ryan was throwing his first pitch of the game. He was magnificent. All that raw talent from when he was a kid had matured into athletic stardom.

In a matter of minutes, he'd struck out each of the batters. The crowd chanted his name and she was surprised when he grinned up at her again.

And then, suddenly, the chants turned into cheers.

"Oh my G.o.d. I can't believe neither of you said anything." Lori gave a happy little sound and threw her arms around Vicki. "Congratulations!"

Over Lori's shoulder, Vicki finally learned the reason for everyone's cheers.

CONGRATULATIONS RYAN SULLIVAN AND VICKI BENNETT ON YOUR ENGAGEMENT!.

A picture of Ryan was on one half of the huge screen, a still shot of Vicki laughing at something Lori had said just a few minutes before beside it, with a dozen red and pink hearts layered between their pictures.

Couldn't James be happy with pulling Anthony back into her life? Did he have to go to the press about her relationship with Ryan, and then make it doubly worse by upping the ante and telling the press they were engaged, rather than just dating?

When she looked back toward the field, Ryan was still standing on the mound looking up at her. She knew she needed to pull herself together, but how could she when her big fat lie had spiraled off in ways she'd never planned?

She felt like everything was happening in slow motion as Ryan put his hand to his lips and blew her a kiss.

The crowd cheered again, so loud this time that her ears actually started ringing. Smith put his arm around her, leaned over and said, "Smile if you can, Vicki." His voice was calm. Soothing. "Look at Ryan and pretend it's just the two of you here. One smile. That's all you need to give him, and then you'll be off the hook for now."

Somehow, Vicki managed to follow Smith's step-by-step, all the while trying to convince herself that they'd probably look back and die laughing about this one day. Somehow, she managed not only to smile back at Ryan, but also to blow a kiss back.

A total showman after all his years as a star athlete, Ryan reached into the air with his glove and caught her "kiss" as it blew by.

"Well done," Smith murmured, and she was beyond glad the big movie star been there to coach her through the most horrific moments of her life.

"As soon as the game is over, I need to know everything," Lori said. "Absolutely everything."

The temporary glow that had moved through her when she and Ryan had been smiling at each other immediately drained away. Vicki absolutely, positively hated lying to Ryan's family. But she needed to talk to him first to figure out their plan together before she confessed everything to his siblings.

Chapter Eleven.

It was the longest baseball game of Ryan's life.

He'd never missed a pro game, barring being injured or sick enough for the team doctors to bench him, but he'd been on the verge of bailing on it to go out and hunt for Vicki. After he'd called the number for the art studio nonstop for a half hour, someone had finally picked up and told him she wasn't there but they were pretty sure she'd been working all afternoon.

But then when she hadn't been sitting with his siblings at the start of the game, that elemental panic came back. For fifteen years he'd barely seen her and now he was flipping out if he didn't hear back from her in a matter of minutes. He knew he was acting crazy, but he couldn't help it. Not when he was now worried both about James getting hold of her and what a ma.s.sive screwup it would be if she found out what he'd done before he had a chance to explain it to her.

Ryan had been in the fame game long enough to expect the story of his engagement to hit the Internet pretty darn fast. But he'd figured some stranger at the stadium might say something to Vicki about it, maybe congratulate her, not that Hawks management would blindside her with the big-screen congratulations.

He knew he shouldn't be p.i.s.sed at them. When one of their players was happy, they were happy. If he and Vicki had really been engaged it wouldn't have been a big deal, apart from the fact that she was clearly uncomfortable being in the spotlight.

But when it was all a lie-one he'd orchestrated because he couldn't stand the thought of letting her walk out of his life before he had a chance to convince her that they could be more than friends-it all added up to one big huge piece of fail.

The reporters were lined up to talk to him. One after another they all said the same thing: "Another shutout, Ryan. Looks like love agrees with you."

He knew this was part of his job, giving them the sound bites they needed for their papers and TV shows and blogs, but after only a handful of minutes, he couldn't do it anymore. Especially when he looked up into the stands and saw that Vicki was completely surrounded. His brothers and sister were with her, but he was the one that really needed to be there. Protecting her. Explaining it all to her.

And praying that he could make their fake engagement sound like it made sense.

The group of reporters immediately parted for him, but as he rushed to get to the stands, the team owner stopped him. "Congratulations, Ryan. Both on the spectacular win and your upcoming nuptials."