Sullivans 06 - Let Me Be the One

they’d both almost died!
    She was starting to feel faint when he lifted his head and smiled down at her.
    “Hi, I’m Ryan.”
    The way he said it, as if she didn’t already know who he was, pierced through her shock. He acted like it was normal to be sprawled over a girl. Which, she suddenly realized, it probably was. For him.
    Definitely not for her, though.
    Her lips were dry and she had to lick them once, twice, before saying, “I’m Victoria.” The words, “But my friends call me Vicki,” slipped out before she could pull them back in.
    His smile widened and her heart started beating even faster. Not from shock this time, but from pure, unfettered teenage hormones kicked into overdrive by his beautiful smile.
    “Thank you for saving my life, Vicki.” A moment later, his smile disappeared as he took in her tear-streaked cheeks. The eyes that she’d seen filled with laughter so many times during the first two weeks of school grew serious. “I hurt you.”
    She would have told him no, and that she was fine, but all breath and words were stolen from her the instant he brushed his fingertips over her cheeks to wipe away her tears.
    Somehow, she managed to shake her head, and to get her lips to form the word no, even though no sound followed.
    His laughing eyes were dark now, and more intense than she’d ever seen them. “Are you sure? I didn’t mean to land so hard on you.”
    “I’m—”
    How was she supposed to keep her brain working when he’d begun the slow, shockingly sweet process of running his hands over the back of her skull, and then down to her shoulders and upper arms?
    One more word. That was all she needed to get out to answer his question.
    “—fine.”
    “Good.” His voice was deeper, richer, than any of the other fifteen-year-old boys. “I’m glad.”
    But as he stared down at her, his expression continued to grow even more intense and she found herself holding her breath.
    Was he going to kiss her now? Had her life just turned into the quintessential after-school-special fantasy, the one where the artsy girl caught the eye of the jock and the whole school was turned upside down by their unlikely but ultimately perfect and inevitable pairing?
    “One day, when you need me most, I promise I’ll be there for you, Vicki.”
    Oh. She swallowed hard. Oh my.
    He hadn’t given her a kiss...but his promise felt more important than a mere kiss would have been.
    Before she realized it, he was standing up again and holding out a hand to help her up, too. Instantly missing his heat, the hard muscles pressing into her softer ones, all the lies she’d been trying to tell herself about Ryan simply being a muse scattered out of reach.
    “Can I walk you home?”
    Surprised that he wanted to spend more time with her, she quickly shook her head.
    He looked equally surprised by her response, likely because no girl on earth had ever turned him down.
    “No, I can’t walk you home?”
    She fumbled to explain. “I’m not going home. I was actually heading over to the art store to pick up some supplies for a new sculpt—”
    She barely stopped herself from rambling on about her latest project. Why would Ryan Sullivan care? Besides, she reminded her racing heart with brutal honesty, he probably had some pretty cheerleaders waiting on him. And they wouldn’t need an out-of-control car to get him to lie down on top of them.
    Because no matter how tempting it was to believe that she had suddenly been cast in a happy-ever-after fairytale romance, the truth was that getting that close to Ryan had been nothing more than a fluke of fate.
    And Vicki remained the star of her artsy, and often lonely, move-to-a-new-town-every-year-with-her-military-family teenage life.
    Only, for some strange reason she couldn’t understand, Ryan wasn’t running in the opposite direction yet. Probably because he felt like he owed her after she’d saved his life. After all, hadn’t he just told her that he would be there for her one day when she really needed him?
    “What are you getting supplies for?” He asked the question as though he were truly interested, not just acting like it because he felt he should.
    “I’m making a—” Wait, she couldn’t tell him what she was making. Because she was sculpting him. “I work with clay. Lately, I’ve been trying to capture specific facial expressions.”
    “Which ones?”
    Never in a million years did she think she’d ever speak to him, let alone have this long