Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Charlie
One time—and one time only—I drank so much at a college party that I puked.
It was only once because I learned my lesson. I’m generally good about learning my lesson the first time on anything, with one exception: Ruby Ramos.
Ruby is the worst thing for my system, and yet .
. . no matter how bad the side effects are, I keep coming back for more.
I was hooked the first time I got a hit of her smile when she started work here three years ago, but she’d mentioned right off that she had a boyfriend.
Since I’m not a punk, that path was not open, so instead, I’ve been friends with the fiercest, funniest, most generous, hilarious, and sexiest girl I’ve ever known ever since.
But the number of times she’s mentioned Niles, and the number of times I thought, She deserves better. If I were her boyfriend . . .
The way addiction works so well as an analogy for my feelings for Ruby is usually depressing, but not today.
The rain has stopped so I take advantage of it to put my lunch stuff in my car.
It gives me a chance to do a happy dance where Ruby can’t see me.
I’m not “peppy,” and I don’t want her wondering why I’m practically doing a TikTok dance through the parking lot after she broke the news of her idiot ex getting engaged.
If ever a dude didn’t deserve Ruby Ramos, it was Niles.
The best way to explain him is to imagine a five-lane traffic jam where every car is tan, no one honks or tries to change lanes, everyone creeps forward a few inches at a time, and they’re all fine with it.
That’s Niles, only he kept Ruby in his gridlock too.
When I got Ava’s text telling me Ruby had broken up with him and the roommates were assembling a team for heartbreak first aid, I had whooped.
I’m not a whooper, but in that exact second my relief was intense, and there was no denying why.
A way forward appeared. Closing the door on Niles meant it could open for me.
I’ve kept a toe in it ever since, watching and waiting for Ruby to be ready to move on. I hadn’t expected it to take six months, two weeks, and four days.
Not that she’s been pining or anything. But she also hasn’t shown any interest in dating again.
No second looks at attractive dudes that come into the library, no comments on the guys who stick around when a condo hang snowballs into a party.
No mention of joining apps or “going to the club” other than to see Sami’s band play.
Ruby’s eruption over that engagement post is a good sign. She’s the funniest, sexiest woman I’ve ever known, yes, but also? The most competitive. It’s going to take her a matter of days to decide that she’s ready to date, if for no other reason than to make sure her ex knows she’s moved on.
She’s about to fling open that door and find me, ready and waiting, tired of pining over her like I’m a lyric on the Summer I Turned Pretty soundtrack. If you hang in the Grove bestie orbit, you become well-versed on all seasons of their favorite shows.
My phone vibrates with a text, so I set my stuff in the car and check it.
Game and pizza tonight?
What time?
Tip off at 6
I’m in
Man, this day is getting better and better. Basketball plus Ruby coming out of hibernation? I’m stoked enough to keep dancing all the way back to my desk. But since I still have my shift to finish with Ruby, I pull myself together and stroll in like my usual self, hands in my pockets.
Ruby tries to work for the rest of our overlapping time together. She tackles shelf weeding, but I keep catching her with her eyes unfocused, scowling. Bet that’s exactly how chipmunks look coming out of hibernation. Adorable and grumpy. I keep that to myself because I value my life.
I have to redirect her to save her from herself a couple of times when she’s short—er, terse with a patron, and before I leave work, I swing by the desk with a small gift.
“What’s this?” she asks when I hand her a wadded ball of packing tape the size of a grapefruit.
“Improvised explosion deterrent. Set it on the desk and every time you feel yourself getting mad again, pound it. Quiet and nondestructive but satisfying.”
She hefts it. “Not big enough to be Niles’s ego.” She sets it on the desk and thumps it with her fist. “But not bad. Good idea, Charles.”
“Text if you need anything else.”
She grunts. “I’ll be fine.”
I leave her in irked chipmunk mode. I know she’ll be fine because I know what’s waiting for her next: me.
I spend the drive to Oliver’s place listening to my Ruby playlist and thinking. I’ve titled it Gems so she won’t guess it’s about her, but the songs have tortured me and comforted me as I curated it.
I skip right to “Golden Hour” by JVKE because that’s what loving Ruby feels like. Like a perfect late summer afternoon as it’s close to sliding into fall, drenched in warmth but with that snap in the air that says new adventures are coming.
It’s sitting on her back patio, taking my orders for her next ambitious plan, whether it’s a new library program or a matchmaking scheme.
It’s watching her eyes sparkle as she dreams of possibilities, then draws up their blueprints.
It’s arguing about movies but knowing when we love the same ones that she’s the only one who gets them like I get them.
I let the playlist play through “Earned It” and play “Vapor” three times, because that’s also the experience of wanting Ruby. Needing to breathe her in. Needing more of her all the time.
Only now that she’s coming out of hibernation, I need to make sure it’s me she sees when she opens her eyes, so I skip to “Ruin the Friendship” by Taylor Swift. It’s time to actively change my footing with Ruby. I’m done waiting for her to figure out on her own that we’re meant to be.
By the time I knock on Oliver’s door, I’m planning my own Romeo-level monologue except full of real, earned love and more than a list of reasons she’s pretty.
“Just in time,” Oliver says as he opens his door.
He used to live in the apartment across the hall from me, but he moved into the Grove last summer at the opposite end of the building from Ruby.
Maybe I’ll stop by after the game, see if she’s processed the engagement, if she’s ready to figure out that I’m her next step.
I amble in behind Oliver, thinking about the possibilities, when I stop short. Oliver’s girlfriend—no, fiancée now—Madison is sitting on the sofa. She’s usually here when I am, but Ruby’s other two roommates, Sami and Ava, are with her, all of them perched on the sofa like they’re ready to pounce.
I sniff the air. “It smells like pepperoni and dirty tricks in here.”
Sami reaches for the pizza box on the coffee table and tilts it toward me, a coaxing expression on her face. “Just pepperoni.”
“Y’all here to watch the game?” I ask without any hope. The TV is off.
“Spurs suck,” Madison says.
“Who are they playing?” Ava asks. She will cheer for the team with the mascot she thinks could win in a fight.
Like if the Raptors play the Nets, she’s taking the Raptors, but if it’s the 76ers versus the Heat, she has an existential crisis because “how would they even fight without corporeal forms?”
“You’re going for the Rockets,” I tell her.
“A rocket would beat a spur.” She nods, looking satisfied.
I give Oliver a considering look. “And yet the game isn’t on.”
He takes one of the armchairs. “It doesn’t start for another half hour. You might as well sit and get this over with.”
I take the last open seat, the armchair facing him, which puts the sofa—and the women on it—between us.
Ava’s regarding me like I’m a specimen in her lab, Sami ignores me in favor of the cat on her lap, and Madison—well, Madison’s smile is working so hard to be innocent that it can only mean trouble.
“Niles got engaged,” she announces.
When I only lift an eyebrow, she looks disappointed. “You already knew?”
“Ruby told me,” I confirm.
The roommates exchange a glance like I’ve answered a question.
“How is she taking it?” Ava asks.
“She hasn’t texted you? Interesting,” I say when all three shake their heads. “She’s fine. Annoyed, maybe.”
Madison is beaming again. “That’s great, right?”
They want me to be excited—but why? I look at Oliver for help. He gives me a small headshake. I swallow a sigh and turn to Madison. “Why is that great? Were you worried she’d go back to him if he stayed single?”
Sami snorts with enough force to puff out a few strands of bright pink-streaked hair before they settle back against the blonde. “She would never.”
“We’re just so excited to get you and Ruby together!” Madison says.
Foreboding snakes through me. Their meddling is inspiring—as long as it’s not you they’re meddling with. Then alarm hits. What made them even suggest this? What do they know?
Oliver is the only one who’s ever suggested I have a thing for Ruby.
I’ve caught curious looks from her roommates over the years that made me wonder if they suspected.
But none of them asked, and I never said anything because there wasn’t a point.
Besides, saying anything to one of them is as good as telling all of them, and if anyone is going to tell Ruby, it’s me. When the time is right.
If I don’t want them scenting the truth, I have about a half second to save this. I let my expression slip into confusion. “Sorry, what? Get us together?”
“Don’t even try,” Sami orders. “We’ve been waiting for her to wake up and figure it out, and this engagement should do it. You need to be ready.”
I don’t want them involved. How do I force a pivot? “Be ready for what? To hang out and talk to Ruby like I always do? I’ve got it covered.”
“To . . . to . . . woo her!” Madison says. “Then you guys will be together happily ever after.”
The picture that “happily ever after” with Ruby paints causes a familiar pang in my chest of wanting something badly that is always out of reach. But I don’t want them to push her toward me. I would feel like a backup or default. I’d always question it.
Ruby has to pick me on her own or we won’t happen. That’s my nonnegotiable.
I draw on all the practice I’ve had pretending over the years. “Woo her? Am I Mr. Darcy?” I tease Madison. “Sorry, ladies. I’m not your Huckleberry.”
“You’re Ruby’s Huckleberry,” Ava says.
“What’s a huckleberry?” Sami asks.
“It’s from the movie Tombstone. It means you’re the guy for the job.
” Ava says. “If you’re a Ramos or grow up next to a Ramos, you can quote the whole thing.
” Her expression turns puzzled as she studies me like I’m data that doesn’t make sense.
“I know she’s had you in the friend zone since you’ve known her, but that was because she was already in a relationship. ”
“And then she wasn’t and yet we’re still friends. You know what that means, Ava?” I work hard to stay in my Chill Charlie groove. “No zoning. We are friends, period. Nothing to escape or whatever you think you need to help me do.” I hope they’re buying my exasperation.
“But . . .” Madison glances at Sami, then back to me. “We thought it would be so perfect if you dated. Like, forever.”
It’s hard to pretend I don’t agree, but this matters too much to break now. I need Ruby to find her way to me, not have her friends shove her into my arms while she’s shellshocked.
“Sorry, no.” I hold up my arms in an X. “Not a huckleberry.”
Madison looks like she’s going to argue but Ava steps in. “Okay, Charlie. We hear you. Just know if we could pick anyone in the world for Ruby, we’d pick you.”
I smile. Ava has a core sweetness beneath her serious exterior. “Ruby should pick whoever she wants in the whole world, Ava. Let’s let her do that.”
But I’ve got my own plan to make sure she chooses me.