“You said the food would get cold,” I call him out on his obvious lie.
He smiles and hands me a clear takeaway cup with orange juice. “Yeah, my attempt to hurry your ass up.”
My mouth falls open at his playful and bossy tone, but it doesn’t mess with his smile. The man is unperturbed, which frustrates me. Rather than remind him I’m maimed, I move on to the next pressing topic.
“What’s that?” I point to the table in question.
He cocks an eyebrow in my direction and raises a hand like he’s about to check for a temperature, but I bat it away. “A coffee table.”
“I realize it’s a coffee table, Ryland. Where did it come from?”
“First, call me Ry. My mother’s the only person who calls me Ryland. Second, I bought the table this morning.”
“You bought a table this morning?” My wrapped foot rests on the floor, the throbbing pressure increasing by the minute. It must be the reason I’m hearing his answers wrong.
He slides the table a few inches closer. “Yeah, I stopped by to wake you up this morning and noticed you didn’t have one. I picked it up down the road and they delivered it an hour later.”
My eyes rise to the ceiling as I work through everything he’s said.
“When in the hell did you wake up?” And when in the hell did this furniture store open? It’s not even nine on a Sunday. The French toast we eat each weekend at our girls' brunch meeting is the singular reason I get up before noon this day of the week.
He leans back on the couch with one arm stretched out across the back. “The correct thing to say here is thank you.”
I lock my lips together and there’s no way my face doesn’t go a little pink. “Um, right? Thank you. Really.”
“No problem. You needed a table to prop your foot up.” His eyes drop to my foot at its place on the carpet. “Which you should have up right now. Come on. Get it up here."
Ryland grabs a loose pillow from behind him and places it on the table, arranging my foot to balance on top. It stings each place he touches, but I refuse to tell him for fear he’ll blame it on the lack of earlier propping.
“There. I’ll get you an ice pack and another pill, but be a good girl and eat your breakfast.”
I scowl at him but reach for the bagel as he hands it to me. The phone I’ve carried around vibrates with a low battery warning, and I send Aspen a text about missing brunch and promise to call and give her details later.
We chew in silence for a few minutes as I try to think of an acceptable topic for conversation. He bought me a coffee table. I need to be polite, but my personal knowledge of Ryland Bates is nonexistent.
Sure I read his wiki page and scrolled through the many search pages with pictures of him, a hot model type on his arm for every red carpet event. I even skimmed the newspaper articles about the various trouble he’s been in with the soccer league.
Okay fine. I stalked him online. Is it so wrong? I refuse to fall into the same trap as Aspen last June. I won’t live next to a guy I haven’t searched thoroughly. Sure, it worked out for her, but the journey was hell on all of us.
Still, research aside, there wasn’t much about Ryland’s personal life to be found online. Most of my information came from Finn. He went to Stanford with Finn, Trey, and Grant, but left to pursue soccer before graduating. Nothing I've learned about Ryland lends itself to acceptable conversation for breakfast in my living room.
I pick a few pieces of fluff off my well-worn pony pants and prepare to discuss the oldest fallback imaginable, the weather, when Ryland beats me to it.
“So, when do you go back to work?” At least it’s easy to answer.
“Tuesday. The doctor wrote me a note for Monday, and I should be off the pain meds by then. I’ll keep my foot propped at work and ice any swelling if I go back.” I repeat back the doctor’s instructions to keep the conversation going longer.
He chews the last piece of his bagel. “Well, tomorrow I’ll give you the code to the elevator and you can use it until you’re off the crutches."
“What? No. I can’t do that. I’ll figure it out.”
Ryland shakes his head at me and sighs. “You won’tfigure it out,Marissa, because I already have. I’m being nice. Stop fighting me on everything.”
“I don’t fight you on everything.” The words tumble out of my mouth before I realize what I’ve said. “I don’t want to bother you while you’re here.”
It’s true. I don’t want to bother Ryland, but more importantly I don’t want to walk in on him and one of the many girls he's been pictured with. Voyeurism isn’t a turn on for me and he doesn’t come off as an only on the bed type of guy.
“If you want to waste your breath, keep arguing,” he starts, “but since you’ll be in the elevator come Tuesday, let’s save the time.”
