Chapter 23
Chapter twenty-three
Everett
I’m fucking desperate. I’ve never fucked my hand so much in my life—even in my teens. But lately, it’s me and my right hand every morning in the shower, every night before I fall asleep. And it’s always Ruth on my mind. Her vanilla perfume. Her arms around my neck. Her legs around my waist.
All I want to do right now is commiserate in my shower with my fist and the vanilla shower gel I bought—to make it feel a little more authentic, or maybe just because I’m a fucking simp for Ruth fucking Bevan—but instead, I’m at Jody’s place, listening to him waffle on about some shit his brother’s girlfriend’s uncle’s dog’s cousin said, and watching Brooks try and fail to get the grill started. He calls himself a fucking cowboy.
“Your London Girl is a lawyer, right, Ev?” Jody shakes me from my thoughts of Ruth with his mention of…
Ruth. I blink rapidly, trying to figure out whether or not I’ve heard anything other than my own name and London Girl.
It’s been my best friends’ name du jour for Ruth ever since I made the dumb mistake of telling them she existed.
Even after meeting her, she’s still London Girl.
“Ev? Earth to Everett. You in there, bro?” Jody elbows me in the ribs, and I yelp.
“What?”
“Your London Girl. She’s a lawyer.”
“Yeah, and?”
“And maybe she can help Reston.”
“Help Reston with what? He writes sad-sack mopey love songs. Ruth is an intellectual property lawyer. She deals in copyrights.”
“So, she’ll be perfect!” Jody fizzes with excitement. The grill finally catches, and Brooks cheers with a fist in the air. I groan inwardly. “Res got a couple offers for promotions and publishing, but it’s a ton of long, wordy shit. Think she’d take a look?”
I sigh. “Maybe. She’s pretty busy. She’s not your personal legal advisor.”
“No, I know—I’d tell him he’s gotta pay. That’s how it works, right?”
I roll my eyes. Honestly, I don’t have a fucking clue what Ruth does at work.
She’s busy and important, and impressive as hell, and all I know is that she does it from Austin, or New York, or London.
Sometimes she does it from her bed instead, because the thought of getting up, putting heels on and going into the office makes her want to die inside.
And my stomach clenches uncomfortably at the thought of her, huddled under her duvet, replying to emails from people I know she can’t stand.
“I’ll ask her next time I talk to her. Tell Res I’m not making any promises.”
“Gotcha. Thanks, man.”
“Yeah,” I say. I pull out my phone to shoot Ruth a text, but am momentarily distracted by my screensaver.
It’s a picture of Ruth, eyes closed and face up to the sun, arms open wide as she greets the morning on the ranch.
I say it every day, and I think it every moment, but she really is the most beautiful woman I think I’ve ever seen in my life.
It was that beauty—some kind of cosmic, magnetic pull—that had me introduce myself to her that day in the airport in New York, and when I saw her again a month later in Austin, I couldn’t stay away.
I knew I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t at least try.
She’d been on my mind every single day since our first meeting, and she hasn’t left it at all since.
And now that I know her, now that my heart has all but rewritten the shape of its veins to spell her name… now, I know. She’s the one I want to walk through the rest of my life with. The only one.
I didn’t know who I was before. I had no concept of where I fit into the world outside this ranch. But since meeting Ruth, it’s become crystal clear: I’ve only ever been one half of a whole.