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I nod, because I don’t want to confuse Izzy or mess with her in any way. “Speaking of Danny…” I say, my heart working faster. “What do we tell him?”
“The truth,” she says, conviction in her eyes. “But we’re going to do it after the fact.”
“Better to ask for forgiveness than permission,” I say, grinning, because we’re thinking the same thoughts again, and there’s something thrilling about being on the same wavelength as her. We’re building something together, even if it’s a lie, rather than tearing each other down.
“Who will our witnesses be?” I ask.
Her smile stretches wider. “Josie, of course.” Then she shrugs. “We can ask her to bring her boyfriend, or my friend Tank could do it.”
“Tank?” I ask with a snort. “Is that his real name?”
She gives me an unamused look. “As if Shane is any better?”
It is, but I don’t say so. I don’t ask who Tank is to her, either, even though I’d like to know. Maybe I’ll ask her later, when I have that right.
When she’s your wife?
It’s a fucked-up thought, and a reflection on how fucked up my life has become. But if I can get a job and help Ruthie and Izzy, what’s the harm? Who would we be hurting? It’s a lie, and some would argue that any lie is by nature despicable, but we’re going to make it the truth.
“You’ve seen Tank before. He’s been my friend since I was a little kid.”
I vaguely remember her palling around with other children, but the last thing you care about as a kid is what kids five years younger than you are doing. “Okay.”
She gives me the flat look of someone who knows I’ve drawn a blank. “Tank’s the one who gave me Vanny.”
“Oh, so we have a lot to be grateful to him for.”
“We do,” she says in a dangerous tone.
I lift my hands. “I mean it.”
I don’t. Tank hasn’t done Ruthie any favors by giving her that crappy van. The problem is that it’s just mobile enough that it lets her keep changing course. If you want to open a business, you need to seize one idea and run with it—not change your mind every time something doesn’t go as planned. My dad always said if you’re going to win, you need to learn how to lose, but Ruthie mustn’t agree, because a hint of failure is enough to shut her down.
I don’t like losing. I loathe it with every fiber of my being. But I don’t let it shut me down. I don’t throw in the towel and say oh well. I figure out how to win next time.
Ruthie needs to pick one of her ideas and run with it—to find her way around failures instead of letting them crush her before her plans have had a chance to crystallize.
But if I tried to tell her that, she’d say I’m being unfair, an asshole. Or she’d tell me this idea is the one she’s been working toward all along—the one that’s right. But she probably would have said the same thing about whatever idea she was chasing down last month. Because that’s Ruthie’s thing.
It drives me crazy to see someone who’s so smart and driven keep driving themselves toward the wrong things.
She scrutinizes me, then says, “We need a prenup.”
I laugh. “Did you think I’d try to take Flower from you? Or is it these pajamas you’re so protective of?”
Her eyes are molten, and I feel a little shiver of excitement that probably marks me as a sick bastard. “I was just saying what you were inevitably going to say,” she says, her tone tight with contempt. “I figured you’d want to cover your bases. But fuck you for implying I don’t have anything valuable.”
I nod, because it was a shit thing to say, and I own it. “Okay, but who’s going to draw it up? It wouldn’t be ethical if I did.”
“Surely you have a friend or two?”
The words bring my mind back to Danny. How pissed is he going to be about all of this? Probably very. Then again, I know he’d do anything to protect Izzy, and I’ll be helping her. I tell myself that’ll be enough. I nearly broke my friendship with Burke last year. That was hard enough. I can’t stomach the thought of losing Danny.
He’s like a brother to me.
But she’s not like a sister, a voice whispers in my head.
That’s true. There was a time when I only saw her as his annoying little sister, back when she was growling and barking at me, or following me around asking dozens of questions, but that time has long since passed.
