When she showed up for a quick band rehearsal before service, Ryan stood on the stage. His guitar was strapped over his shoulder, just like the night before, but held steady by strong forearms on full display thanks to the rolled up sleeves of the button down he wore.
“Um, what are you doing up there?” Ginny asked, wonderstruck by seeing him so unexpectedly. “I mean, where’s James?”
James being the primary worship leader, who Ginny was expecting to meet that morning rather than Mr.I didn’t say I wanted to dance with you.
“Hello to you, too. My morning’s been just fine. Thanks for askin’.” Ryan strummed his guitar and seemed much bolder than the night before. Like a toddler, strengthened by the gripping of his security blanket—or guitar, in Ryan’s case. His reddish blonde hair fell just over his eyes, highlighting the cowlick there. “James called me early this morning. He, um… He’s sick and needed a fill in.”
“Oh,” Ginny responded, making her way to the stage. “What a bummer. I mean… for James, that is.”
“Yeah.” He strummed again, a mournful tune. “So you’re stuck with me, Gin. Sorry.”
She shrugged. “I’ll make do. Worship isn’t about you and me. Not that there is a you and me. Obviously.”
She pointed between herself and the man now watching her, no hint of a smile or understanding on his face. Just grass-green eyes peering at her through round, silver-rimmed glasses. “I mean, of course there isn’t. That’d be ca-ra-zy.” She swirled her finger over her head demonstrating the absolute nonsense she’d even implied. Not that Ryan, who was happier living his life incomplete denial about whatever it was between them, needed her hand illustrations to solidify his stance on the matter.
“I just meant, worship isn’t about us at all. It’s about Jesus,” she said resolutely, reminding herself of that truth. Ginny had seen Ryan lead before and had led at his side many times over the past few years but always found it necessary to double down on her focus where he was involved.
“Right. Completely agree.” He looked away from her abruptly, checking his mic. “It’s not like we haven’t done this before.”
“Absolutely. We’re pros.” She tapped her mic with her index finger, checking the sound and peered in her peripheral at him.
“Good deal. I…” He cleared his throat. “I always enjoy it when we lead together,” he admitted and strummed again, running his fingers across the strings. But, unfortunately, Ginny felt that vibration of strings rush across her arms where goosebumps rose.
“Me too,” she said quietly into the mic, though both their soft confessions echoed in the chamber of the empty room. “Socks?”
He answered back in his own mic, “Avocados,” and then switched chords, playing the first note of the set for the morning.
She hummed, meeting his voice in the space between. “I like avocados.”
“Me too,” was all he said before singing the first line of the song and drawing Ginny into it at his side.
She remembered the first time he’d led worship for Living Hope. Ginny was only eighteen at the time and had grown up watching Ryan play a silly sidekick to Georgia while not-so-secretly pining for Caroline. It hadn’t bothered her then.
Sure, he was adorable in his way, but Ryan was older than her and had been a constant fixture in her life. She’d never looked at him romantically, far too focused on her teenage life and the attention she’d gotten from boys her own age. Butwhen Ryan stood on the stage that first morning, voice and countenance transforming before her eyes from goofy friend to grown man, unashamedly lifting praise to his Savior, Ginny was transfixed. And a long-term crush solidified.
She couldn’t be blamed, after all. Ryan was a loyal friend and kind to almost everyone—the blips with Danger and a certain Air Force pilot, not included. But she loved how he was always just a little disheveled in a glasses-wearing, hot coach sort of way. He loved Jesus and wore silly socks for the delight of children and was regularly seen with a guitar in his hands.
So, essentially, Ryan was irresistible.
Though nowadays she was much more practiced in managing the deep desire she had to run up on the stage and bruise Ryan’s mouth with hers. She wasn’t a teenager with a silly crush. She was, as she’d declared the night before during her verbal tantrum, a full-grown woman now. She wouldn’t be so easily led astray by the man now strumming a guitar and humming harmonies deep in his throat or by his raspy voice filling the room.
Even if she had memorized the sound and cadence of his words,I always enjoy it when we lead together, to replay over and over again at a later date. It’d most likely become her nightly lullaby. A new song of her own making, lulling her into a deep, Ryan-filled dreamland.
Ginny wouldn’t be distracted by that ginger-haired dreamboat with his still raspy voice and an untrimmed five o’clock shadow… Instead, she prayed for strength from distraction and sang along, focusing on the words and the reason for praise rather than the man at her side. Because she loved to lead, and she loved worshiping her Savior. When she stepped onto the stage, she often felt like she was truly stepping into a unique gift God had given her. One she never wanted to disregard or take for granted.
Their dry run of the morning setlist went as smoothly as their duet had the night before. However, when her sisters arrived early for service with their families, sitting in their normal row of chairs but offering her nearly identical sympathetic smiles as they saw who she stood on stage with, Ginny thought maybe her feelings for their long-time friend were more transparent than she’d believed. And she suspected she’d need another visit to the record store before the day was through.
“Heya, Gin,” Caroline greeted Ginny with a kiss on her cheek after service as a crowd mingled in the warm October breeze. “Hey, Ry. I didn’t know you were gonna be leadin’ worship today.”
“I didn’t either,” Ryan replied. “It was a great service, though.”
“Well, it was awesome, man.” Griffin shook Ryan’s hand, holding it firm. “Always good to hear you sing withourGinny.”
Ginny sighed and shook her head. Adding Griffin and Lake to her life had been the equivalent of adding two more giant Dakotas. They’d loved her like a sister from the get go. “It was fun,” she said, letting Ryan off the hook and repeating his earlier words. “I always love when we lead together.”
Not that they’d been playing on repeat in her head all morning. That would be ca-ra-zy, too.
Ginny’s mama approached, her arm draped demurely through Chloe Garland’s, a classmate Ginny hadn’t seen since high school. The Colonel, Ginny’s retired Air Force daddy, followed close behind greeting friends with casual salutes and hand shakes in the wake of his wife up ahead.
