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She’s not a friend, not a sister, and yet…not nothing.
She annoys the hell out of me, but I have this strange yearning to see her when it’s been a while. Maybe it’s because she always challenges me, and I’ve been spending most of my time in a world where no one truly says what they mean or means what they say. She’s my barometer for how I’m doing as a person, and from the look on her face, today hasn’t been a banner day.
I nod tightly. “I’ll see that it gets done.”
“We keep all of our own stuff once this is over. What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is yours.”
I don’t say anything—I don’t even smile—but Ruthie swats me with her hand, which does make me smile.
“I really did want Flower,” I say. Hearing her name, the little terror wags her tail, unnaturally long for a creature her size, and comes scampering over. “You here for Round Two?”
At this, Ruthie starts laughing so hard she bends over from the force of it, nearly face-planting in the shitty cake. Then she sneezes again.
“What?” I ask, rolling my eyes.
“Round Two. I was just…I was imagining her taking a…”
“Taking a shit on these pajamas? She should. They look like the kind of pajamas you’d give your grandpa so he could shit in them.”
Ruthie laughs harder, leading to two more sneezes, and I smile and shake my head.
“You’re allergic to this dog, aren’t you?” I ask. Because of course Ruthie has a big enough bleeding heart to bring home a dog she’s allergic to without having a plan for addressing said allergies. That’s Ruthie for you.
“No,” she says, scowling but still laughing. Then she rolls her eyes and amends her answer. “Only a little. It’s nothing allergy medication won’t resolve.”
“Do you have any?”
“I’ll get some.”
Sure she will. Something tells me she’ll pick up another shitty pair of pajamas for Danny first. Everyone else always comes first, which is the kind of thing that doesn’t end well for anyone.
“What about the pajamas? Do you want me to launder and return them? Send a selfie to Danny and ask if Mira’s into plaid?”
She makes a face, studying me through her laughter. “Keep them.” She starts laughing again in bursts, sneezing every now and then. “They…they…suit you.”
“This is a new low,” I say in a murmur. “Insulting me to my face like that.” I want to see her laugh harder so she’ll squirm in her seat, that oversized sweatshirt trying its damnedest to cling on. Fuck, I’d like to watch it fall down, but that’s my dick talking—and I’ve given my dick plenty of lectures on what it is and isn’t allowed to react to.
Ruthie Traeger is at the top of the list. She doesn’t make it easy to follow Rule Number One, but I’m not a man who’s intimidated by a challenge.
“You’ve…got to leave…I’m going to pee my pants.”
“Maybe I want you to. It would feel like justice for what Flower did to me.”
She laughs harder, one hand clutching the table—and I have a traitorous mental picture of her clutching that table with both hands, her ass lifted up in those little bootie shorts.
I get up ungracefully, the chair nearly falling back behind me, and Ruthie manages a scowl through her gales of laughter, lifting a shaking finger to her lips.
“As if I’d wake Izzy, but you won’t,” I say. “Can I have a shopping bag for my piss-covered suit?”
Still laughing, she points a shaking finger toward a cabinet, and I go to it, rolling my eyes to myself when a dozen bags fling themselves out like an inflatable snake the instant I open the door, because there must be two hundred of them crammed into the space. “Why do you keep all of these?” I mutter as I claim one of them.
“Don’t…” Ruthie says, finally getting control over herself. “I feel guilty about that. I just always forget the reusable ones. I save them so I can reuse them or bring them back to the grocery store someday, but I always forget.”
“So you keep them to make yourself miserable.”
She sobers and nods, and I find myself thinking about those sweatpants of Rand’s. I wonder if she keeps those for the same reason. I don’t like the thought, but I like the thought of them being sentimental even less. That fucker doesn’t deserve to lick the questionably clean floor of this apartment, much less have his ring on her finger.
I get the suit squared away while she watches me.
