Page 86 of Nash
"And if she finds out before you're ready?" East asks.
"She won't."
East holds my gaze but doesn't push it.
"She's stronger than you think, son," James says from his chair. "Trust her with it."
I don't answer. Knox closes the laptop, and Malachi stands.
The ride back to Ruby's apartment is quiet. The air is warm, streetlights coming on, the town settling into evening. Rider's bike is at the curb and he nods when I pass. I take the stairs two at a time, and the deadbolt turns from the inside before I reach the door.
Ruby opens it barefoot, still in my shirt, her hair pulled up, a wooden spoon in one hand.
"You're early," she says.
"I'm on time."
"You said eight. It's seven-forty-five. That's early. I'm making a thing about it because you being early means you wanted to get back to me, and I need you to know I noticed."
I step inside, grip the back of her neck, and pull her against me. My arms tighten around her until there's no space left. The wooden spoon presses into my back where her hand wraps around me. She smells like garlic, tomatoes, and vanilla; I breathe her in until my lungs ache.
"How was the clubhouse?" she asks against my chest.
"Fine."
"Fine as in fine, or fine as in you're carrying something and you're not ready to talk about it?"
I press my lips into her hair. She doesn't push. She holds me, her hand steady on my back, the wooden spoon still in her grip, and gives me the silence I need without asking for anything in return.
"The second one," I say.
She pulls back and searches my face, reading whatever she finds there.
"Okay," she says. "Soup's in ten minutes. You can carry it through dinner. But Nash?"
"Yeah."
"When you're ready to put it down, I'm right here."
She holds my eyes for three seconds. Then she turns back to the stove, wooden spoon in hand.
"I should warn you," she says over her shoulder. "I made soup. From scratch. It might be terrible. If it's terrible, you have to eat it anyway because I spent an hour on it and my ego is fragile."
"Your ego is the least fragile thing about you."
"That's hurtful. That's deeply hurtful. I'm going to put extra salt in your bowl." She stirs the pot. "Also, I ate half the gummy worms. The sour ones. While you were gone. I regret nothing. Well, I regret approximately nothing. I regret the last four because my tongue is numb, but the first twelve were phenomenal."
"You counted them?"
"I always count candy, Nash. That's just responsible consumption."
She ladles soup into two bowls, sets mine on the table, and sits across from me. Her bare foot finds my ankle underneath. She picks up her spoon, takes a bite, and her face goes through a complicated journey.
"It's not terrible," she says. "It's aggressively okay. Frankie would be horrified."
"It's good."
"You don't have to lie."
