Promise You Won't Fall In Love With Me

Rylee Richards had been best friends with Ryan O’Reilly for as long as she could remember. They both at grown up in Clinton, Ontario together playing in the snow, ice skating, and playing hockey. While all the other little boys had cooties, Rylee knew Ryan was special. He had never pulled her hair or called her names, and he had always included her in games.

They had lived just down the street from each other and would constantly spend all of their free time hanging out, playing games, and fooling around.

One memory from Rylee’s childhood stood out much bolder than the rest. At the age of eighteen she constantly thought about it, wondering why it had even happened.

It had been snowing outside, the perfect winter wonderland. They were both exhausted from an afternoon of building snowman, having snowball fights, and ice-skating, and now laid on the wet, white backyard behind Ryan’s house.

“Do you think things are going to change when we get older?” the small, six year old voice of Rylee whispered as she stared up at the clear, blue sky.

Ryan shook his head, his short mop of curly, brown gently landing against the snow. “Nope,” he answered, shortly. “We are always gonna be best friends,” he reassured her.

She turned her head to face him, her some of her own long, wavy brown hair landing gently on her face. “No matter what we’ll always be best friends?”

His brown eyes poured into her deep green ones. “Yep, but you just have to promise you won’t fall in love with me,” he informed her.

The six-year-old girl rolled her eyes. “That’s not a problem.”

“Good, that’d mess everything up,” he spoke; jumping up off the ground, ready to play some more.

Eagerly Rylee followed him; glad she knew they would always be friends. Even at a young age, she knew she did not want to ruin what the two of them had. Some of the other boys and girls her age around the neighborhood had gotten “married”—little fake, playing marriages with the ceremonies conducted on the playground down the street. Rylee had thought the concept was dumb and both her and Ryan had refused to participate in a “marriage” of their own, despite the constant insistence of some of the other young children.

The thought of being more than the best friend of Ryan’s was strange to Rylee, let alone getting married to him. Besides, there was no way she was going to change her name to Rylee O’Reilly.

The now eighteen-year-old Rylee Richards shook her head at the memory. Throughout the past twelve years the two of them had remained inseperatable, their friendship never wavering, and their promise never once broken. They never once dated and kissed only once when the two of them were eleven as an experiment to see what all the fuss was about.

They had been upstairs in Ryan’s two-story house, running through the halls playing an indoor game of tag. Ryan’s mother had already yelled at them twice for running in the house downstairs not fifteen minutes before, so they had decided to move it upstairs.

The two of them stopped playing when Ryan caught Reilly directly in front of a cracked open door on the left. The room belonged to Ryan’s older brother, Cal, who was at the time sixteen.

Being the curiously adolescences they were, they both peaked in, surprised to see Cal lip locked with a pretty, blonde haired girl. The older couple was sitting on the large, double bed, leaning towards each other as they kissed, their eyes closed, neither of them noticing the two voyeurs outside the bedroom door. Both Ryan and Rylee stared wide-eyed at the two horny teenagers, not used to seeing a couple kiss like that in person.

After almost a minute, the two silent children turned to look at each other, speechless. An idea clicked in Ryan’s brain causing a smile to appear on his soft face. He quickly grabbed Rylee’s tiny hand, pulling her towards his own bedroom down the hallway on the right.

Once they obtained the proper privacy, with the dark wooden door closed, Ryan led Rylee over to the bed, gently pushing her to the center, before quickly joining her. Rylee could feel her nerves racing as she realized exactly where all of this was going. She always wondered what this would be like, kissing a boy, but she never dreamed it would be with her best friend, Ryan.

Slowly Ryan inched his face closer to her own, his hands reaching to lightly grip her arms so that she could not pull away. His eyes bore in to her and Rylee prayed he would not realize how fast her heart was fluttering.

It was sloppy and wet, not quite what Rylee had imagined it would be like. She kept her eyes open the whole time, only realizing afterwards that they should have been closed. She wondered what this all meant. Why did he kiss her? Was he going back on his promise? Was he going to fall in love with her?

Ryan said nothing when his big, brown eyes popped open. He shrugged his shoulders and climbed of the bed, leaving a speechless and unsure Rylee behind.

What did this mean?

Her head snapped to the side as she heard the grandfather clock chime four o’clock. Quickly she grabbed her winter coat, buttoned it up, wrapped her dark grey scarf around her thin neck, and pulled her snow-white mittens on her small hands.

It only took her fifteen minutes to drive to the airport. Ryan and his team, the Colorado Avalanche, were coming back from a long road trip and Ryan had insisted she come and meet him so the two best friends could catch up.

With Ryan’s demanding hockey career and Rylee’s busy university class schedule, the two of them did not to see each other as much as they’d like. Nevertheless, Rylee always found herself at every home game, cheering him on, just as she had done since he first started the sport.

Pulling into the concrete parking garage, Rylee stepped out of her small SUV, her tennis shoes clinking against the hard floor below. Despite Rylee being used to being away from him, she always missed him, counting down in her head how long it would be until she next got to see him.

She felt her legs carrying her to the private gate for the Colorado Avalanche, where friends and family could greet the players without the distraction of fans. With a brief nod of her head she walked passed the security guard who recognized her from previous visits to the airport.

She didn’t have to wait long before she heard a familiar voice yell “Rylee!” from several yards away.

Rylee laughed as Ryan’s teammate and fellow rookie Matt Duchene pulled her into a tight hug. He pulled away, only to swing his arm around her shoulders.

“How’s it going, Better Looking Rylee?” he joked, casually as several more teammates walked past the two, laughing quietly to their selves.

Rylee let out a light giggle at his behavior. “It’s going well, Duch, what about yourself?”

She could feel a new set of eyes on her as Matt started going off about the last couple of hockey games he played. Rylee turned her head to the side, surprised to see her best friend staring at her and Matt with a frown clear on his face. Upon realizing Rylee was now looking at him, Ryan’s face lifted somewhat into a smile.

“Hey Ryan,” she called out, completely cutting of what Matt was saying about his latest goal.

Ryan walked over to the two, his eyes focused on Matt’s arm around Rylee’s shoulders. “Hello,” he greeted, simply.

“I was just telling Rylee here about my awesome goal last night after my unbelievable breaka—”

Rylee pulled away from Matt after noticing the expression on Ryan’s face. She took the two or so steps it too to stand directly in front of him and swiftly wrapped her slender arms around his neck. “I missed you,” she whispered so only he could hear.

She didn’t have to pull away to know he was smiling now into her long, soft hair. His own broad arms wrapped around her small waist, tugging her closer to him. “Missed you too,” he murmured back.

“Okay,” Matt spoke up, “I can see when I’m not wanted. Catch you later. And don’t forget to use protections—we don’t need any baby O’Reilly’s running around.”

Both Ryan and Rylee rolled their eyes at his comment, slowly withdrawing from each other’s hold. The two of them were best friends and only that, but as Rylee watched her best friend wave goodbye to one of his teammates she could not help but wonder how true that actually was.

“So what do you want to do?” Rylee questioned, after Ryan had grabbed his bags. Her hand flew up to play with her wavy hair.

Ryan glanced over at her out of the corner of your eye. “Why are you so nervous?”

She gave him a puzzling work as the two headed over to the exit. “What’d you mean?” she wondered.

“You always play with your hair when you’re nervous,” he replied back, holding the door open for her. She nodded her head in thanks. “Like that time back is Ms. Bishop’s English class when you had to give that speech on the Death Penalty—you couldn’t stop playing with your hair,” he pointed out.

“Oh, I guess I’m just nervous about the test I have in Biology next week,” she lied, walking up the steps of the parking deck.

He gave her an unsure look, but didn’t push it further. “We can watch a movie,” he suggested after a brief pause.

“Sounds like a plan,” she smiled, dropping her hand back down to her side.

As they reached the dark blue SUV, Ryan once again opened the door for Rylee.

“Thanks,” she muttered, about to climb into the driver’s seat, but Ryan stopped her, gently grabbing her forearm.

“What?” she whispered; surprised to find Ryan’s face lowering to her own. His mouth hovered over hers for several long seconds before they finally came crashing down on her slightly chapped lips.

His mouth was moving with hers, both battling for dominance. Their second kiss was much more passionate and meaningful then the kiss they shared all those years ago. Rylee’s mind tried to register all that was happening as she wrapped her arms once more around his neck. His hands played with the bottom of her shirt, fingers tracing gently on her smooth skin.

Ryan pulled away abruptly, leaving Rylee confused and offended. Was she that bad at kissing?

“We can’t do this,” Ryan spoke, barely above a whisper. Without another word or even a glance at Rylee, he walked around the car and climbed in the passenger’s side.

Neither talked for the rest of the ride home.

Twenty-five minutes later, they both found themselves sprawled out on the couch in Rylee’s living room. Both of their favorite movie, The Departed, was starting in the DVD player under the television.

“I love this movie,” Rylee whispered from her seat next to Ryan.

Ryan glanced over at her, nodding in his head in agreement, but otherwise remaining silent.

They remained silent for most of the film, Rylee fighting to keep her eyes open, but after the long day she had it was becoming more and more difficult to stay awake.

It wasn’t even half way through the movie when Ryan felt a new added weight on his shoulder. Glancing down he saw Rylee unconsciously curling up against his muscular body. He readjusted himself, allowing both him and Rylee to be more comfortable.

He could smell her hair, the familiar fragrance of vanilla, as he watched her sleep, no longer caring about the movie.

His shoulder and upper arm were beginning to fall asleep, the intense tingling feeling spreading, but he didn’t care; he just didn’t want to move and wake Rylee up.

Ryan simply returned his attention back to the movie, watching Leonardo DiCaprio talk with Mark Wahlberg.

Rylee awake to the soft sound of music as the credits rolled on the black screen. She shifted slightly quickly realizing she was leaning against a person. Her mind tried desperately to remember who it could be. She tilted her head to the side, her eyes meeting Ryan’s.

“Hi,” he whispered, his face only a few inches from her own.

“Hi,” she repeated back.

It only took a few seconds of silence, the sexual tension building up, before Ryan leaned down, kissing Rylee on her slightly chapped lips.

The angle was slightly awkward for and she pulled away to readjust herself; Ryan gave her a confused look before his brain registered what she was doing. Rylee turned around, straddling his waist, before reattaching her lips with his.

Suddenly Rylee pulled away from him. “What about the promise?” she muttered, staring into his familiar eyes.

“I broke that a long time ago,” he confessed, pulling her back into a kiss.