Ruth stared blankly. Marjaana stared back, but Ruth could do this all day, and would if necessary.
Apparently realising that fact, Marjaana sighed. “If he’s a friend, and you trust him, why don’t you tell him how you feel? What you’re thinking? Talk it through?”
The mere idea of discussing emotions and issues and all that shit made Ruth feel like she was suffocating. “I can’t. I just—I can’t.” She swallowed. “These past two years—I thought I’d figured things out. I thought I was okay. But now this is happening, and my head is all over the place, and I’m starting to wonder if I ever really dealt with things at all.”
“Well, let me help you out with that,” Marjaana said dryly. “You didn’t.”
“I tried.”
Marjaana gave her a hard look. “You didn’t. You accepted a hell of a lot of shit and told yourself that you deserved it. That’s not dealing.”
“Oh, stop. Less counselling, more seduction tips.”
Marjaana snorted. “Tell me something else: how long have you been into this guy?”
Ruth wanted to say Since the day we met, but that wasn’t strictly true. There was a difference between the desire she’d felt when she’d first laid eyes on Evan Miller and the way she felt now.
A big difference.
“I don’t know. Barely any time at all, really.”
“But how often do you see him?”
“Every day.”
Marjaana paused, her perfect brows flying up towards her hairline. “Seriously?”
Ruth shifted, suddenly uncomfortable. Her gaze crept away from the phone towards a particularly interesting pencil, lying on the floor. “Yeah. Except Sundays.”
“And you’re not sick of him?”
Sick of him? If it was up to her, he’d stay all night. He’d never leave. She had to force herself to give him the option—and thanked God that he always took it.
“No,” she admitted. “I’m not sick of him.”
“Then, honestly, I think you’re overthinking this.”
Shocker. Ruth Kabbah, overthinking.
“It sounds like you really like him,” Marjaana said. “And I think he must like you. Only, he’s not going to do anything after you told him to stop. Maybe you should give him a signal.”
Ruth shrugged, feeling suddenly tired. She had no idea how to give him a signal. She didn’t know if she even wanted to. The thought of touching Evan was fantastic, but the thought of what she’d have to do to get to that point…
It was just too hard. Too risky. Too stressful. Too much.
“Maybe,” she hedged. “I mean, you’re probably right. I’m thinking too much. Let’s change the subject.”
Marjaana arched a brow. “Okay. Are you gonna tell me what the hell you’re doing with this Blazing Glory arc?”
Ruth managed a smile as she thought of the latest plot-twist in her space opera web comic. If even Marjaana was unsure, she was doing something right.
“You can’t guess what happens next?” she teased. “You always guess.”
“My first thought was that Lita and Rose might get together during the mission. But then I thought, if that happened, you’d kill B-9 off within a couple episodes, and I know you wouldn’t do that to me…” Marjaana squinted at the screen. “Would you? Would you do that to me?”
“I’m not telling. You have to guess.”
“But I never know when I’ve guessed right! Your poker face is unbeatable.”
It wasn’t a poker face. But if the lack of expression that made people so bloody uncomfortable helped protect Blazing Glory plotlines—well, good.
“Just guess,” Ruth prodded. “You always get it right.”
“But I never know until you release the next episode!”
“That’s the point!”
“You’re a torturer. Lita and Matthias?”
Ruth shrugged, giving her most enigmatic smirk. She’d practiced it in the mirror. Hannah said it looked like she had gas, but Hannah was probably jealous of Ruth’s mystery.
“Oh, honey,” Marjaana winced. “Are you okay?”
Ruth blinked. “Yeah. Why?”
“You looked like you were in pain for a sec there.”
With a huff, Ruth turned the phone’s camera to the ceiling and flopped over onto her back.
12
Over just a few weeks, Ruth and Evan had managed to establish a routine.
He’d come home from work, and she’d hear his front door slam. Most days, he went for a run, and when he came back she’d hear the pipes of his shower clunk. Soon after, he’d turn up with dinner. She’d let him in with faux reluctance, and they’d talk shit for the next two hours. Or three. Or however long it took her to regain her senses and kick him out.
Ruth was aware that, as they said in American films, she had a good thing going. She rarely had