Chapter 1 Drumroll, Please #2
Flustered, I yank the paper from Bridget’s hands.
It’s surreal, seeing her loopy letters on the page, realizing how rarely I see my best friend’s handwriting now that we communicate exclusively in text messages and DMs. Scribbled out in purple gel ink are the jobs that weren’t chosen: teacher, doctor, writer.
The cars I didn’t get: convertible, VW Bug, limo.
The men I didn’t end up with: Devon Sawa; “hot lifeguard”; our old classmate, Theo Ford, who, after a brief stint as a tween Hollywood heartthrob, now works at this very bar.
Sure enough, circled three times over: Penn Hayes.
“Bridget put him in as a joke,” I explain, wishing my voice didn’t sound so shaky. “That’s the game: You always include the worst-case scenario, just for fun.”
Connor eyes me, curious, as Bridget nods in solidarity. “True. I—”
A loud, ringing bell cuts her off, and the room erupts in scattered groans.
Last call. Finally.
Ryan claps once, hard, like a coach rousing his team. “One more round!”
Bridget offers him a salute. “Say no more.”
As my two favorite idiots make a beeline to the bar, I lean against Connor. “Almost there,” I say on a sigh, relieved. “Bed is in sight. Clean sheets. And no more surprises, thank God.”
Connor stiffens.
“What’s wrong?” I stifle a yawn. “You wish we had a tie-dye Jeep?”
He doesn’t laugh. “No. I—I actually have a surprise for you, too.”
“You? Have a surprise? For me?”
Being out past sunset must have him confused. No surprises is an essential, unspoken rule of our relationship, along with put everything on the calendar and don’t talk about work before breakfast and save the last, best bite of every ice cream cone for Ruby.
Connor takes my hand. “Yeah, all this talk about your imaginary future is sort of funny, because I’ve been wanting to talk to you about…ours.”
“Oh, no. Is this about that house I sent you from Zillow?” I wince. “Obviously, buying a home is several years away, but I was just looking. You know I’m a sucker for porches.”
“No, Ruby.” He laughs. “This isn’t about Zillow.” As he shifts to meet my eyes, a sweet, nervous smile takes over his face.
This isn’t like him. Connor has never surprised me, not once, and he’s never nervous.
He reaches for my other hand, lowering his gaze. He—
My breath catches.
Ohmygod. He’s about to propose.
Connor is delirious, and he’s about to propose. In a dive bar. On my birthday.
He can’t. Not now. Not here, where it smells like sweat and Doritos. Not while Weezer is playing. No. We’ve discussed this. He told me to expect the proposal around the holidays. He said we’d go ring shopping this fall so I could pick out exactly what I wanted.
“Connor, no,” I say quickly. “Don’t do this.”
“I got a job offer,” he blurts out. “In New York. And I’m taking it.”
I snort-laugh. “Riiight. Of course. And I’m going to open that roller-disco restaurant, too.” I poke his chest. “Ryan dared you to do this, didn’t he? Traitor.”
Connor’s face is frozen. He’s impressively committed to the bit.
“Ruby,” he says softly. “It’s my buddy Scott’s firm. Remember Scott? He, well—it all moved so quickly. They want me to start next month.”
This time, my laugh is more of a wheeze.
It’s a joke. This must be a joke.
Connor and I started dating the summer before my thirty-first birthday.
We had Lakeville in common—along with nearly everything else.
We didn’t so much fall in love as we did fall in step, joining the same gym and picking up identical lunches and moving in together, until, eventually, our lives were braided together.
Two years ago, I left my first firm to work with Connor at his dad’s firm. We’ve spent years preparing to eventually take it over together and settle down in our hometown. It’s what we both want. The practical choice. The logical step before marriage. Before kids.
I shiver involuntarily. “You’re not serious.”
“I am.”
“What about your dad? And our plans?”
“My dad is supportive,” Connor says, and his smile breaks through. “He agrees that now is the time to try something new.”
He keeps talking, but I can’t hear what he’s saying.
Dazed, I watch Connor’s mouth move. It’s the same mouth that waited three dates to kiss me.
The one that pressed against my shoulder while we slept in his childhood bedroom on Christmas Eve.
The night he promised that someday, that house would be ours.
“—and we can do long-distance,” he says. “If you don’t want to move just yet.”
That I hear loud and clear.
“What? Connor, we’re not doing long-distance. And I’m not moving. Ever.”
“But the firm says they’re happy to meet with you, too.” His wide, hopeful eyes search mine. “We can make this work.”
I stare, open-mouthed, at whatever idiotic demon has possessed my boyfriend.
He means it. He’s proposing not marriage, but a long-distance relationship. That, or a whole new life. In New York. One that ignores and upends every one of our well-laid plans.
And he seriously thinks I’d consider it—that I’d be thrilled to accept what’s basically a courtesy interview. And live hundreds of miles away from here. Away from Bridget. Away from Ryan.
“No.” The word bursts out of me. “Absolutely not.”
Connor sits back. “You don’t even want to hear about the opportunity?”
My laugh is incredulous. “The opportunity to abandon everything and everyone? The chance to throw out all our hard work? For what?”
“For an adventure.”
I squawk. “Since when do you want adventure? You iron your T-shirts.”
He ignores me. “Scott told me it’s the best move he’s ever made.”
Scott, if I remember correctly, is a douchebag.
I tally the obvious on one hand. “You have an acute aversion to crowds. You hate smells, and the Yankees, and you don’t even like pizza. Isn’t New York like eighty percent pizza?”
“Ruby.”
The way he says my name, like I’m the one being foolish, sets me off. “Is this an early midlife crisis?” My arms flail. “What we have here, it’s good. Great, actually. A whole lot better than whatever random roller coaster of a future some slime bag in a suit has promised you.”
“Scott doesn’t wear suits. He’s more of a polo kind of guy.”
“Please,” I beg, shifting tactics. “We have a plan. We should stick to it.”
His green eyes soften with compassion, or maybe guilt. “I’m taking the job, Ruby.”
My throat tightens. My vision starts to blur. “So, that’s it? What about me?”
Connor’s face falls. “We’ve been on a hamster wheel. The same thing, over and over again. Don’t you have bigger dreams for yourself? For us?”
My heart nose-dives into my stomach, all my insides sinking into a nauseating free fall. I don’t want something new, and no way will I gamble my future on a bunch of unknowns.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to tell you like this. Here…”
Connor tries to take my hands, but I ball them into fists and look past him, startled by the sight of Bridget’s blond ponytail swishing through the crowd, Ryan trailing behind her.
I can’t let them see me like this. I can’t ruin the night.
I can’t even breathe.
“We shouldn’t do this here,” I rasp. “I need some air.”
I’m gone before he can protest, the lump in my throat growing unbearably big as I push through the crowd, searching for the exit.
As I weave past strangers, stinging-hot tears trail down my cheeks. I wipe them, struck by yet another horrifying realization: I can’t even cry off the waterproof body glitter.
I glance back to make sure Connor isn’t following me.
He’s not.
But I do feel the itchy awareness of someone’s attention, and as the crowd shifts, I spot him, catching his familiar gray-blue stare from across the bar.
In hindsight, I should’ve taken a tequila shot.
Better yet, two.