Page 65 of Nash
"He does not," Maggie says, and the quiet pride in her voice makes my chest ache.
"We got married eleven months later." Maggie smooths her hands over her knees. The room goes quiet. When she speaks again, her voice is softer. "We always wanted kids. Tried for years. It just didn't happen for us." She looks around the room. At Candace. At Darla with her belly. Then Sloane with her hand resting on her own. Me. Amelia. At Frankie on the floor with her wine. "Then James brought me here. And I got all of you."
The silence holds. My eyes sting.
Darla reaches across the couch and takes Maggie's hand. "You're going to be a grandma soon. You know that, right?"
Sloane puts her hand on her own belly, barely showing. "Twice over."
Maggie's chin trembles. Just once. She presses her lips together and looks across the room to the bar side where James is sitting with his tea. He's already looking at her. The look that passes between them carries thirty years of Tuesday hydrangeas, empty nurseries, and a house that filled up anyway.
James lifts his mug. Maggie lifts her wineglass. They drink at the same time without saying a word.
Amelia is laughing now. Her whole face open, her shoulders down, leaning into Candace's side. She belongs here. She just didn't know it yet.
Candace catches my eye across the room. Her gaze holds mine, steady, quiet, the kind of look that says everything without opening her mouth.
"Ruby. Come help me get more ice."
We walk to the kitchen, around the corner from the main room. Close enough to hear the laughter, far enough that our voices won't carry. Candace leans against the counter and crosses her arms.
"Talk to me."
"About what? The ice? It's in the freezer. Mystery solved."
"Ruby."
"I'm fine."
"You've been fine for a week. You've been so fine that Frankie texted me, which means Frankie is worried. Which means you're not fine because Frankie doesn't worry about people who are actually fine."
I open the freezer. Pull out the ice tray. Focus on cracking the cubes.
"It's Nash," Candace says.
The ice tray cracks. My hands are still.
"I can see it. You stopped leaning into him on the bike. Stopped stealing his food. You stopped aiming the jokes at him." She pauses. "He's walking around like a man who lost something and can't figure out where he put it."
"He didn't lose anything. He made a choice."
"What choice?"
The ice cubes sit in the tray, cracked but not falling. I press one with my thumb.
"He kissed me." The words come out quiet. "A week ago. In my hallway. And it was—" I stop. Breathe. "It was everything, Candace. The kind of kiss that rewrites your whole operating system. Then he pulled back. Three days of nothing. Like it didn't happen."
"Did you ask him why?"
"I didn't need to. I saw—" My throat tightens. "I saw him with someone. At the fight circuit. A woman. Naya. The headband onhis wrist is hers, and he was standing with her in a back hallway pressing it while he looked at her. She touched his arm like she's done it a thousand times."
Candace is quiet for a long moment.
"Ruby." Her voice is careful. "Do you know who Naya is?"
"I know she's beautiful. She fights. He goes to see her. The headband belongs to her. He pulled back from me because of her."
"That's what you think happened?"
