Party Girl_ A Novel - Anna David [90]
“Water?” I ask, feeling nervous and hating myself for it.
“Pellegrino okay?” He says this as he opens the fridge.
“That’s great.” Ryan produces a small bottle of Pellegrino, pulling the corkscrew top off by wedging it under a wooden table and pushing the bottom of the bottle down. It’s such a casually masculine move that I find myself unnervingly turned on by it. He hands me the bottle and I take a sip.
“What do you feel like doing? Want to take a walk on the beach?” He asks me this like I come over here all the time and determining our nightly plans is simply part of our ritual. Just then, a small dark-haired boy comes barreling into the room and throws himself around Ryan’s legs.
“Hey, you. What’s up?” Ryan says, tousling the kid’s hair. “Want to come walk with Daddy and his friend on the beach?”
The child gazes at me with wide eyes. “I’m Diego,” he announces.
“I’m—”
“Amelia,” Ryan finishes and I’m both impressed by Ryan’s ability to remember and say my name and horrified by how easily impressed I am.
“Hi, Amelia.” Diego scatters out from under his dad’s arm and runs up to me. “Are you going to be spending the night?”
Total silence, and then I force a laugh. Ryan’s the one who should probably be embarrassed by the direction this conversation has taken, so why am I the one blushing? When it becomes clear that I don’t have an answer, Ryan smiles. “Chill out, kid,” he says affectionately. “Where’s Sam?”
Diego yells, “Sa-am!” and a towheaded kid comes scampering into the room. “Are we going out for pizza?” he asks Ryan.
Ryan doesn’t introduce me and I decide that it’s not worth getting offended over not officially meeting a prepubescent. Ryan glances at me and then at the two kids.
“No, we’re going to play ball on the beach,” he says and, even though I’m still stricken with the memory of all those notes I forced my mom to write so that I could get out of P.E. on “Dodgeball Day,” I try to smile. “Right, Amelia?”
Maybe it’s that Ryan’s face is about as familiar to me as my own. Maybe it’s that he’s undeniably sexy. Or maybe I just hoped that a game of ball (football? baseball? who knew?) would calm my nerves ever so slightly. Running around on the beach with a couple of kids could maybe help me forget the fact that I was standing in the home of someone I’d had posters of my entire adolescence or that the guy I was obsessed with—who happened to live mere blocks away—was clearly blowing me off.
“We sure are,” I say, kicking off the platform heels that I’d so carefully selected for this excursion. “Who’s coming?”
“Here you go!” I shriek, tossing an enormous beach ball toward Sam. He catches it, which makes me feel enormously validated, and tosses it back. Next to us, Ryan and Diego kick a soccer ball back and forth.
“Bet you can’t catch it if I throw it really high!” I yell and toss the ball up what I imagine is going to be hundreds of feet in the air only to have it fly about a foot up before flopping to the ground. Sam good-naturedly runs toward me to retrieve it.
“That was lame!” he yells as he scoops the ball up and makes his way back to where he was standing before.
Does Sam know that I’m faking interest in this impromptu beach ball game? Does he understand that I’m self-consciously watching myself try to act cavalier playing nonsensical ball games on the beach with Ryan Duran and two eight-year-olds? Or does Ryan have so many different women over that the sight of a slightly uncomfortable, overly enthusiastic young woman doesn’t even seem like a fact worth noting?
As Sam tosses the ball back in my direction, he doesn’t seem remotely aware of any of the thoughts racing through my brain. He seems intent, actually, on having the ball reach me, and I’m oddly touched by his fervor and the way he’s acting like all of