Page 87 of Nash
"I'm not lying."
"Your jaw does a thing when you lie. I've been cataloging it. I have data." She points her spoon at me. "Eat your soup, Nashville."
I eat. She watches me eat, her chin propped on her hand, her foot tracing circles against my ankle.
"So Kyle texted the group chat," she says. "All caps. WHERE IS MY CLIPBOARD. Question mark, question mark, exclamation point. Like someone stole a national treasure." She takes a bite of soup. "I have it. I stole it during girls' night. It's in my bag right now. I'm never giving it back. I'm going to start carrying it around and issuing my own citations. Ruby Leighton, Department of Emotional Chaos, Badge Number Two. I outrank him."
"You stole a grown man's clipboard."
"I stole a Prank War Compliance Officer's badge of office. There's a difference. This is a coup, Nash. A hostile takeover. I am now the regulatory authority." She waves her spoon at me. "He's going to lose his mind when he finds out. I'm going to let him suffer for at least three more days before I tell him. Maybe four. Maybe I'll make him file a formal request for its return. In triplicate."
My mouth pulls. She catches it, and the grin that spreads across her face stays. This time it doesn't stop.
She talks with her hands, soup spoon punctuating every point, her hair falling out of the knot she tied it in, my shirt slipping off one shoulder. Bright. Loud. Aimed at me.
Her father's name sits behind my eyes. The man who raised this woman. The man who taught her she wasn't too much. If what I learned tonight is true, telling her will change the way she sees him forever.
Ruby catches my expression shifting. She reaches across the table and takes my hand.
"Hey," she says. "Stay with me."
I look at her hand over mine. Her fingers laced through my fingers. The freckles on her knuckles.
"I'm right here," I say.
Chapter 21
Ruby
Nashishidingsomethingabout my father.
I've known since he walked through my door last night and gripped the back of my neck like I was the only solid thing in his world. His arms tightened around me until I couldn't tell where the leather ended and his skin began. He sat across from me at dinner, carrying something behind his eyes that he wouldn't put down, and I gave him space because he asked for it without asking.
But I'm Ruby Leighton. I don't let things go. I file them, cross-reference them, and build a case while pretending I'm not paying attention.
The way my father flinched at Naya's name during the cookout. How Nash watched him across the picnic table, cataloging something I couldn't read. Nash coming home last night from a war room session looking like a man who had just confirmed something he wished he hadn't, and the way his eyes moved over my face like he was memorizing it before something changed.
The pieces are assembling themselves, and the picture they're forming has my father's face in it.
I shove it down. Not because I don't want to see it. Because Nash said he'd tell me when he was ready, and I trust him enough to hold the file open without sealing the verdict.
Besides, there's something else I plan to focus on this morning.
Nash is in my kitchen making coffee in gray sweatpants and no shirt. The tattoos wrapping his ribs catch the morning light. I've decided this is more important than federal conspiracy theories.
"I've been thinking," I say from the doorway.
"That's dangerous."
"Rude. Accurate, but rude." I cross to the counter and lean against it, close enough that my hip brushes his. "I've been thinking about Vesper."
His hand pauses on the coffee pot. Just for a second. Then he pours.
"What about Vesper?"
"You have a membership, but you've never used it. You said you were waiting." I take the mug he offers and wrap both hands around it. "I want to know what it's like."
"You want to know what Vesper is like."
