"Cherry was proof." I reach for my beer because I need something to do with my hands. "You do anything here, with anyone, and it's front-page news by morning. I'm not interested in being discussed over pancakes at Ruth's diner every time I talk to a woman."
Ramsey concedes with a tilt of his glass. He knows the deal. We've had versions of this conversation before, him gently suggesting I might be happier if I stopped treating dating like a covert operation, me explaining why that's not going to happen. He never pushes too hard because he understands, even if he doesn't agree.
"You're going to have to settle down eventually," he says, but there's no pressure in it.
"I will. One day. In a sensible, dignified way." I grin at him over the rim of my glass. "Not like you, crawling around four jewelers with tears in your eyes because a ring isn't warm enough."
He shakes his head, but the smile tugging at his mouth gives him away. "I did not have tears in my eyes."
"You got emotional at the second store, man. The woman behind the counter offered you water." I raise my beer. "She asked if you needed a moment."
He shifts in the booth. “The lighting was weird. It was affecting my sinuses."
"Your sinuses," I repeat dryly. "Right."
He throws a chip at me. I catch it, pop it in my mouth, chew slowly. By the time he picks up his beer, he's given up pretending to be annoyed.
"Rome's late," he observes, glancing toward the door.
"We don't even know if he's going to show up." I check my phone, pocket it. "He's probably inspecting a doorframe somewhere."
Rome walks in at twenty to eight, phone in one hand, jacket over the other, wearing an expression that says he's just had a conversation he didn't enjoy. He slides into the booth beside Ramsey and signals for a beer without so much as a hello.
"Good evening to you too," I offer.
"Lily texted me thirty-nine times today," he says flatly, like this explains everything.
Ramsey grins, delighted by this. "About what?"
"First it was the shower head. Then the Wi-Fi. Then the shower head again." Rome ticks off the items like he's reading from a list of grievances. "Then she sent me a photo of a spider in her bathroom and asked me to come kill it."
"Did you?"
"I sent Erin."
"Cold," Ramsey says.
"Erin likes spiders. Lily makes it a production." He drags both hands down his face. "I love my sister. I love my sister very much. But she is going to give me a heart attack before I turn thirty-five."
I keep my face very still. Drink my beer. Do not think about Lily sending thirty-nine texts. Do not think about a spider in her bathroom or what her bathroom looks like or whether she screamed when she saw it. Do not think about the fact that she needed someone to come over, needed help, and I wasn't even in the vicinity of being considered.
Why would I be? I shouldn't want to be. I don't want to be. Ramsey, to his credit, does not look at me once.
Rome's beer arrives and he takes a long drink, sets it down, and I watch the tension leave his shoulders.
"How's the ring hunt?" he asks, like the subject of his sister is closed.
"Done." Ramsey says it casually, but his hand drifts to his jacket pocket again.
Rome nods, something like approval in his expression. "She's going to lose her mind."
"That's the goal."
"You got a plan?"
"Working on it." Ramsey's voice goes soft. It does that whenever he talks about Poppy. "I want it to be private. Just us. Somewhere that means something."
"Good." Rome takes another sip, considers. "Don't do it in public. She'll hate that."
