He shrugged affably, but I saw a flash of annoyance in his eyes. “Just trying to help you get your book back.”
“Of all the people to live with for a month, there can’t be anyone easier than Ryder,” Sinclair said.
She was wrong about that.
“He won’t care about which way the toilet paper needs to go on the roll or where to squeeze the toothpaste. He’ll get off on all your lists, I bet.”
“There’s a right way to hang the toilet paper?” Ryder asked deadpan.
“You’re being crazy,” I said, wishing I had a glass of whiskey. Hell, I wanted the whole bottle.
“I remember saying a fake marriage was crazy when you proposed the idea to me and Ryder. What’s the problem? Too hard to be fake married after all?” Sinclair taunted me.
Dammit. I was proving her point. Surely there was someone else I could do this dumb bet with. I quickly scanned the room, but the bar didn’t show any prospects. Most men were married. Others were too old.
“Ah, leave her alone,” Ryder said.
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.