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Ruby: I will be. Love you.
Later that night, Jesse and I eat pizza and play our own version of Pictionary, challenging each other to see who can draw a pig faster, a llama funnier, an anteater faster and funnier.
By the time I finish my Chardonnay and another slice of cheese and pepper yumminess, claiming sketching victory with a spectacular giraffe with a neck long enough to fill an eighteen-by-twenty-four-inch page of sketch paper, I’m too happy to think about how not carefully I behaved tonight.
Tonight, it felt like we were together.
The kind of together that doesn’t have an expiration date.
The kind we can’t have.
20
JESSE
This is the good life.
Blasting the Rumours album by Fleetwood Mac . . . Cruising in the 1972 Datsun Z-series I couldn’t bring myself to part with before selling the shop down a two-lane highway . . . Road-tripping with my woman.
If this is a dream, I don’t want to wake up.
Right here, right now, I have all I want.
If I had to be stuck in a Groundhog Day-type scenario, I’d pick this one. I’d live this twenty-four-hours over and over, because I know—I fucking know—the day’s only going to get better.
On the way out of the city, we made a quick pit stop at the bulk store, a not-so-quick detour at a roadside diner, and now we’re almost there, winding under a canopy of tall trees, traveling past lush summer hills.
The smoothly robotic voice of the GPS bleats out, “In five miles, Camp Knick Knack Paddywhack is on your right.”
“Five miles till Ruby smothers me in kisses for taking her to camp.”
The brunette beauty in the passenger seat shoots me a naughty look. “Yes, and then I’ll have to write a letter home too, keeping my folks abreast of all my fabulous summer camp experiences.”
I grin. “Give me a preview of what you’ll say.”
She mimes putting a pen to paper. “Dear Mom and Dad. Today I won the canoe race, made a lovely rope bracelet, and banged Jesse senseless in a bunk bed.”
Laughing, I stretch my arm across her seat, giving her shoulder a squeeze. “Presumptuous, but I like it.”
I return my hands to the steering wheel.
A sign beckons at the bend in the road—green, faded, and held up by wooden posts staked into the ground. A beacon for kids for decades.
Camp Knick Knack Paddywhack.
“There it is!” Ruby squeals, clapping. She leans across the console, drops a quick kiss to my cheek. “Thank you, partner in crime. This is so cool. Completely a dream come true.”
My instinct is to make light of our road trip, like this is nothing. But this isn’t nothing for her. “Honored to help you achieve it.”
Her phone pings. She grabs it from her purse and swipes her thumb across the screen. “It’s my mom. Group text to Gigi and me. She wants to know when the printer will be finished with the menus.” She taps her chin, muttering, “They sent her the proof. I wonder why they didn’t send her the pickup information?” Her phone pings again.
She jumps in the seat, then smiles. “Oh, good! It’s Gigi being a goddess.”
“What did Goddess Gigi do?”
“Jumped in all hold my beer, I’ve got this. She’s already picked up the menus and is on her way to Sweetie Pies to laminate them while she reconciles the bookkeeping issue from first quarter that’s been giving me fits.”
“Definitely goddess behavior.”
“From henceforth, she shall be called Gigi the Goddess Superhero. In fact, let me text them back about that . . .”
She types as she reads out loud. “Once again, Gigi proves she is a goddess superhero, and that there is nothing she can’t handle.”
“Telling it like it is,” I say as we wind around another curve.
She hums beneath her breath. “Mom says, She is indeed. Together, you two are unstoppable. Sweetie Pies is in good hands with the next generation!”
Ruby winces like something from her mom’s text bothers her, but then she tucks her phone away.
“You okay?”
“Amazing.” She beams my way, but she’s not fooling anyone, let alone me.
I arch a brow and she sighs. “I don’t know . . .. Sometimes I feel bad that I don’t love the pie shop as much as my mom and dad. Or Gigi, for that matter. But that’s okay.” She shrugs. “I’m useful there, and I love helping my family. And I always find time to do my cards and other arty stuff on the side.”
I frown, skeptical. “Is that what you want?”
Ruby twirls a strand of hair around her finger, huffs softly. “I guess. Probably. Who’s to say?”
“Ruby, you’re to say.”
She deals me an apologetic smile. “Sorry, I’m trying to figure it—” She breaks off, holding up a hand with her fingers spread. “Wait. Fuck ‘sorry.’ From now on, every time I want to say sorry when I don’t have to, I’m going to say ‘unicorn sex’ instead.”
