Ryker’s white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel loosened. “I don’t want to lose you as a friend either. I told you, you’re my favorite person.”
“But you meant as more than just friends?” I regretted the words as they left my mouth. I’d told Ryker I didn’t want to talk about what had happened between us and that I just wanted to pretend it hadn’t happened, and here I was reopening the uncomfortable conversation.
I stepped outside the car and looked up into the branches of the big tree that shaded my entire front yard. That tree had always comforted me. Right after my dad had left, and we’d just moved into the house, I used to spread out on the grass beneath the tree and look up through the branches. The leaves were so thick in the summer it was hard to see the sky through the greenery. I always liked that for some reason.
Just looking up through the branches now relaxed me, and I took a moment to breathe. I stepped away from the car. I didn’t know what the future held for Ryker and me. But that was okay, wasn’t it? I didn’t have to have all the answers today or even tomorrow.
“Shannon,” Ryker said.
I realized he’d never answered my question of if he meant he saw me as more than just a friend.
“I would never just kiss you for fun. I hope you know that. I’m not that kind of guy.”
“You mean, you’re not like Austin.”
“No, I’m not like him.”
And that meant he didn’t casually kiss some MG in the girls’ bathroom when he had a different girlfriend. Ryker meant it when he kissed someone. At least off camera and off the stage. He’d already confirmed that those kinds of kisses were meaningless to him.
That meant that he’d wanted to kiss me. The thought sent a thrill through me that I couldn’t ignore. Even with the ability to choose any girl he wanted inside or outside of the school, he chose me. And he knew me better than anyone. He’d seen me when our families had gone backpacking on the Appalachian Trail, and I hadn’t bathed for a week. He knew every side of me that could be considered a major turnoff to a guy, and he still looked at me in a romantic light.
I had no idea how that could be possible. I suddenly felt incredibly exposed. How long had Ryker seen me this way?
He came around the car and stood in front of me. “I have to go to work. Can I come by and see you when I get home?”
I stared up into his blue eyes and swallowed before nodding. He was standing really close, and I could feel the pull to bury my hands in his already mussed hair and touch his incredibly soft curls. I almost reached up to touch his face, but I curled my fingers into a fist instead. I took a step back.
“I’ll see you tonight then.”
“Okay,” I whispered, my eyes still on his ocean-blue ones. I turned and went back into my house. Maddie was nowhere to be found. She must have gone over to a friend’s house. I took my backpack up to my room and slung it onto the foot of my bed. I grabbed a purple fuzzy throw pillow and hugged it to my chest. I twisted the ring around my finger. Grandma’s ring sure had gotten me in a lot of trouble today. I wondered if she was watching me from the other side. What was she thinking about all of this? All I knew was she would want me to be happy.
I took a deep breath to help clear my head. I fell back onto my bed and stared at the glow-in-the-dark stars I’d stuck to my ceiling when I was ten. Did kissing Ryker make me happy? A grin spread across my face. I couldn’t think of a time I’d felt giddier. If that was true, then why was I fighting it so hard?
I knew the answer right away. Because I was terrified of getting my heart broken. But Ryker wasn’t Dad, and he wasn’t Austin.
He was Ryker.
I had always trusted him to be my best friend. Who was to say I couldn’t trust him with my heart?
I sat for a minute and followed the logic I’d been feeding to myself all afternoon. I hadn’t been making any sense at all. I knew Ryker. He was the best guy I knew. Didn’t he deserve my trust? He never said we had to jump into anything too serious too fast. Maybe we could just take our relationship one day at a time. Maybe today we were best friends who tried kissing and discovered that it was really nice.
What was the harm in trying it out again? I twisted the ring around my finger and relived the kiss in my mind. I bit my bottom lip, remembering how Ryker had taken my lips between his. That hadn’t been so bad, had it? A grin stretched across my face. Um, actually, it had been amazing. I hadn’t even realized kissing could be that great. I usually got bored when Austin had kissed me. I couldn’t imagine ever getting bored when Ryker was kissing me. That would be impossible.
I spent the rest of the evening working on my homework, but I was having a terrible time focusing. My mind kept drifting off to remember Ryker’s kiss. And then I’d keep wondering when we were going to try kissing again. That’s when I felt the giddiness all over again. After two hours of struggling to focus on my homework, I’d only gotten through one page of my math problems, and I usually finished math and a couple of other subjects by this point. I’d never had this problem when I was with Austin. Ryker had turned me into a hot mess. And I wasn’t sure I minded.
I finally decided to try getting some dinner to get my mind back on something normal and routine. Not that it did much good. I still kept daydreaming as I heated up some leftover soup on the stove.
When I returned to my homework, my focus was a little better thanks to my full tummy of food. But I was still all over the place with my thoughts. Every now and then, fear would try to creep back in, but I kept pushing it down to the deep part of me that I didn’t want to acknowledge.
Around ten, Ryker knocked on my bedroom window. I hopped up from my desk and pushed up the glass. He’d been climbing in my window since we were kids, but this was the first time it had seemed rebellious. But my mom was so used to us being only friends she wouldn’t even care if she saw Ryker in my room late at night.
“Hey,” I said after he’d climbed inside. “Do you want to come sit down?”
“Sure.”
“How was work?” I asked after we’d gotten settled side by side on my bed.
“Honestly? It felt like the longest night ever. Time was dragging,” Ryker said.
That sounded familiar, but I didn’t share that information with Ryker. He didn’t need to know how badly I’d wanted to reunite with him. I still wasn’t entirely sure how he felt about our kiss.
“Why are you still working there when you have a bazillion dollars in your bank account?”
Ryker shrugged. “Familiarity. And I didn’t want to leave my aunt high and dry. She still needs me to train my replacement.”
“You’re a good guy, Ryker.”
“I’m just doing what anyone would.”
I took his hand in mine, and he looked over at me with surprise in his eyes. “I’m ready to talk about that kiss now.”
He rotated his body so he was facing me on the bed. “You are?”
I nodded. The words were beginning to get stuck in my throat again.
“What was up with you earlier?”
“Which time?”
“When you took off after we kissed.”
I stared down at my lap. “I was scared.”
Ryker lifted my chin with his finger, and I looked into his blue eyes. “You can talk to me. Your thoughts are safe here. What were you scared of?”
I looked back at him, and I felt vulnerable. “I don’t want to care too much.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t want to care too much about you, Ryker. Not like this.”
“You mean, romantically?”
I nodded.
“That’s not a bad thing.”
“It is if you’re used to protecting your heart.”
“Is that why you stayed with Austin so long? Because your heart wasn’t into the relationship?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t given it a lot of thought. I think that was probably on purpose, though. I didn’t want to see the truth because it would mean I was in
a relationship that was a sham. It seemed a lot easier to keep pretending that I was with the awesome guy everyone seemed to think he was.”
“Are you worried that I’m going to forget about you when I get to California?”
How was he so in touch with my emotions?
“I’m terrified. You’re going to be so busy with your filming and then all the promotional stuff like awards ceremonies and photoshoots. I don’t want to invest in something with you, whatever it may end up being between us, if it means that you’re only going to get tired of me when you get to California.”
“I don’t care how glamorous California ends up being. I will never get tired of you.”
My heart filled with warmth as he cupped my face with his hands and leaned in to kiss me. I reached up and ran my fingers through his soft curls as he tasted and explored my mouth. I sighed in happiness and pulled him closer to me.
We kissed until Ryker pulled back. “As nice as this is, I think we need to be done for the night.”
“I didn’t know you could kiss like that,” I said, snuggling into him. “Ryker?” I asked. “What are we going to do when you leave?”
“I don’t know. We just have to take this one day at a time.”
I nodded. I just wasn’t sure how well my heart would survive.
11
Ryker
The next Saturday, I knocked on Shannon’s bedroom door to wake her.
“Are you decent in there?” I asked.
“Come in,” she mumbled.
I pushed open the door. Shannon was sprawled across her bed, face down with her legs tangled in her blankets.
“Good morning, sleepyhead,” I said. “I brought you coffee.”
She didn’t move. Her messy blonde hair had tumbled across her face.
“You know, you have a little river of drool puddling on your pillow.”
Shannon bolted up in bed, her hair sticking out in ten different directions. “What?” She wiped at the corner of her mouth. “That’s really gross. I can’t believe you just saw that.”
“That’s nothing. I’ve seen much worse from you. Remember? We’ve been friends for a really long time.”
“That’s really embarrassing.” Shannon wiped at her crazy hair, not that it did much good. “Where’s this coffee you were talking about?” She squinted straight ahead.
“Did I keep you up too late last night?” I asked, putting the cup into her hand.
She took a sip and moaned. “That’s really good. Where did you get this?”
“Starbucks.”
“I thought we couldn’t afford coffee from there,” she said, waking up a little bit more, staring at the cup like she had to see it to believe it. We usually just got coffee from a fast food place or the gas station.
“Um.”
“Oh, yeah. You’re rich now. That’s a thing.” She took another sip of coffee and sighed. “I really love you right now.” Her mouth formed an O shape like she’d just realized what she’d said. “I mean, you know, like a friendship kind of love, and stuff.”
“Hey,” I said. “I get it. We’re just taking this one day at a time. Now, drink up. You’re going to need the energy. We’re going on an adventure today,” I said with a grin.
“What kind of an adventure?” Shannon asked, sipping the cup.
“The kind where you wear hiking gear with a swimsuit underneath.”
Her eyes finally opened to a normal width. “Are we going to the falls?”
“You guessed it.”
“We haven’t been there in forever!”
“Not since last year. And it’s supposed to be eighty-five degrees today.” The falls were a favorite hangout spot for the kids of Sweet Mountain High.
“Well, thanks for the help getting up this morning. Even if it does still feel like the middle of the night.”
“Um, Shannon, it’s ten o’clock in the morning.”
“It is?”
I walked over to her blackout curtains. Shannon loved to sleep in the darkest environment possible. I pulled the drapes apart, allowing golden sunlight to stream into the room. Shannon squinted against the brightness.
I chuckled at her reaction. “You really are so adorable first thing in the morning.”
Shannon sniffed her pits and made a face. “You wouldn’t say that if you could smell me.”
“I’m sure you smell amazing.”
“Psh. Yeah, right. You’re living in a fantasy world.” Shannon got up and went to her dresser, gathering a tank top, shorts, and an electric pink bikini I remembered very well from last summer.
Yep. It was going to be a good day.
“I’m headed to the shower. Go grab a bowl of cereal or something,” Shannon said.
I went to the kitchen and scrounged around until I found an orange and a package of strawberry PopTarts. I ripped open the package and dropped them in the toaster so they could warm up while I peeled the orange.
By the time I’d dusted off the final crumbs of the PopTarts, Shannon emerged from the bathroom. She had on the black tank top. I could see the straps of her pink bikini tied behind her neck. Her ripped cutoff shorts showed miles of legs. I swallowed. I couldn’t believe I’d been lucky enough to be kissing this girl.
“Ready to go?” I asked, tossing my wrapper and orange peel into the garbage.
“Yep. I just have to grab my bag.” Shannon disappeared into her room and came out with a drawstring bag. “I wanted to make sure I had my towel. Remember when I forgot my towel last year?”
“Yeah. But I gave you mine, so it worked out.”
“Except you had to dry off with it after I’d already gotten it cold and wet.”
I smiled. “I didn’t mind.”
She blushed. “You’re a weirdo. Let’s go.”
“Just jump in the water,” I said. “Quit being a wimp, or I’ll push you in.”
Shannon stood in front of me in her tank top and shorts, studying the water from the boulder where we stood. The waterfall crashed majestically before us.
“Okay. I can do this. I do it every year.” She unzipped her ripped denim shorts and kicked them off, revealing even more of her beautiful legs. She peeled off her tank top, and, holy macaroni, I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
She swung her arms back and forth like she was planning to make a running jump for it.
“Actually,” she looked at me with a sheepish expression on her face. “I think I might need you to push me in. I don’t think I can do it on my own.”
“Well, in that case,” I said, shoving my hands against her bare back. She practically burned the skin off my hands with how amazing she felt. She went flying off the ledge, a screech emitting from her lungs before splashing into the water below. Her head bobbed above the surface, and she pushed her wet hair back from her face. She disappeared below the surface again, reappearing with her head tipped back so her hair was washed back from her face this time. She rotated in the water so she could see me still up on the boulder.
“Now who’s the wimp?”
A wide smile spread across my face. I peeled off my shirt and smiled bigger when I noticed Shannon’s reaction to seeing my bare torso. In that one moment, all the time I’d spent lifting weights for the past two years had been completely worth it. I hadn’t really seen results from my time in the gym the first year, but over the last twelve months, I’d seemed to really begin to fill out. I had a feeling that would only increase over the next few years. Mr. Christopher probably wouldn't have been very happy with my breakfast choice this morning. But I figured I’d better enjoy my last few weeks of freedom while I could.
I leaped from the rock, the cold mountain water engulfing me. I kicked my way up to the surface and threw my fists into the air with a whoop after emerging.
Shannon threw her head back and laughed. She swam over to me, and as she came close, I could see a sudden shyness come over her. She placed her hands on my chest under the water and ran them down my abs. I shivered under her feather-lig
ht touch. The way she moved her hands over my body made it seem like she was afraid to feel me. We stayed like that for a moment, kicking in the water to stay afloat. She reached her hands around my neck and pulled herself to me, close enough for our foreheads and noses to touch. Little rivers of water ran down her face from her hairline. Unable to stand a moment longer without her lips on me, I took her mouth in mine and kissed her tenderly, slowly intensifying the heat until she was moaning against my mouth and twisting her fingers up in my hair.
We pulled apart and swam to the smaller boulders that bordered the water. We climbed out, and Shannon took my hand, tugging me toward the falls. Every year we went to the falls since we were little, we had a tradition of standing under the water together. I followed Shannon over the slippery rocks to the moss-and-algae-covered spot where the water pounded on the flat rock below.
“Ready?” she yelled over the powerful pounding of the water.
I threw our joined hands into the air and whooped. She joined in our war cry and led me into the water. I gasped at the weight of the water as it beat down on my head and shoulders. Even though I’d done this every year, I always forgot just how intense it really was.
We stepped out of the water, laughing, and I pulled Shannon into a tight embrace, her body slippery against mine. She wrapped her arms around my neck, and I kissed her soundly. A moment later, we pulled apart smiling.
Something flashed in the corner of my vision, and I turned to see a shape crouched in the bushes.
“Shannon,” I said in her ear. “You should get your shorts on.”
“What?” she yelled over the din of the crashing water.
I tugged her away from the waterfall, doing my best to keep her shielded from the person hiding in the underbrush. I cursed under my breath. It was only a matter of time before they found us together. I should have known they’d follow us here.
My Best Friend Prince Charming: A Sweet YA Romance (Sweet Mountain High Book 6) Page 7