Chapter Seven #2
“Come on, Ruby,” Beckett whines again. “We’re going to be late.”
Letting my head fall back, I resist the urge to change into a sportier, cuter top and close my eyes.
All I can do is pray that Dash doesn’t notice me tonight.
If he does, there’s not a chance he won’t recognize me and realize I did absolutely nothing with his phone number.
The entire meet-and-greet that Beckett built up in his mind will be ruined with my awkward aloofness.
But there’s no backing out now. I couldn’t disappoint Beckett like that.
Shaking my head, I grab my see-through mini backpack and open the door. As I swing it wide, Beckett nearly falls into me from where he stood in the hallway.
“Finally! Are you ready?”
“Yeah, sorry.”
He backs up a step, pushing his glasses up higher onto his nose from where they’ve fallen, and gives me a once over. “You look exactly the same as the first time you asked if you looked okay.”
I roll my eyes. “Whatever. Let’s just go so we’re not late.”
Without a word, my twelve-year-old brother rushes down the hall to the living room where Mom waits in her recliner to say goodbye to us. Beckett stops and bends to give her a peck on the cheek.
“Bye, Mom. We’ll be back real late. Don’t wait up.”
Mom chuckles before ruffling his auburn curls. “We’ll see what Ruby has to say about that.” She looks me over. “Aw, honey. You look pretty.”
I resist the urge to roll my eyes a second time. Not because pretty isn’t a sweet compliment coming from my mom, but because I don’t feel pretty. I feel bloated and crampy and full of regret.
Why did Aunt Flow insist on visiting me this very weekend?
“Thanks, Mom,” I say, forcing a smile. “We shouldn’t be too late. I’m not sure we’ll stay for the meet-and-greet—”
“What?!” Beckett blurts. “But that’s what I’m most looking forward to! There’s going to be a buffet where we can eat and everything!”
Oh, yay. Food.
Worried lines form on Mom’s brow as she squeezes Beckett’s hand. “He was excited to get to meet that Dashiell DiFranco in person.” She turns to me. “Are you sure you can’t stay long enough for your brother to meet him?”
A swirling vortex of anxiety opens up in my chest, threatening to swallow me whole.
“Don’t you want to meet Mr. DiFranco, too?” Beckett says it like I’m the hockey player’s biggest fan.
Sure, I watch his livestreams. Regularly. And my goodness is he even more handsome up close and personal… But I’ve already met the man. What if Dash reacts badly to seeing me again? What will Beckett do?
I replay so many “what if” scenarios in my brain that my head begins to ache.
“Ruby?” Mom’s voice softens with concern. “Are you feeling all right?”
“I’m fine, Mom,” I insist, straightening. “It’ll all be fine. We’ll have a good night and…” I hate to say it, but I have to do the right thing. “We’ll stay long enough for Beck to meet Dash.” Even if I’d rather jump into a pit of permanent purple hair dye. “Let’s go, Beckett.”
“YES!” He jumps in the air and races for the door.
Mom beams. “Oh, sweetie. Thank you so much. I know he appreciates that and so do I.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I mutter before kissing Mom’s forehead. “Don’t wait up.”
“I won’t. You know Mr. Groves tucks me into bed early.”
I turn before a tickled grin splits across my face. Sure, he does.
Our silver fox neighbor so graciously offered to step in and help care for Mom so I could go back to work at the salon.
That was months ago. Since then, I’ve noticed random things around the house getting fixed, things that sat untouched for months, even years.
The creaky back door, the basement light that went out over the dryer, even the rickety railing on the front porch got replaced.
So I don’t point out the obvious —that Mr. Groves and Mom have a thing for each other.
I simply head to the door and pretend like a single older man coming to tuck my mom into bed while I’m gone is a perfectly normal occurrence.
Beckett races ahead of me. “Hurry up, Ruby! We’re gonna be late!”
There’s no chance of that, but I pick up the pace for his sake. It’s a forty-minute drive to the arena, though we’re only ten miles away. Traffic in D.C. is always horrid, but even more so now that hockey has taken over the city for a few short weeks.
Beckett yaps the whole way there, monologuing how he expects the night to go from the moment we find our seats to the part I’m dreading the most—the meet-and-greet.
“I want to buy a jersey tonight,” Beckett says. “Do you think they’ll have Stars and Stripes merch for sale?”
“I really don’t know,” I say in a robotic voice. One-word answers and half-hearted hums are all I’ve been able to conjure up with my brain in panic mode.
“Well, if they’re selling them, we’re buying them.” Beckett eyes me over his glasses.
I snort a laugh. “Okay, buddy. You have some cash hidden in those jeans somewhere?”
He adjusts his jacket. “No, but Mom gave me some money.”
I flip on my blinker, waiting to make the turn. “Do you even realize how expensive hockey jerseys are?”
“Of course I do,” he says like I’m the idiot. “I’ve researched.”
“You’ve…researched?”
“Duh, Ruby. A guy’s gotta know how much money to bring to an event like this. And since we didn’t need to buy our tickets, Mom said I could go all out.”
My eyebrows lift. “Oh, did she?”
“She did.” He nods. “She gave me two-hundred-and-fifty dollars to spend.”
My chin nearly hits my chest. “She what?”
“What?” Beckett echoes. “She said this was a once in a lifetime thing and she wanted us to make it special.”
Surprise and gratefulness mingle together in my chest. Mom hasn’t had an easy life, starting with being widowed and having two children to care for when she was just forty years old.
More often than not, we had to scrape by just for the necessities.
Never have I known her to dole out large amounts of money for any occasion, least of all a sporting event.
But I have noticed that since her stroke, she’s been more conscious of time. She’s always talking about how it’s fleeting. and we never know when our last day could be. Maybe that’s why she decided to give Beckett the money, so he really could make it a night to remember.
If only she could be the one making the memory with him…
Guilt nags at my conscience. I should be excited for Beckett tonight.
I should pretend to be excited, at least. Because Mom’s right.
This is a once in a lifetime event for him—for both of us.
And she’s not here to make it special, so I should be going above and beyond to do so.
It’s the right thing to do, even if everything in me says to run at the first sight of Dashiell DiFranco.