Chapter 4
CAL
"That one," Ramsey says, pointing at the glass case like a man who has finally achieved enlightenment after three hours of staring at diamonds.
I lean in, squinting at the display. It's a ring. A very nice ring. Also the forty-seventh very nice ring I've looked at in this store alone, and somewhere around ring thirty-two my brain stopped registering the differences. They've all blurred into one shimmering mass of metal and stone.
"It's good," I offer, because I have to say something.
"You said that about the last one," he shoots back, still fixated on the case.
"That one was also good."
"That one was white gold." He finally turns, giving me a look of profound disappointment. "Poppy doesn't wear white gold."
I straighten up and decide to die on this hill because I have nothing left to lose. "They're all circles, Ramsey."
He stares at me like I've just suggested we burn down the store. "They are not all circles."
"They are literally all circles," I argue. "That is the defining characteristic of a ring. It is a circle. You put it on a finger. The finger goes through the circle. That's the whole system."
The woman behind the counter watches us with polite patience as if she has seen many friendships tested in this exact spot. Ramsey ignores her entirely, turning back to the case and pressing his finger against the glass.
"I want her to cry."
"She's going to cry no matter what," I point out. "She cries at commercials."
"I want her to cry the right way."
I tilt my head, genuinely curious now. "There's a wrong way to cry at a proposal?"
"Cal." He turns to look at me, and his face is so serious, so completely devoid of irony, that I feel bad for making jokes. This matters to him. This matters to him more than anything has ever mattered to him, and here I am talking about circles.
I slump back in my chair and accept my fate.
I am never getting out of here. When Ramsey told me he was going to propose, I was genuinely delighted for him.
He and Poppy make sense in that way some couples just do, like they were always heading toward each other and the rest of us were just watching the inevitable unfold.
But I figured he'd order a custom ring, obsess over the details in private where I didn't have to witness it. Instead he dragged me to four different jewelers because Poppy is "not that kind of girl," whatever that means, and apparently I'm the kind of friend who can't say no.
"I need the ring to be perfect," he continues, voice gone so quiet I actually pay attention.
"I need her to see it and know that I thought about it. That I didn't just walk in and point at the first thing that sparkled."
I study him for a long moment, the tension in his shoulders. Then I look at the ring he's pointing at. Oval cut, rose gold band, small diamonds set along the sides. Delicate but not fragile. It catches the light differently than the others, warmer somehow, less aggressive.
"That one looks like her."
He smiles, drops his eyes to the ring, really looks this time, then back at me. "Yeah?"
"Yeah." I nod slowly, surprised to find I mean it. "It's warm. It's not trying too hard. And it's tougher than it looks."
He doesn't say anything for a second, just stares at the ring with an expression I can only describe as reverent. Then his face relaxes, the tension releasing from his shoulders.
"Can I see that one again?" he asks the woman.
We're at the pub by seven, sitting with two beers and a bowl of chips neither of us is eating. Rome's meeting us at half past, which gives Ramsey approximately thirty minutes to fidget with the ring box through his jacket pocket like a man who has never owned pockets before.
"Stop touching it," I tell him as his hand drifts to the spot for the fifth time in as many minutes.
"I'm not touching it," he lies, dropping his hand to the table like that proves something.
"Man, you are so gone for this girl." I shake my head, but there's no judgment in it. "And you're getting worse by the day."
He shrugs, doesn't even try to deny it. There's no point. Anyone with eyes can see that Ramsey would walk into traffic for Poppy, and he'd do it smiling.
"When are you going to do it?" he asks, and I know before he finishes the sentence that I'm not going to like where this is going.
"Do what?"
"This." He gestures vaguely at his pocket, the pub, the concept of commitment in general. It's a broad gesture. It encompasses a lot.
"I'm not."
"Ever?"
"Not a priority."
Ramsey leans back and considers me.
"You know, there are probably nice girls in Harbor Hill," he offers, tone deceptively casual. "You don't have to drive two hours every time you want to have dinner with someone."
"I'm aware of the local population, thanks."
"So when are you going to stop with the out-of-town trips?"
"When Harbor Hill stops being a town where Ruth knows what you had for breakfast before you've finished chewing.
" I lean back, matching his posture. "You saw what happened with Cherry last year.
One conversation at the bar, and not even a nice one, might I add, and suddenly the whole town had me engaged to her. "
"Cherry was a specific situation," he counters.
"Cherry was proof." I reach for my beer because I need something to do with my hands. "You do anything here, with anyone, and it's front-page news by morning. I'm not interested in being discussed over pancakes at Ruth's diner every time I talk to a woman."
Ramsey concedes with a tilt of his glass.
He knows the deal. We've had versions of this conversation before, him gently suggesting I might be happier if I stopped treating dating like a covert operation, me explaining why that's not going to happen.
He never pushes too hard because he understands, even if he doesn't agree.
"You're going to have to settle down eventually," he says, but there's no pressure in it.
"I will. One day. In a sensible, dignified way." I grin at him over the rim of my glass. "Not like you, crawling around four jewelers with tears in your eyes because a ring isn't warm enough."
He shakes his head, but the smile tugging at his mouth gives him away. "I did not have tears in my eyes."
"You got emotional at the second store, man. The woman behind the counter offered you water." I raise my beer. "She asked if you needed a moment."
He shifts in the booth. “The lighting was weird. It was affecting my sinuses."
"Your sinuses," I repeat dryly. "Right."
He throws a chip at me. I catch it, pop it in my mouth, chew slowly. By the time he picks up his beer, he's given up pretending to be annoyed.
"Rome's late," he observes, glancing toward the door.
"We don't even know if he's going to show up." I check my phone, pocket it. "He's probably inspecting a doorframe somewhere."
Rome walks in at twenty to eight, phone in one hand, jacket over the other, wearing an expression that says he's just had a conversation he didn't enjoy. He slides into the booth beside Ramsey and signals for a beer without so much as a hello.
"Good evening to you too," I offer.
"Lily texted me thirty-nine times today," he says flatly, like this explains everything.
Ramsey grins, delighted by this. "About what?"
"First it was the shower head. Then the Wi-Fi. Then the shower head again." Rome ticks off the items like he's reading from a list of grievances. "Then she sent me a photo of a spider in her bathroom and asked me to come kill it."
"Did you?"
"I sent Erin."
"Cold," Ramsey says.
"Erin likes spiders. Lily makes it a production." He drags both hands down his face. "I love my sister. I love my sister very much. But she is going to give me a heart attack before I turn thirty-five."
I keep my face very still. Drink my beer.
Do not think about Lily sending thirty-nine texts.
Do not think about a spider in her bathroom or what her bathroom looks like or whether she screamed when she saw it.
Do not think about the fact that she needed someone to come over, needed help, and I wasn't even in the vicinity of being considered.
Why would I be? I shouldn't want to be. I don't want to be. Ramsey, to his credit, does not look at me once.
Rome's beer arrives and he takes a long drink, sets it down, and I watch the tension leave his shoulders.
"How's the ring hunt?" he asks, like the subject of his sister is closed.
"Done." Ramsey says it casually, but his hand drifts to his jacket pocket again.
Rome nods, something like approval in his expression. "She's going to lose her mind."
"That's the goal."
"You got a plan?"
"Working on it." Ramsey's voice goes soft. It does that whenever he talks about Poppy. "I want it to be private. Just us. Somewhere that means something."
"Good." Rome takes another sip, considers. "Don't do it in public. She'll hate that."
"I know."
"And don't do a speech. Just ask her."
"I know, Rome."
"And make sure the…"
"I know." Ramsey holds up a hand, patient but firm. "I've been with her all my life. I know her."
Rome holds him in his gaze for a second, assessing, and then the corner of his mouth twitches. For Rome, that's practically a standing ovation. "Yeah, you do."
They sit with that for a moment, neither of them needing to say anything else. I'm surrounded by men who are too far gone to even realize how far gone they are.
"So," I cut in, because the silence is starting to feel like it might turn toward something I'd have to contribute to. "You and Erin. Living together."
Rome glances at me. "Yeah."
"That feel like a big move?"
"No."
One word. No hesitation, no hedging. I wait for more. Rome drinks his beer.
"Just no?" I press.
"I'm going to marry her." He says it like he's stating a fact, like the sky is blue and water is wet. "So no, it doesn't feel like a big move. It feels like the only move that makes sense."
Ramsey nods beside him like this is obvious, because to Ramsey, who has a ring in his pocket and a woman at home he'd rearrange his entire life around, it is obvious. These two exist in a world I don't have access to, a world where certainty comes easy and forever doesn't feel like a trap.
"What's with the face?" Rome asks, setting his beer down.
"What face?"
"That face. The one you're making right now."
"How should I know?"
"You have a face that says you think we're all insane."
I peel the corner of my beer label with my thumbnail. "I don't think you're insane."
"But?"
"But doesn't it scare either of you?" I ask, and the question comes out a bit more critical than I mean. "Any of it?"
Ramsey and Rome exchange a look, one of those whole conversations in a glance that make you feel like a third wheel at your own table.
"Every day," Ramsey admits.
"Terrified," Rome adds. "Doesn't change anything."
I turn my glass on the table, watching the condensation leave a wet circle on the wood. These men are afraid and doing it anyway, which I'm supposed to find inspiring. Instead I find it baffling.
"I don't get why everyone's in such a rush."
Ramsey frowns. "Rush?"
"To get there. To the marriage, the house, the whole thing." I gesture vaguely between them. "You're ring shopping. Rome's picking out curtains. What's the hurry?"
"It's certainty," Ramsey says carefully, like he's explaining something simple to someone who should already understand. "You don't wait around when you're this sure."
"When you know, you know," Rome adds with little drama.
I don't have a response to that. I don't know what knowing feels like. I'm not sure I want to find out.
A while later Rome checks his phone, types something, sets it down with a sigh that tells me exactly who he's texting.
"Lily?" Ramsey guesses.
"She found another spider."
"Same one?"
"She says it's bigger." He sounds exasperated. "I think she's lying."
"Send Erin again," I suggest.
"Erin's in the bath. I'm not interrupting that." He pockets the phone, sweeps us both. "Anyone else want to volunteer? Anyone other than Holt, that is."
How casual. Almost throwaway. But I catch the way my name lands with slightly more weight than it should, and Rome knows I catch it.
For a second we just hold each other's gaze across the table.
Him with that flat, unreadable expression that isn't a threat but isn't not a threat either. Me glaring at him.
I set the glass down. "I wasn't volunteering."
"Good."
"But it's interesting that you felt the need to specify."
Rome holds my eyes one more second, then turns to Ramsey like I hadn't said anything. "Well?"
Ramsey is suddenly fascinated by the bowl of chips, picking one up and examining it like he's checking for quality control issues.
"Cowards," Rome mutters, but there's no heat in it.
"You're her brother," Ramsey points out, popping the chip in his mouth.
"You're her friend."
Ramsey reaches for his beer and takes a long, deliberate sip. "I have a thing."
Rome eyes the glass in his hand. "You have a beer."
"The beer is the thing."
Rome shakes his head, pulls his phone back out, types something.
Probably telling Lily to put a glass over the spider and go to bed.
Or maybe telling Erin to get out of the bath.
Either way, it's not my problem. I'm not going to think about Lily alone in her apartment with a spider she's scared of.
I'm not going to think about the fact that I know exactly where she lives.
”I should go," I announce. I've been doing this a lot lately. Leaving places before I say something stupid or think something worse.
"Tell your dad I said hi," Ramsey offers.
"Yeah."
"Tell him I said thank you for the bookshelf," Rome adds, eyes still on his phone. "The craftsmanship is excellent."
"He'll like hearing that."
I stand, pull on my jacket, leave a bill on the table. Rome nods, turns back to his phone. Ramsey waves, already typing, probably texting Poppy something that would make me roll my eyes if I saw it.
I push through the door into cold air and stand on the sidewalk, taking a much-needed breath.
I try not to think about the girl. The spider. The fact that I almost volunteered, because I don't want her to be scared. I drive home, and think about her all the way there.