38. Chapter Thirty-Eight
When I walk into the condo, Ava and Joey look up from their spot on the living room floor.
“Whoa, I thought you were still sleeping,” Ava says.
“Is that a microscope?” I ask, looking at the array of glass slides, tweezers, and eye droppers next to what is definitely a microscope. “Please tell me you’re not playing doctor in the living room.”
“We’re playing scientist, dummy,” Joey says.
“I’m showing him what different stuff looks like under magnification.”
“I looked at a dust mite,” Joey says. “I am not okay.”
“Come see,” Ava says.
“In a minute. I need to change.” I head upstairs, smiling at Ava’s weirdness. I love it. I’m halfway up when I spot someone sitting against my door. “Ruby?”
She gets to her feet. “Hey. I thought you were still in bed.”
“Were you guarding my door?” I ask as I climb the rest of the stairs.
“Kind of. My plan was to sit there until you agreed to talk to me.”
It almost makes me smile, but I’m not ready for that yet. There’s still some air to clear. “I don’t like what you did.”
Her face looks as miserable as I’ve felt since we fought. “I know. I wouldn’t do anything I thought would hurt you. I get how it looked to you, and I’m sorry.”
I open my door and crook my head for her to follow. “I understand why you thought you couldn’t tell me you were trying to win the bet, but I hate being moved around like a pawn.”
“Some of the greatest chess matches ever played were won by pawns.” Ruby catches sight of my face and adds, “Not the point. Right.”
I climb under my covers and curl up. Don’t know how I could ever have fallen asleep on a sofa when this mattress waits for me every night.
Ruby settles across from me, atop the quilt, and rests her head on her hand. “But also, it wasn’t about winning the bet. The bets were never about winning the bets. I would have given Sami back her parking spot except I didn’t have to because now she uses Josh’s extra.”
“So are you not going to trade rooms with Ava?”
“No. I keep telling her that I don’t have time, but I was stalling until I had you all loved up. I wanted you to believe the stakes were real.”
“Why? Wouldn’t it make me less likely to give any guy you picked a chance?”
“I banked on you believing that I was playing for something I wanted badly, so you’d believe that whoever I picked for you was your one and only. And I figured while it might put you on guard at first, it would inevitably plant a seed that grew whether you wanted it to or not.”
“Then why lie and say you weren’t trying to set me up with Oliver?”
She winces at the word lie. “Gut instinct. I can’t explain it any better than that. When I asked you about Oliver renting space at Gatsby’s, you were so suspicious. I had a feeling you wouldn’t have agreed to do it if I said that’s who I was setting you up with. But I also knew that Oliver was working so much, I wouldn’t be able to talk him into giving you or anyone a shot if he thought I was trying to hook him up for real. He went along with it for Ava, but that’s mostly because he knew it wasn’t endgame. But if he saw you at work all the time . . .”
I sigh. “His schedule is pretty brutal.”
“Madi, I’m sorry. I really am. My intentions were good, but I understand why you felt . . . betrayed.” She obviously hates the word, just as obviously as she means the apology. “Can I ask an uncomfortable question?”
“Normally, no. But I’ve spent the morning being emotionally tenderized, so maybe I’m up for it.”
Her forehead furrows. “You okay?”
“No. I feel like I’m hatching, and I don’t know how anyone survives without their shell.”
“I get that.” She watches my face for a few seconds. “I’m probably about to chip away more of it.”
I groan and flop onto my back. “Get it over with.”
“My stunt with fixing up you and Oliver, it’s not a new thing. I meddle all the time. I swear I only do it when I’m trying to make y’all happy, but I’ve done this almost as long as you’ve known me. To an extent, isn’t it kind of what friends do? Like how y’all keep trying to distract me with impromptu birthday parties?”
“It’s not the same thing,” I say.
“It’s exactly the same thing.”
It is exactly the same thing, so I don’t argue.
“Here’s the hard part,” she says. “Why do you think my meddling with you and Oliver upset you so much when none of my shenanigans have bothered you before? I do it all with the same amount of love.”
I lie there and think about it. Ruby stays quiet. Finally, I roll over and ask her, “Do you already know the answer to this?”
A hesitant nod. “I think so.”
“Last summer, a supermodel who does a lot of racy photo shoots got upset because someone hacked her phone or something and leaked some nudes.”
“Okay . . . ?”
“It’s relevant. One of the bartenders didn’t get why she would care since it’s easy to find similar images she’s done professionally, but all the bottle girls got it. It was because she didn’t like people looking at her when she hadn’t asked to be seen. Do you get it?”
“Yes. I won’t take naked photos.”
“Ruby.”
“I get it,” she says. “But do you? Do you understand what you’re saying?”
I sit up, and she does too. “I’m saying that I hadn’t admitted to myself what my feelings for Oliver are, and it felt like . . .”
“Being emotionally nakey-pants?”
I make a face at her. “Yes.”
“How long do I have to wait before I can ask you specifically what those feelings for Oliver are?”
I collapse and pull a pillow over my head, mumbling my answer into it.
“Sorry, didn’t catch that,” Ruby says.
I lift it enough to repeat myself. “Did you know that you can figure out someone is the one without even kissing him?”
I expect her to squeal or congratulate me, but there’s only silence. I pull the pillow off to look at her.
“No,” she says. “You’ve always been right about this one. It’s the kiss. That is why people write songs about it.”
“Except I haven’t kissed Oliver. But saying I like him is an understatement.”
“That’s big,” Ruby says. “Are you freaked out?”
I consider this before I sit up and look at her. “No. I’ve been running from it for a few weeks.” The day with the focus mitt. That’s when some part of me recognized it, and the rest of me tried to shove the knowing aside. “But I do know, Ruby. What I don’t know is what to do about it. He’s not happy with me right now because I was a jerk this morning.”
“Only this morning?” Ruby asks, innocently.
“Shut up, Ruby-Roo. You don’t know everything.”
“I know how you fix it. Go sit in front of his bedroom door until he talks to you. Then apologize. Works pretty well.” She nudges my foot with hers.
“I know it seems like it would be that easy, but it isn’t. Because I’ll say sorry, and he’ll accept it. We’ll be good again.” I can hear the defeat in my voice.
“But . . . ?”
“But we screwed everything up by getting married. We’re doing that stuck-in-a-cabin-in-a-snowstorm thing, and nothing will ever be real.”
“Explain.”
“Stuck in a cabin,” I repeat. “Like in the Christmas movies when a couple that’s not a couple gets stuck in a cabin, and it forces them to get along, and basic human biology kicks in and their genes are like ‘we are a thing now because of science,’ and they kiss, and after four days they know they love each other, and they get rescued, and the end.”
“I’m with you so far.”
I lean forward and poke the mattress to make my point. “The next hour of that movie is when you see that being snowed in made them develop Stockholm syndrome, and when they’re out there in the real world with other choices, they remember why they didn’t like the other person in the first place. They aren’t in love, they do not run the town apple festival together, and it’s a year in the future, and whichever one is from the big city stays there instead of risking the awkwardness of running into each other in the small town, and too bad for Granny, who doesn’t get to see her city grandkid, and then she dies, and now the city person is coming back to the small town for the funeral.”
“Did Granny die because the grandkid didn’t come see her?” Sami asks from the doorway.
“Probably,” I tell her. “Laugh if you want to, but I snowed in Oliver.”
Sami, half smiling, calls down the stairs. “Ava? Can you come up here? Madison has raised the subject of genes and biology.”
The soft thump of Ava’s footsteps sounds on the stairs. She pauses in the doorway to peer in, then pushes Sami ahead of her, and they climb on my bed.
“Catch me up,” Ava says.
Ruby does, concluding with, “I think Oliver is stranded in a snowstorm?”
“Let the metaphor specialist handle this,” Sami says. “Oliver is into you, Madi.”
“It’s all over his face,” Ava agrees. “That’s a scientific observation because I’m a scientist, so you can’t argue.”
“Dude’s got it bad,” Joey agrees from the doorway.
“Go away, Joey,” Ruby tells her brother.
Ava sighs but nods. “How about you go collect a droplet of standing water? I’ll look at it with you when we’re done.”
Joey snorts and disappears, goes down a couple of stairs, pauses, and comes back up. “Do I use a dropper for that?”
“Yes, honey,” Ava says, and Joey disappears again.
“Oliver is into me because of circumstance,” I say. “Because we did this whole stupid marriage of convenience. When it’s done in a year, then what?”
“The marriage is the snowed-in cabin,” Ava says. “I’m following now.”
Ruby covers her eyes. “Mads, if I could prove to you that you’re wrong but I’d have to meddle to do it, should I?”
Ava frowns. “Why can’t you tell her what the proof is?”
“Bless you, Ava,” I say.
“It’s not my place to share it,” Ruby says. “But I can set the stage and maybe the answers will come.”
Sami, Ava, and I exchange looks.
“What does that mean?” I ask.
“It means you need to call or text or send Morse code to Oliver and tell him you’re sorry. Let him know we’re having a neighbor party tonight, and you want him to be able to come over without it being weird between you.”
I chew on my lip, thinking about how we left things this morning. “I’m pretty sure he’ll accept my apology, but I don’t think he’ll come home early just for a neighbor party.”
“Any birthdays coming up?” Sami asks. “Charlie’s, maybe?”
Ruby shakes her head. “No, and why would Charlie celebrate his birthday with our neighbors?”
We fall quiet again.
“He’ll do it for the cats,” I say. “I’ve been thinking that I would try to get people in the Grove to adopt them so I can visit them. We’ll bring the kittens over here and keep them inside so they don’t get freaked out by the noise. I’ll ask Oliver to help me screen anyone who shows interest. He’d come over for that.”
“And then you’ll show her the proof?” Sami asks.
Ruby smiles. “No. But I have a feeling Oliver will.”