For a moment, I was ready to thank him for coming to my rescue.
“She’s too uptight for a game like this,” he finished.
I gaped. “Uptight?”
He nodded. “I mean that in a good way.”
My jaw clenched. “Good way?”
“I think what he means is that you’re serious. You don’t like frivolous or spontaneous things,” Sinclair said, in a clear attempt to help her brother out.
“You don’t think I’m spontaneous?” I turned my glare onto her.
Ryder snorted. “No. Or fun.” He said the latter under his breath as he moved down the bar to help someone else.
My eyes burned, because the quip hurt and yet they weren’t wrong. I was serious. Life was a disorderly mess that needed serious, focused people to keep it from spinning out of control.
“You know, maybe if you were more serious, you wouldn’t be stuck tending bar and strumming your old guitar in Salvation,” I called out to him.
“Now why are you picking on ole Ryder, here?” Mr. Bigalow said as Ryder poured him his usual scotch.
“Don’t get mad,” Sinclair said. “You know how he likes to poke at you.”
“You think I’m not fun? You think I should go through life like him?” I jerked my thumb toward Ryder. “Not a care in the world? No plans for the future. Is he going to be eighty years old, still tending bar and plucking his old guitar because he can’t afford to retire?”
Sinclair pursed her lips. “They’d be perfect for each other,” she said to Wyatt.
“How so?” he asked.
“Yes, how so?” I demanded.
“Well, you’re right, Ryder could use a little focused planning for his future, and you’d offer him that.”
“What he needs is a kick in the—”
“But you’re too far in the other direction. You’re so obsessed with order and control, you’re missing out on the joy of spontaneity. He could help you with that.”
“I can help with what?” Ryder asked, returning.
“You two could balance each other out,” Sinclair said.
He grinned, looking intrigued. “Oh really? What are you going to balance for me, Katrina?”
Why was he using my full name? “Your face?”
“You two are opposites. She could make you more serious in life and you could help her have fun.”
“I know something about fun,” he said, winking at me.
Grr. “This is the dumbest idea.”
He leaned forward. “What are you … chicken?”
I leaned into him. I could see the irises of his blue eyes. “You’re an ass.”
His gaze dropped to my lips making me shiver. He looked into my eyes again. “And you’re full of shit.”
3