Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Seven
Xavier
Callahan’s is exactly the kind of place I used to disappear into. Now it feels noisy. I lean against the bar with a beer I haven't touched in twenty minutes while Connor talks beside me about a fire he responded to the night before. I'm only half listening.
Because across the room, Ruby’s here. Same booth near the back wall. Bella talking with her hands. Emily laughing at something Jake said. Ruby sits between them with water in front of her.
She looks better than last week. The dark circles below her eyes are still there, but her skin is no longer pale, and when she smiles, my heart skips a beat.
Connor follows my line of sight. “You talk to her?”
“A little.”
“And?”
I stare at my untouched beer. “She needs time.”
He nods once, like he’d expected that answer.
I wouldn’t have come tonight except Jake said she was going out with the girls, and I needed to see her. To make sure she’s okay.
A woman slides into the space beside me that Connor vacated a few minutes before. Blonde. Pretty. Confident.
“You look bored,” she says.
“I’m not.”
She smiles anyway. “You here alone?”
“No.”
Her eyes sweep the room. “Girlfriend?”
My eyes find Ruby before I even think about it. “Yes.”
The answer comes without hesitation.
The woman pauses. Then smiles. “Well... she’s lucky.”
A humorless laugh slips out. “No, she’s not.”
Not after everything I put her through. But that’s not something I’m sharing with some stranger. My friends, sure. Some random woman who wants to hook up, not happening.
I step away from the bar. “Have a good night.”
Polite. Final. I move a couple of stools down by where Connor joined one of his fellow firefighters.
The bartender tips his head toward my beer. “You gonna drink that?”
I glance down at it. “Probably not.”
Connor watches the woman disappear into the crowd. “Old Xavier would’ve bought her another drink.”
I look back toward Ruby. She’s laughing at something Bella says. Small. Real. God, I missed that sound.
Connor bumps my shoulder. “You got it bad.”
I don’t bother denying it. “Yeah.”
I do.