His expression brightens as he says, “Hi Mum!”
“Oh my God, Ryan,hang up!” I hiss at him. “You better not be about to—”
“Yeah, we’ve finished up now. Listen, bit of a situation here. We didn’t get the interview, but they’ve said we can do it tomorrow instead—only thing is, Harper doesn’t have anywhere booked to stay,” he says, batting my hand away as I desperately try to grab his phone.
Why is he so tall?!
“Yeah,” he continues, “so I wondered… Exactly what I was thinking! Thanks Mum… yeah… yeah sounds great. Thanks, you’re the best. I’ll tell her. All right, see you soon.” He hangs up. “You see? I didn’t even have to ask her; she said you’re very welcome to stay with them, she won’t hear of you staying in some terrible hotel. She’s going to make up the spare room now, and there’s plenty of food for you to join us for dinner, too.”
I bury my head in my hands. “Ryan, no! No, no, no!”
“You don’t want a delicious home-cooked meal and free accommodation?”
“Look, it’s really kind of them to offer, but I can’t stay at your parents’ house. I will find a hotel and then—”
“Harper,” he says gently, placing a hand on my arm, “I insist. And you know what? You get to laugh at all the baby photos of me dotted around the house. Doesn’t that sound fun?”
I hesitate. That does sound quite fun.
“Fine,” I say, because I don’t want his mum to think I’m rude and, also, his warm hand clasping my arm is making it hard to think straight.
“Come on, let’s go get you toiletries and garments.” He grins. “And then you get to meet the parents.”
Bloody hell.
Yep. It’s confirmed. This isveryweird.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
It’s a strange thing witnessing someone you know as an adult returning to their childhood home, especially when it’s someone you see in a professional capacity. You get glimpses of what they were like growing up through small moments, like how Ryan had barely stepped through the door before he was down on his knees ruffling the hair of an Irish setter, which had come lolloping down the hall to greet him and was spinning round in circles, then resting its paws on Ryan’s shoulders to lick his ears.
Through raucous laughter, Ryan glances up at me with a boyish grin across his face. “This is Sullivan. But his friends call him Sully.”
I’ve never seen Ryan more comfortable and happy than in that moment with his dog.
“Oh, Ryan, you’re going to get his hairs all over your trousers,” his mum, Emily, says, smiling fondly at her son as she emerges into the hall. “Just step around him, Harper, and come on in. He’ll be down there getting Sully overexcited for a while.”
Slender and petite, Emily has strikingly sharp cheekbones and delicate features with gray-blue eyes and honey-blond highlighted hair. She is dressed in a dusty-blue shirt tucked into beige linen trousers and has a calm aura about her, with a small, secretive smile as though she knows something you don’t—similar to the one I’ve caught Ryan sporting from time to time. On her, though, it’s not annoying.
When Ryan finally gets to his feet, she wraps her arms aroundhis shoulders as he bends down to her level and then pulls back to admire him, patting his cheek lightly with her hand and telling him she’s missed him. He looks mildly embarrassed at her attention, but softens, too, and I can see from their embrace that they have a close bond.
I feel a pang of regret that I don’t ever get such a welcome from my family.
“Ryan! You’re home!” comes a booming voice from the end of the hall. Ryan’s dad appears with oven gloves and an apron on. He comes striding toward us, a wide smile across his face.
“And you must be Harper,” he says with a slight Swedish accent. He shakes off the oven gloves to hold his hand out to me. “Welcome! I’m Fredrik. Pleasure to have you, make yourself at home. Ryan, don’t leave your bag on the ground there for everyone to trip over, yes?”
Ryan says, “Give me a moment to breathe, Dad, before you start telling me off for nonexistent mess,” and then they give each other one of those man-hugs that involves just one arm wrapped round the other person and some rough pats on the back.
Fredrik must be where Ryan gets his height from—he’s imposingly tall and broad with light brown hair, speckled with gray, and sparkling blue eyes that could rival his son’s. He chuckles as he instructs Ryan to take our bags upstairs where they’re “out of the way.”
“And there you were thinkingIwas a neat freak,” Ryan mumbles to me. “You’ll soon see I didn’t have a choice living in this house. I’ll be back down in a minute.”
Sully dances around his legs and then looks distraught when Ryan heads up the stairs, somewhere he must not be allowed. I crouch down to pat his head and he spins around excitedly, then licks my hands as I give him a good scratch behind the ears.
“You’re a dog person, then,” Emily observes as Fredrik heads back into the kitchen.
“I love them, but we weren’t allowed one growing up,” I tell her, smiling at how soft Sully’s head is. “My parents aren’t big on animals.”
