Chapter Thirty-One
Ruby
I’ve been holding myself together by a thread this afternoon.
No, since the Pitch-a-Friend.
I have craved and dreaded every text Charlie has sent me. Hooray, it’s Charlie! But what if he’s going to tell me he’s going out with someone from the event?
Every time it’s been a low-key check-in, I’ve breathed easier.
I’m not an idiot. I understand why.
Clarification: I’m not an idiot anymore.
If Pitch-a-Friend hadn’t been the wakeup call, Sami’s show would have been.
We’ve been to a dozen of her shows together.
Even before “Long Time Coming,” this one had felt different.
Instead of jumping around to the music, somehow I had felt inside the music with Charlie.
Like it throbbed around us and in us, and it was .
. .ugh, I can’t believe I’m even thinking of it this way, but it was like a shared heartbeat between the two of us.
I waited for Charlie’s arrival today with the same feeling I get in my stomach if I eat anything sweet for breakfast. I love cinnamon rolls, but having one first thing in the morning will spike my blood sugar so high that even one of my favorite foods can make me puke. Or want to.
When he walked in looking so . . . Charlie, so comfortable in his own skin, so sure of his own style, so ready to be charmed by the old ladies and table settings, I short-circuited for a couple of seconds.
I wanted to run to him and fling my arms around him.
Or sock him in the stomach? Or shove him out of the event room.
It’s very confusing.
I’m trying to make space for what all those signals are telling me. It’s a riot inside my mind. And now this.
Freaking Niles and his fiancé are here for the tea.
I fix my face to look unbothered the second I spot him, but when Charlie shoots a glance at me, my eyebrows twitch once. Do you see them?
He gives the barest nod. I did and we’ll handle it, it tells me.
We work through the next several guests, admitting them quickly, which means Niles reaches us within a couple of minutes.
There are so many options here. I’m the queen of petty revenge, and I can think of appealing ways to make him pay, but Niles showing up here at all tells me exactly how this needs to be handled.
“N. Williams,” Niles says with a polite smile when he reaches us.
That’s why I hadn’t noticed his name on the list. He’d deliberately not used his first name so he could drop in like a bombshell.
Yeah, screw that.
As much as I want to tell Niles to turn his flat butt around and march it right back out, I smile at the couple like they’re any of our regular donors. “That must make you Tally. I’m Ruby. It’s nice to meet you. Congratulations on your engagement.”
“You’re engaged?” Charlie says. “Congrats, man. Ruby didn’t mention it.”
My expression doesn’t change even though I want to laugh. Perfect, Charlie.
Niles’s face flashes annoyance before he tries for jovial, but not fast enough for me to miss the switch. “Thank you. We’re getting married in four months.”
Charlie widens his eyes and glances at Tally’s flat stomach in her yellow floral dress. “Whoa, that’s fast. Are you pregnant?”
Oh wow. This man has just cemented his legend with the besties.
I have no issue with Tally, but she has to know who I am and why Niles registered for a fundraiser he boycotted every year we dated. Agreeing to come with him makes her complicit. No mercy.
“What? No,” Tally says, her hand fluttering to her stomach while she looks confused.
“Oh, sorry.” Charlie doesn’t pretend to be embarrassed. “Assumed it must be a shotgun situation to get married so fast.”
Niles quotes their Instagram post. “When you know, you know.”
The edges of my smile turn brittle. The words are a reminder that he’s only here to mess with me, and the meanness of it makes my chest constrict. But once again, Charlie comes through.
“That’s the truth, man. You really do know.
” He gives me a loaded look meant to confirm Niles’s old suspicions about our friendship.
I meet Charlie’s eyes, but it’s hard not to look away from the intensity.
They’re hungry, like he’s only waiting to get the rest of these people through the door so he can carry me off to do things we find on the most dog-eared pages in the return bin.
I know what Charlie is doing and why, and my mouth still goes dry.
After a couple of seconds, Niles clears his throat, and Charlie turns his attention back to him. “Right, anyway, congrats again to you both. We need to welcome our other guests, but enjoy the tea.”
Niles and Tally head inside, but I swear Niles is almost reluctant to move along.
As soon as they’re past us, I look at Charlie. “Are you kidding me?” I keep my “welcome” smile in place. “Did my ex really show up?”
“He did. We’ll get to it,” he says, smiling at the next person. “Hello, Mrs. Davenport, Mrs. Breton. So nice to see you both.”
We check in the remaining guests and close the door, the signal to Sandy that everyone is accounted for. Charlie leads us toward a spot along a wall where Niles will be in our line of vision, but he’ll have to twist around and be very obvious if he tries to see us.
I draw a breath because I have a whole lot to say.
“Hold that thought,” Charlie says. “We’re going to need fuel. Be right back.”
Less than three minutes later, he reappears with a plate holding one of everything. “Take what you need, then let me hear it because I’m ready.” He pops a cucumber finger sandwich in his mouth.
“What is Niles doing?” I hiss. We won’t be overheard with all the conversations happening around us, so it’s an angry hiss, not a discreet one. “We haven’t spoken since a couple of weeks after we broke up, but he’s here to flaunt his fiancée. Why? Don’t tell me it has nothing to do with me.”
“It has everything to do with you.”
“He’s trying to hurt me.” My tone is pure disbelief.
“He’s one of those small guys inside. The question is, is it working?”
“I don’t care that he’s engaged,” I say. “Her being here doesn’t hurt me, but him bringing her because he thinks it will hurt does. I’d be hurt if anyone tried to hurt me, but this is extra.”
“Didn’t Niles used to say he didn’t like drama?”
I roll my eyes. “Yes. But drama is anything that doesn’t match the script in his head for how he thinks things should go.”
“Why is he here trying to create it? What does he want from you?” Charlie is thinking aloud, not expecting me to answer, but I do.
“Attention. Literally the only reason he would do this. But why does he need it?” I’m starting to scowl, but I can’t help it. “Who does this?”
Niles leans over to his fiancée and plants a longer kiss on her than necessary at a public tea. His fiancée dabs at his lips with her napkin when they separate, clearly charmed to be wiping her lipstick off him.
I make a small distressed sound, and Charlie's eyes fly back to me, darkening.
“It breaks my heart that you still care enough for it to hurt. But he doesn’t get to break your heart again.”
I press my hand to the heart in question. Oh, this man. “Charlie, I need to—”
He holds a cucumber sandwich in front of my face. “Keep smiling so he doesn’t know he’s getting to you.”
I’m so startled I accept it by eating it straight from his fingers. My lips brush his fingertips, and my knees almost buckle.
What is happening? Okay, I know what’s happening. I have a tiny cucumber sandwich in my mouth, and my lips are still touching Charlie’s fingertip in a way that is not scandalous but is provoking many questions in my brain.
I draw back to chew.
That was so intense. I want to look away, to get a breath or something.
But I can’t. Charlie’s eyes have the sharp, focused expression they get when he’s running a very fast calculation.
What he wants off a menu. How to defuse a patron who is ready to dismantle a computer printer with pure rage.
What to do when your friend almost licks you . . . ?
He must have many questions in his brain too.
I swallow hard. Harder than the sandwich requires for sure. I should say something, but I don’t know what. I realized something at the pitch thing. Then I knew for sure at Sami’s show. And what I realized is that my feelings haven’t changed, but I—
Charlie opens his mouth.
Relief. Charlie knows what to say.
Panic. What if I don’t want to hear what he’s about to say?
Charlie holds up another sandwich and says, “Do that again.”