Chapter 52
Chapter Fifty-Two
C allie, Sawyer, and Lena showed up at some point in the middle of the night and took over their usual booth.
The bar was mostly empty, so Ruby took a break and joined them.
Things had been tense between her and her sister since Lena had accused her of treating her like she was broken, but they’d managed to at least act like things were normal. Normal enough, anyway.
Normal even though the ache in her chest from missing Rafe was only made worse by the distance from her twin.
“Lena told us you’ve had an eventful few days,” Callie said, meeting Ruby’s eye across the table.
“You could say that.”
“Are you okay?”
Ruby shrugged. “Physically, yeah.”
Callie waited for her to go on, her blue eyes filled with worry.
“Mentally, emotionally, psychologically?… not so much.”
“What does it feel like?” Sawyer asked, his voice hushed as he leaned toward her.
“It feels like?… I can’t think about anything else, like I won’t be settled ever again until we’re together, like my heart has been ripped out and stolen. Like everything hurts.”
He nodded, glancing at Callie. “Yeah, I get that.”
She gave him a small smile and leaned into him, and even that tiny, intimate gesture made envy swirl in Ruby’s gut.
“What are you going to do?” Callie asked, always ready to formulate a plan.
Ruby shrugged. “Keep working and ignore it all, I guess.” What else could she do?
“Do you think it’s over? I mean…” Callie glanced over her shoulder as if there was anyone listening. Who was Ruby kidding? It was possible that everyone was listening. “Do you think they’ll be back?”
“They’re pretty dead?… so?… no?” She hoped that meant it was over.
“But what about their Alpha ?” Lena whispered the word like she still couldn’t quite believe she was saying it. “What if he still wants us?”
“Hopefully having three of his wolves dead is discouraging enough to end whatever plan he had for us.”
Lena shivered. “Right.”
The foursome sat back in their seats. Callie was still looking at Ruby like she was scanning for damage, of which there was plenty.
Sawyer drummed his fingers on the table, his brow furrowed like he was trying to work everything out in his head, and Lena kept making a little sad sighing sound and sipping her soda. What a crew they were tonight.
It was Sawyer that started laughing first.
“What could possibly be funny right now?” Callie asked, looking at him in horror.
“Sorry.” He tried and failed to stop the giggles falling from his mouth. “It’s just that after all these years growing up here with these insane stories and…”
He caught Ruby’s gaze and she started laughing too. And it felt so damn good to laugh! Especially when her sister joined in.
“Ruby!” Lena said, shocked, until she started giggling, unable to resist even with her hands clasped over her mouth.
“And…” Sawyer went on, breathless. “And it’s all fucking true.”
Callie broke last, her laughter hesitant until she met Ruby’s eyes and they both started up again.
“Sal has been right all along!” Ruby sputtered and Lena doubled over.
“Oh my god! What else has he been right about?” Lena wheezed.
“Bigfoot?” Sawyer said. “UFOs?”
“Anything’s possible!” Callie said between breaths.
Sawyer shook his head. “How many times did they tell us, stay out of the woods? And we all thought it was just stories, fairy tales to keep us from wandering off.”
Their laughter died down as they thought about the stories that had long filtered through this town. Stories intended to keep children on the lit walkways in town, to keep them away from strangers, from things that lurk in the dark corners.
A hell of a lot of good that had done her.
Sawyer grinned. “And now look at us.” He pointed at each one of them in turn. “A witch, a seer, and Ruby has a werewolf boyfriend.”
Ruby scoffed.
“Why do you look so happy about it?” Callie asked, pushing the hair that escaped her braid away from her face.
“It’s objectively very cool,” he said, and Ruby couldn’t help smiling. It was objectively cool. Even if it had kinda come back to bite her in the ass.
“Ruby’s a seer too,” Lena said. “It’s a family trait.” It was almost accusatory, the way she said it. Like she wanted Ruby to have to deal with the same shit she was. Even though they weren’t the same in this. They weren’t experiencing it the same way at all.
And it was jarring. To be different from her twin in a new way.
Sawyer’s brows rose. “Is that so?”
“Maybe. Unconfirmed,” Ruby said even as she felt it in her bones that her sister was right.
“Well, Callie is going to help me rein in my episodes,” Lena said.
“I’m going to try. I think maybe some of the things my grandma taught me to help with my?… powers might help Lena.”
“That’s great.”
“You can come to our witchy study sessions too,” Lena said, and maybe it was a peace offering.
A peace offering that Ruby should have taken, but she highly doubted her friend had any witchy tricks for her.
She still doubted she had any special abilities at all.
At least none that were coming back any time soon.
“Thanks,” she said, knowing she’d find a way to back out later.
“Okay, where is he?!” Dolores stormed up to their table, a laundry cart trailing behind her.
“Where is who?” Callie asked, looking up at the tiny woman. Dolores was bundled under multiple layers of flannel and a puffy vest today making her look even smaller than usual.
“Your giant boyfriend,” she said, pointing accusingly at Ruby. “I haven’t seen him at the laundromat in days. We always do our laundry together.”
Sawyer snorted another laugh.
“He’s not here,” Ruby said.
“Well, where the hell is he?” Dolores demanded.
“I wouldn’t know,” Ruby bit out and the woman’s face fell. “Sorry, Dolores.”
“Hmph.” Dolores frowned. “He could have told me he was leaving.”
“He left in kind of a hurry,” Ruby said, feeling the odd need to cover for Rafe and to save Dolores’s feelings.
“What seems to be the trouble?” Sal asked, sauntering over to the table like he was the sheriff.
Which he definitely wasn’t. Sheriff Mike hadn’t had a drink in twenty years and only stepped in this place when he absolutely had to.
But that didn’t stop Dolores from looking at Sal like he was her hero.
“I was looking for Rafe,” Dolores told him.
“Ah,” Sal said. “Heard he’s gone missing.”
Ruby scoffed. “He didn’t go missing . He left.” He left me , she thought but couldn’t bear to add.
The way Sal looked at her with such sympathy in his eyes told her she didn’t have to say it out loud. He heard it anyway.
“He’ll come around.”
“I certainly hope so,” Dolores said as though she was the injured party here. “Walk me home?” she asked Sal, apparently ready to move on with her life.
Sal’s face lit up. Dolores lived in an old house at the end of the street. The well-lit street. Ruby guessed it was probably okay for them to walk home.
“Be careful, you two,” Ruby looked at Sal pointedly and he saluted.
“I’ll get this lovely lady home safe,” he said, and Dolores actually blushed.
“That’s an interesting development,” Callie said as the two walked away, arm in arm, Dolores’s unmentionables bouncing up and down in the squeaky laundry cart behind them.
“I didn’t know Rafe was such good friends with Dolores,” Sawyer said with a laugh.
“Me neither,” Ruby said, and she could strangle the man for thinking he was some kind of monster when he spent his weekdays doing laundry with a lonely old lady. The bounds of her frustration were endless. “Anyway, do you guys want another round?”
“I wouldn’t say no,” Sawyer said, and Ruby got up to head to the bar. Callie grabbed her hand before she could leave.
“It’ll all work out in the end, Ruby.”
Ruby met her friend’s bright blue gaze.
“How do you know?”
Callie shrugged. “Call it witch’s intuition.”
Ruby smiled. “Thanks, Cal.”
And as she walked back to refill her friends’ drinks, she really hoped Callie was right.