She hesitates for a second before shaking it. “Oh. Yeah. Hi.”
There’s a beat of awkward silence.
“Well,” Ryan says, already shifting slightly away, “we’re gonna go on our walk now. So, have a nice day.”
“Yeah,” she mutters, clearly not thrilled. “Bye.”
She turns and walks off.
Ryan drops his arm from my shoulders the second she’s out of sight. “Pff,” he exhales. “That girl was intense.”
I huff a small breath.
“Well,” he adds, glancing at me, “you had good timing.”
His expression shifts then, just slightly. His eyes narrow a little as they scan my face. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I say quickly. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
I glance up at him, there’s a backwards cap pulled low over his forehead. A few brown curls escape from underneath it, moving slightly in the breeze. What is it about backwards caps that suddenly makes a guy ten times hotter?
“What happened to your arm?”
I blink. “Mm?”
Ryan points at my wrist, his eyes narrowed slightly. And I look down at my arm, where a red mark is already forming against my skin.
I quickly cover it with my other hand. “Oh—uh, I went surfing this morning and… hit my arm against my board.”
He doesn’t look fully convinced.
“It’s fine,” I say, faking a laugh. “You know how clumsy I can be.”
“Yeah,” he responds, still not buying it. But then he tilts his head a little. “Do you actually want to take the walk?” he asks. “I mean—we might as well, right?”
I hesitate.
“Unless you want to go home,” he adds.
“No,” I cut in quickly. “Let’s do it.”
He gives me a small smile.
“I mean,” I add after a second. “A little extra convincing wouldn't hurt anyone right?”
He blinks once and then nods. “Yeah, that’s true.”
We start heading to the beach. And honestly, a distraction from whatever the hell just happened with Jacob doesn’t sound like the worst idea.
21
RYAN
Maybe all this cliche dating stuff isn't actually as bad as I thought they would be.
The beach is practically glowing. Sunlight bouncing off the water, sand so bright it almost hurts to look at for more than a second. We walk a little farther down the shore, shoes in hand, the ocean stretching out endlessly in front of us. The breeze does absolutely nothing to cool the heat.
I was actually already planning to go for a little swim, because otherwise I would’ve died out in this heatwave. But when I got out my car, there was this girl telling me how she just recently moved here and is now living with her aunt. But that quickly turned into a very flirtatious conversation and her using the pickup line, “You owe me your number for stealing my attention.” But when I told her I have a girlfriend, she just laughed and said, “That hasn’t held me back before.” Which is a really shitty thing to say by the way, but at that exact moment, Maddy walked across the parking lot. And even though she looked almost startled, she had great timing.
