Let Me Be The One by Bella Andre Page B

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.”
    Ryan’s answering gaze was so intense she wondered for a moment if she’d said something wrong. Finally, he said, “As long as you love what you’re doing, Vicki, it’s all worth it.”
    That flutter in her belly at the way he was looking at her had her feeling lightheaded as she took away their salads and brought over large plates of goulash and hunks of crusty bread.
    “How was your meeting after the game?” He hadn’t told her what it was for, but she assumed it had something to do with the Hawks.
    “It went all right. I thought it would be easier to get people excited about bringing sports back to schools, but it’s taken three months to pick up our first serious donor. Fortunately, I think this couple is pretty close.”
    She