AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Ruby glanced at Olivia, who’d managed to get on the offending purple pants and had disappeared inside the equally offending orange shirt. Ruby resisted the urge to help her. It was healthy for Olivia to struggle with little things, to prove to herself that she could figure things out.
She followed her sister to the bathroom and leaned in the doorway while Brooke finished her hair. “So just a heads-up that Adam is probably going to be in a foul mood tonight.”
Brooke met her gaze the mirror. “Like I give a fuck what kind of mood that asshole is in.”
“I’m just saying,” Ruby said. “There was an… incident at the coffee ship earlier.”
Her sister put down the styling tool she was using in her hair and took a couple of steps toward Ruby. She studied her face, then gently touched her cheek where Adam had pressed her against the brick wall.
Ruby winced.
“I’m going to kill him,” Brooke said.
“I’m fine,” Ruby said. “He was just bent out of shape about tonight.”
“He’s lucky he’s even invited,” Brooke said.
“He’s Olivia’s father.”
“So?” Brooke asked. “Your only obligation is to Olivia, and you can’t tell me you think she’s safe with him.”
“He’s never hurt her,” Ruby protested.
Brooke stared into her eyes, and it was like they were kids again, huddled under a blanket fort after their mom’s murder, making promises to each other. “Yet. He hasn’t hurt her yet.”
“We don’t know — ”
“He’s an abuser,” Brooke said firmly.
“You know I would never let anyone hurt Olivia,” Ruby said.
Her sister sighed. “Just remember that when you think he deserves access to her just because he was the sperm donor.”
“That’s not fair.” Ruby didn’t want to defend Adam to her sister, but she didn’t want to get in the habit of mischaracterizing him either. It would be too easy to rewrite history over the next twenty years, and Olivia deserved the truth. All of it. “He’s always been a good father to Olivia.”
“Has he?” Brooke asked, returning to the counter to dig through her makeup. “Because I kind of thought part of being a good father was not beating the shit out of her mother.”
Ruby went to rub her face in exhaustion and forgot about the scrape on her cheek.
She winced. “Can we talk about this some other time? I just wanted to give you a heads-up about Adam, that’s all.”
“We can talk about it any time you want, but I’m never going to feel any different about it.” Brooke stood in front of her with a sponge, a foundation brush, and a compact. “I assume you want to cover this so Dad doesn’t go apeshit?”
“Please,” Ruby said.
Brooke furrowed her forehead as she dabbed gently at Ruby’s skin with the sponge, then brushed over it in circles.
“There,” she said, standing back to look at her handiwork. “Totally invisible. But you should put some ice on it when you get home tonight to take down the inflammation.”
“Thanks, Mom,” Ruby said.
Brooke’s smile was sad. “If Mom was here, you wouldn’t be in this mess.”
She wasn’t wrong. Part of what had attracted Ruby to Adam — aside from his objectively good looks — was the cop thing. Her mother’s murder had set off something in Ruby, some kind of need for safety that felt a lot more urgent than the basic human need.
Ruby was scared after her mom’s death. All the time.
She’d been afraid to cross the street, afraid to use the subways she’d been riding since she was a kid. Loud noises made her jump and every stranger who looked even remotely shifty made Ruby’s skin crawl.
