Chapter Nine
Ruby
“Good morning, Ruby Tuesday,” Charlie says as he walks into work about a minute after me. He only calls me Ruby Tuesday on Mondays. At this point, I’d be disappointed if he ever said it on an actual Tuesday.
“So far it is,” I say. “Still plenty of time for my roommates to ruin that.”
“No one has set you up this week yet?”
“It’s a matter of time.”
He grins. “That was freaky. It sounded like Eeyore possessed you for a second there.”
I have to smile too. “He kinda did. I have a better attitude about it when I’m around them.”
His eyes brighten. “Speaking of Eeyore . . .”
“It’s almost birthday time!” I cheer. “We’re going this year, right?”
“I’m not old enough,” he says in an Eeyore voice.
Eeyore’s Birthday Party happens every year in April in a park near the Grove.
It’s full of drum circles and free spirits.
It’s supposed to be a family-friendly all-ages event, and there are families everywhere.
But there’s also a surprising number of topless women in pasties or body paint and men in loincloths.
They’re hippies cosplaying in a theme of “yay for spring!”
It's peak Austin, is what it is. But living so close, we can drop in for an hour, try all the best food, and escape back to the condo before the smell of patchouli or weed can stick to us.
Maybe the oddest thing about the besties and me is that we really love the kids’ sections the best. The little gray donkey in its roomy pen. The maypole. The funnel cake.
Those are the three real reasons to go to Eeyore’s Birthday Party. Well, and hippie watching.
“It’s kind of weird that Eeyore’s party has zero Eeyore vibes,” Charlie muses. “Unlike you right now.”
“I don’t have to pretend with you.”
“And yet you’ve inspired me anyway.” He pulls out his phone then shuts the rest of his stuff into his desk drawer. “I decided to check out that app Ava picked for you.”
“You did?” This is as startling as if he’d announced he’d decided to run for city dogcatcher.
“Ava would have done a good job of vetting the different apps, so why not?”
“Why not,” I echo. It really is an echo, sounding hollow in my ears. It’s a stress reaction. Why does Charlie trying an app stress me out?
We’ve never talked much about Charlie’s love life, and if we do, it’s because I bring it up.
I notice when patrons flirt with him, but Charlie’s guilty of starting it most of the time, especially with our senior citizens.
It charms them utterly, but younger women aren’t immune to him either. Not if he doesn’t want them to be.
He’s mentioned going on a date here and there over the years, but he doesn’t give details—ohhh, that’s why I’m anxious.
This is a change, him talking about joining an app.
And if he joins, that could mean more change, like him finding someone I’d have to accommodate.
Or someone I don’t have to accommodate because she doesn’t want to share him.
But Charlie wouldn’t pick someone like that.
“What do you think?” he asks.
Oops. “Sorry, got distracted. What did you say?”
“I haven’t used a dating app before so I don’t know what pictures to use. Want to advise?”
My first instinct is to say no. Um . . . crappy friend, much? But I can’t make myself say yes either. Instead, I counter with a question. “You don’t want to ask out Sydney?”
“Maybe. Thinking about it if she comes in again Wednesday.”
“You should.” Why do I like that idea better than an app?
“So you’ll help me pick a photo?” he asks.
I hold out my hand for his phone. “How many do you get?”
“The limit is five but I’m shooting for the minimum, so two.”
The first picture is a selfie from the shoulders up.
He looks cute enough, I guess. Collared shirt that gives vintage rather than business, so it hints at his style.
Ditto with his hair that’s too long to be corporate and too short to be rock and roll.
He’s wearing his glasses, which he does at work, but not usually when he’s off.
The picture says “harmless nerd.” In a way, that’s right. But it’s not capturing Charlie.
“There’s no way they’re that bad,” he says.
I blink and realize I’ve been quiet for a while. “I’m on the first one. I’m analyzing.”
“You have to look at them like you don’t know me and think whether my bio would make you want to swipe right.”
“That’s what I’m doing. Let me concentrate.”
This selfie is wrong, but why? Would I understand enough about Charlie if this is all I had to go on?
All of my roommates have commented at some point that the better you get to know him, the more attractive Charlie becomes.
It’s probably because he’s low-key confident, like it hasn’t occurred to him to worry about other people’s opinions.
Charlie is also . . . super present? Maybe that’s the way to say it.
You always feel like you have his attention, and it makes people dial into him.
I see it all the time. Even frazzled or grumpy patrons settle and center around him, as if they realize they can’t possibly inconvenience him.
They sense that he believes whatever they need is important, and somehow, that decreases their urgency.
This photo also misses the nuance of Charlie’s smiles.
They aren’t all the same, and they give you a window into his personality.
The soft one when something makes him happy, wide when he’s amused, crooked when he’s calling me on something without using words.
To borrow a phrase from one of my favorite Regency romance authors, he’s got a rogueish smile when he’s about to mess with you.
Once, I saw him flash that smile at a patron we’d both agreed was hot, and she looked like she might do a Regency swoon on the spot.
I got it, actually. Charlie hasn’t been in a relationship since I’ve known him, but he’s dated. He has “game,” as my brothers would put it.
This polite librarian smile is generic. I swipe to the next picture, and my eyebrows shoot up.
“Now what’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” I fix my face. It’s Charlie rock climbing.
He’s outdoors in this one, and the photographer shot this from beside and slightly below him.
Charlie’s arm partially obscures his face, but that might be the point, because it shows the wicked definition in his shoulders and biceps, and as I scan the photo, his legs too.
My theory was right. Charlie is muscly now.
Not bulgy gym muscles. Lean, cut, and gold-tanned rock-climbing muscles.
I clear my throat. “This one for sure. But you need a different profile pic.”
“What’s wrong with that one? I looked up a tutorial on how to take a professional selfie.”
“It looks like you looked up a tutorial on how to take a professional selfie. It’s a good picture for the library website. But this is not who Sexy Sydney the Paralegal comes in every Wednesday to see, hoping you’ll ask her out.”
I swipe through his photos, looking for a better option. He’s not much of a selfie-taker. Mostly it’s pictures without a theme. Nature pics he probably snapped while rock climbing. A bright blue plate. A wall of graffiti.
“You need something candid. We still have five minutes. Let’s go take one outside.”
I head for the employee exit, and Charlie follows me to our picnic spot. I point to one of the oaks. “Lean against that tree.”
He walks over to it then hesitates. “With my back? My side?”
“We’ll try both. Side first.” He leans against the trunk, but I start laughing. “What’s going on with your arms, Charlie?” The one against the tree is hanging straight down and his other arm is untethered, by his side but not touching it. “Is it caught in a freeze ray?”
He looks down at it with dismay, like it is caught in a freeze ray. “I knew how to lean against a tree until you told me to do it, and then I forgot.”
“Try this while you lean.” I cross my arms loosely.
He crosses his arms, and I snap a couple of pictures, but his smile feels stilted.
“Good pose, but think about funny stuff.”
“I can’t do it on command.”
“A spoon with a hole in it,” I say.
“What?”
“A spoon with a hole in it. That’s funny.”
He shakes his head, but the corner of his mouth turns up. “That’s barely funnier than nothing.”
“Fair.” I adjust his phone to frame him exactly right. “Mrs. Davenport’s rockets.”
He grins and I capture it. “Now lean with your back, arms crossed again.” He shifts and resettles. “Helicopter ejector seats.”
He laughs and I snap. “Got it. Time for work.”
I scroll the photos as we walk back to the library. “The ones where you smiled for real are good, but I was wrong about the tree. My bad. It still looks posed.”
“Guys don’t regularly lean against trees in casual conversation?”
“Apparently that’s a lie catalogs taught us. We’ll try again later. It’ll be easy with more time.” I hand his phone back as we walk into the back office.
At our desks, we each grab our ID lanyards and put them on.
We would normally head out to the stacks, but Sandy, our director, steps out from her office.
“Greetings, morning people. Central Library has a librarian going out on maternity soon, and they’re looking for someone to cover, minimum eight weeks and potentially up to twelve.
If you want a chance to move to the big house, this is it.
Let me know, and I’ll pass along your name. ”
Charlie and I exchange looks. Both of us would enjoy working at the main library, but not without each other. Knowing that without having to say it is as good as a hug.
Sandy goes off to confer with the circulation manager.
We head out and Charlie goes to nonfiction while I hit adult fiction.
We’ll meet at the reference desk when the library opens.
The morning always kicks off with a flurry of questions from patrons in person and over the phone before we get the late morning lull.
I turn on the computers and get the library software open on each, but it’s so routine that my mind wanders to Charlie’s dating profile. He hasn’t filled it in, and I mull what will make him stand out to the right person.
I know the answers, but I don’t know how to translate them for someone swiping through profiles every two seconds.
The right girl for Charlie will have a sixth sense for hidden gems, from her favorite restaurants to her favorite movies.
She’d know Charlie is a gem if they met in person, but you can’t pick that up from an app.
Our hidden-gem radar is why Charlie and I get along so well.
We both love cult classic films, not because they have cult classic status but because we like the freshness of the storytelling.
And our favorite restaurant isn’t even a restaurant—it’s an old man named Larry who smokes brisket in his front yard every Monday and Tuesday, and you walk up to his chain-link fence carrying your own container and hope you get there before he’s sold out for the day.
No matter the shenanigan, Charlie is curious and ready. I knew the minute I met Charlie that I’d never faze him. There is no such thing as being too much for Charlie.
How do you communicate all that in a profile? And why does every part of me still hate the idea of trying to?
I don’t like that I inspired this. I don’t even want to do this stupid app. I have to. Charlie doesn’t, and I don’t want him to because . . .
Because it feels like sharing.
Well.
“That’s a bad look, Ruby Ramos,” I mutter to myself. I’m very good at sharing my favorite people with my other favorite people, but I’m choosing the sharing.
Ohhh, that’s why I’m more comfortable with the idea of Sydney. I feel like I have influence there versus none with strangers who pick Charlie from an app.
Ugh, now I have to do better because I know better.
What a bummer.