I tilt my head, pretending to study him. “You should be careful, you know. If you mess up your neck too much you could develop acute cervical destabilization syndrome.”
Ryan freezes and slowly turns to me. “…I’m sorry, what?”
I hold the serious face for exactly two seconds before it cracks. “Relax. I made that up.”
His eyes narrow. “You little shit.”
I grin and a second of quiet settles between us, but then Ryan pulls his phone from his pocket, and the second the screen lights up, messages start stacking on top of each other. It looks like a wedding planner who just found out the cake collapsed.
“Damn,” I say. “Since when are you this popular?”
He exhales and locks the screen. “Don’t even start.”
“Okay, but seriously. Did someone die?”
“No,” he says, already smiling like he hates this conversation. “Just my neighbour. Apparently she knows a friend-of-the-daughter-of-her-best-friend who’s single and would be ‘perfect for me’.”
I snort. “Maybe that’s why your neck hurts so much, carrying the weight of half the town trying to marry you off.”
“Yeah,” he sighs. And it sets me off again because yesterday flashes straight back into my brain. I bite the inside of my cheek trying not to laugh. But I fold terribly.
Ryan groans quietly. “Don’t.”
“I’m sorry—” I start, already laughing and failing to hide it. “I just can’t stop thinking about your face yesterday. You looked like you were about to fake your own death just to get out of that conversation.”
“I was seriously considering it.”
“What would you have done if I hadn’t shown up?” I ask after a second.
“I probably would’ve had to start a fight with her,” he says sarcastically.
“With her?” I repeat.
“Yeah,” he says dryly. “It was my only escape.”
I snort. “That would never work.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’d lose.”
His jaw drops in exaggerated disbelief. “Excuse you. I could break someone’s jaw if I wanted to.”
I tilt my head, studying him. “Could you?”
“Well, that depends. Are we talking hypothetical or Jacob?”
A laugh escapes me before I can stop it. And at that exact moment his phone buzzes again. He sighs deeply, shoving his phone back in his pocket.
I shake my head. “You know you can just lie right?”
He glances back at me. “About what?”
“I don’t know,” I say, waving a hand. “Tell them you’re not into girls. Or that you’re secretly a murderer. Or—” I shrug. “Just say you have a girlfriend.”
The quiet that follows stretches a little too long and when I glance over, I see that Ryan hasn’t moved.
“Mads,” he says.
