“James.”
“Oh. Well, that’s boring. Clearly, your parents had no imagination.” She winces and pinches her eyes shut. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“It’s alright. It’s been a long time.”
Twenty years almost to the day.
“I know, but that doesn’t make it right.”
“Ruby, I said it’s fine.”
Unprompted, my mind travels back to that night—to yelling and fighting, to the scream before the gunshot, and the thud of my mother’s body falling to the floor.
“Stay here, Connor.”
My door creaks open, and a ten-year-old version of me tiptoes into the hall. My gaze lands on a pool of blood forming around Mom’s body. Her lifeless green eyes are trained somewhere behind me as the blood stains her ginger hair a darker shade of red. My dad is standing at the other end of the hallway, horrified when he sees me, brows drawn together.
I think he says, “I’m sorry,” but I can’t hear anything over my screams. He places the gun at his temple and pulls the trigger, the loud bang reverberating through the house as sirens wail in the distance.
I snap myself out of the memory like it never happened. The neighbors had called the police. Connor and I never saw the inside of that house again. We were taken away and placed in foster care; no family was willing to take in two troubled boys who’d witnessed their parents' deaths.
“As if Lynn is a groundbreaking middle name,” I deadpan, hoping to bring myself back onto solid ground.
Ruby’s always seen me, though, and she gives me a sympathetic smile. “It was my grandmother’s name. What’s your excuse?”
“Painfully unoriginal dead parents. What should we do for dinner?”
Her jaw goes slack as she registers my words. “Did you just play the dead parent card then casually ask about dinner?”
“Is… that a problem?”
She laughs. “That’s fucked up.”
“Says the girl who bullied a bunch of third graders.”
“Correction, I defended your son from a bunch of bullies. There’s a difference.” She pauses, biting down on her bottom lip. I want to reach out and tug it free, but touching any part of Ruby would make me want more. “In my defense, I had just seen Missy McBitchface, and she was as bitchy as ever. I was still riding the high.”
“What happened?”
“I was checking in. I lied and said Aiden is my stepson, just in case they weren’t letting in people who weren’t related in some way. Missy said some shit about how you’d never be with ‘someone like me.’” She uses air quotes around the words. “She asked if Connor knows I’m throwing myself at you, and I asked her if her husband knows she’s fucking her kid’s swim coach.”
I rake my hands over my beard and release a huff of air. “She’s a piece of work. Used to slide her number across the bar at least once a month.”
She shifts to face me, leaning her shoulder against the back of the couch, one knee bent between us. “Did you ever…”
I mirror her position, bumping my leg against hers. She’s in reach now, and if I wanted to, I could pull her against me. “What if I did? Are you jealous?”
She grabs a throw pillow and places it on her lap, fidgeting with a stray thread. “No. You can do whatever and whoever you want.”
“Hmm. Whoever I want, huh?”
“Yep.”
“That’s never been Missy.” When I look into her striking blue eyes, I still see the girl I knew ten years ago—the first girl who ever made me feel worthy. Unable to resist the pull, I run my fingers through the loose strands of her hair. It’s soft like silk. My fingertips brush against her cheek, and the need to touch more of her consumes me, like I knew it would.Lowering my tone, I say, “I think you already know that, though.”
As if she senses my need, she grabs my hand and places it on her cheek, holding it there. My eyes drift shut and I inhale a deep, steadying breath, resting my forehead against hers. Our breaths synchronize. I’m torn between the desire to kiss her and the knowledge that it would be a mistake if I did.
“We can’t,” I murmur.
