She snickered. The comment was mainly to break the ice, and to cool Delia's tension. Her face was hot and her heart were beating ninety to nothing.
"I am," he responded. "I'm an athlete and was student body president at my other school. I would have been valedictorian had I stayed long enough."
Delia raised her eyes brows, impressed.
"Well, you are barking up the wrong tree then. I'm only an A and B student and take advanced placement classes. No sports. No student body. Not into a cheerleading or anything like that."
Rylie only smiled more. "Really?" he said. "You don't look it. Aside from having a body out of this world, you sound very sweet and homey. I would've taken you for a studious type with her head constantly in a book." He never left eye contact. "Y'know I watched you raking leaves for ten solid minutes right?" he smiled.
Delia was about to melt with heat. Where was her water bottle? She turned to look around. Could not find it for anything.
Unfortunately, Delia wasn't hot because it was hot outside. Delia was hot inside. This boy just did something to her. He radiated and personified sex appeal and confidence.
"No I didn't know," she said.
Suddenly, Delia became light-headed. Rylie caught her as she fainted.
Delia woke up from the leather arm chair suddenly. It was pitch black. Delia checked her cell phone. 12:11am. No messages from Riley. No phone calls. Several friends had texted back saying they hadn't heard anything.
Delia was in the living room. She had obviously dreamed of having met Riley for the first time over a year ago.
He had come at her like a piranha on meat. She had get used to that boy!
She fainted the first three times of having met him, each time being caught by that arm of biceps.
Each time he had taken such good care of her.
He even helped her finish her week long arduous yard work. His dad had a wind blowing contraption that helped blow the leaves into a pile. Riley even messed around and blew some on her, even blew the wind her way and tousled her hair around. That was the first time he saw that she could smile, the first time Delia actually noticed she was doing it to. It would be a series of smiles in the days to come.
Delia wouldn't see him again for several weeks, and even wondered what had happened.
When she found him walking down the hall at school, her heart once again did a pitter-patter. He was walking with the head football player and his posse of jocks. Oh God. He already had friends with the most popular people in the school.
By Delia's standards the football players were off limits to her. She liked how they looked and carried themselves, but Delia never liked football, and hardly found the will-power to go to a game. Plus, she was comfortable with her friends from the academic section of clicks. She had a few cute guy friends, one or two even had friends from the football team, so she wasn't doing that bad. She had a few girlfriends from her younger years she still hung out with. So Delia wasn't really hurting for anything.
However, she was flabbergasted to see Rylie so casually walking with the boys so nonchalantly.
He saw her and waved, followed by a flirty smile and a wink before walking on. Delia was winded all during her next two period classes, not being able to get Rylie out of her mind. That boy really did have something special about him.
As luck would have it, Delia's mom and dad were taken by their neighbors. The Deights were the talk of the neighborhood. And Delia's parents loved them. They sent Delia over to deliver a turkey as a welcome to the neighborhood offering. Delia fought up and down not to, claiming she had a project to study for. Her mom literally pushed her out the door and told her to get moving.
Delia made it to her neighbors front door and rung the doorbell.
Immediately who should answer but Rylie.
He smiled brightly.
"Hey," he said.
Delia smiled back half-heartedly.
"Hey."
