Page 15 of True Ruin

“Mom?”

“I’m okay.” She cleared her throat and reached for another recipe, because baking was always safer than feeling. “And you still only get three Oreos.”

“I know.” He paused. “But this one broke, so technically it’s pieces.”

“Nice try.”

He grinned and went back to his book.

Gabi stared through the small window above the sink as dusk deepened toward night, the sky streaked with crimson and gold as far as she could see.

How could she get to know Dallas without falling for him?

That was the problem, not whether she wanted him.

Wanting him had become a fact, practically notarized by every ridiculous thought she’d had since leaving the mill—maybe since the first second she’d spotted him at the festival. The problem was that he came wrapped in too many treacherous things: history, intelligence, tenderness, grief, sex appeal, and away of looking at her as if she mattered. No one had ever made her feel quite soseenwithout a word spoken.

But…maybe she didn’t have to get to know him.

Maybe that was the trick.

Men separated sex from emotion all the time. They practically built entire civilizations around the concept. Surely she could manage one discreet, mutually satisfying arrangement with a man who would leave soon enough anyway.

No promises. No future. No letting him get close enough to matter.

Just want. Just heat. Justyes.

Gabi pressed her palms flat against the table, breathing through the sudden reckless lift in her chest. The next time Dallas asked, she wouldn’t step around the offer.

She’d let herself have this.

And she’d make sure it ended there.

FIVE

Do You Love Me Now–The Breeders

Four days had passedsince that day at the mill.

Not that she was counting.

Gabi had seen Dallas twice, both times from a safe distance—once as he crossed Main Street on his crutches, his head bent against the wind, and once through the front window of the Grill, where he sat alone in the lonesome booth, his notebook open before him. Both sightings had been brief. Accidental. Nothing she couldn’t handle while she worked up the nerve to make a move.

Until now.

Sam was spending the night at a friend’s, and Gabi had come to the high school production ofYou’re a Good Man, Charlie Brownbecause Wilder Grounds had donated coffee and pastries for the lobby reception. Community involvement, she’d told herself. Good for business. And also, apparently, the place to discover her crush in the shadows at the back of the auditorium. Dallas sat half-hidden beneath the balcony, a notebook balancedon one knee, a pen in his hand, his mouth set in the resigned line of a man who had survived war zones only to be assigned the theater beat.

Taking a seat near the back, Gabi tried to watch the play instead of him, but failed from the start.

During the first act, Dallas did his duty with impressive commitment, jotting notes as Charlie Brown considered the various tragedies of being Charlie Brown, the silver ring on his finger glinting in the light from the sconce beside him. Then one of the stage lights popped, sharp and sudden, cracking like a starter pistol, and he went still.

His pen froze above the page, his shoulders locked. A moment later, he reached for his crutches, rose with careful precision, and slipped through the side doors.

Gabi waited one breath before she followed him.

The hallway he’d disappeared down led to the humanities wing, an endless stretch of scuffed tile, dented lockers, and bulletin boards layered with construction-paper announcements for pep rallies and the spring blood drive. The air smelled faintly of floor wax, tempera paint, and whatever institutional cleaner Promise High had been using since approximately 1974. The sounds of the play dimmed until only the faint echo of their footsteps remained.

Gabi knew this hallway. She’d had sophomore art two doors down, cheerleading meetings in the classroom just beyond it, and one spectacularly humiliating breakup with Howie Barker beside the trophy case that she still refused to acknowledge on principle.