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“It’s only natural.”
    Mads stayed silent but he noticed how Niklas smirked, how he shrugged as though none of this meant anything to him. “You know Laney, Anton. In a few months, she’ll be asking me for a dog.”
    “What if she really wants a baby?”
    The words slipped out before Mads could stop himself. He’d glanced over his shoulder, and caught sight of Laney and Ingrid at the other end of the garden. She was so far away but he sensed the tension twisting inside her. For a split second their eyes met. Long enough for him to wish he could abandon Niklas and Anton, and take Laney by the hand and run off. Anywhere. It didn’t matter. As long as it was just the two of them.
    “She doesn’t really want a baby.” Niklas took another drag from the joint. He scowled and then exhaled and tried to stifle a cough. “She never knows what she wants. That’s just how Laney is.”
    “Doesn’t sound like the Laney I know,” Anton said. “She’s not as flakey as you make her out to be. You always forget I knew her before you. She knows what she wants…she just doesn’t always express it.”
    “Trust me on this one. She doesn’t really want a baby.”
    “What does she want then?” Mads folded his arms. He had to do something to keep from shoving Niklas. The man was an ass. How could he even joke about Laney like this if he loved her? He sounded like he was talking about a petulant child, not a woman who meant something to him.
    “The therapist in me says she wants to recreate the family she wishes she’d had.” Niklas shrugged. “As the man she lives with, I have the feeling she’s simply bored.”
    “If she were my girlfriend, I’d take her wants seriously…”
    For a moment no one spoke. Niklas cleared his throat and stared off in the distance. Ingrid and Laney’s voices drifted towards them and Mads thought he heard his name.
    “It’s good she’s not your girlfriend then” was Niklas’s reply. His tone was measured, cool. But the amused expression on his face betrayed how clueless he was. He didn’t get it. He thought he was in control. He didn’t know just how close he was to losing Laney.
    Mads glanced at Anton, then muttered, “It’s getting chilly. I’m going back inside.”
    He brushed past Niklas, his shoulder slamming into the other man. He muttered a quick “sorry” but he didn’t care if it fell on deaf ears.
    After he’d kissed her by the gate and strode in the velvety darkness to the train station, Mads told himself he didn’t need this hassle. What was he thinking? Getting involved with a woman who had so much emotional baggage? But when he thought of those moments they’d shared, when it was just the two of them and she was so open, so unguarded… he was certain she was never so vulnerable with Niklas. The Laney he’d seen tonight was so brittle and fragile. And Niklas was too careless for someone like her.
    On the train he reminded himself of the secrets she’d already shared with him, of how he’d comforted her when she cried in her sleep. He tried to imagine Niklas doing that but it didn’t feel plausible. Was Laney his little social experiment? Hell, he’d met men like Niklas before. The ones who collected beautiful women, who were still hung up on someone else but needed someone to stroke their egos.
    By the time he arrived at his stop, he’d already figured it out–giving up wasn’t an option. Even if it meant someone got hurt along the way. He had the feeling it wouldn’t be him.
    “I didn’t know you knew Anton.” she was whispering into the phone. The acoustics were all wrong.
    “I guess there are a lot of things we don’t know about one another,” Mads retorted. He was at Mikkeller & Friends again, nursing a pint of beer and waiting for Adam and hoping his friend would come alone. “Where are you?”
    “In the hallway…I miss you already.”
    “I miss you too.”
    “Will you come? To Stockholm, I mean?”
    “If that’s what you