He shook his head. “We’d love to have you. I’m just going to go change and we can head out, grab the pizza and beer on our way. Meet you out front?”
“I’ll be right behind you.”
Noah placed his palms flat on the edge next to me, lifting his body out easily and saying one last goodbye to Betty before he made his way inside. Betty and I both watched him go, the water spilling down his back like water falling over the strongest side of a mountain, carved carefully over thousands of years.
When he disappeared through the doors, I turned back to Betty, and she was smirking at me.
“What?” I asked.
Betty’s smile climbed higher. “You sly devil. You didn’t tell me you were engaged to a Becker.”
The color drained from my face.
“You lied about him not being as handsome as Richard Gere, my dear,” she said, wagging her finger at me. “But, hell, I suppose I would have done the same. If that boy was mine, I wouldn’t want a single other woman coming onto him.”
“Betty…”
“I like him,” she said, not letting me interrupt. “He’s a good man, from a good family. He’ll treat you right, Ruby Grace.” She smiled wider, squeezing my knee where it hung off the edge. “You did good, my girl.”
My cheeks burned, because somewhere under my haste to tell her she had the wrong guy, I felt something else, something stronger.
Longing, I realized distantly.
And then I stamped it down in the same breath.
“Noah’s not my fiancé,” I explained with a gentle smile. “We’re just friends.”
Betty frowned. “Friends?”
I nodded, but Betty’s eyes drifted over my shoulder. When I followed her gaze, I saw Noah through the pool fence waiting for me in the parking lot, his hands shoved in his pockets, back leaned against his old, beat-up truck. I felt Betty watching me, but I couldn’t hide the blush on my cheeks, the bob of my throat as I swallowed.
A few feet from the pool, my phone vibrated on my towel, screen lighting up with Anthony’s name — with the picture of us that I loved so much.
Betty eyed it with me, and when I turned back to her, she just lifted one silver eyebrow. “Are you sure about that?”
Noah
Dad was still on my mind as I watched Ruby Grace hustle my brothers in poker that night.
We were all gathered around my folding table in the middle of my modest home, Sturgill Simpson on the stereo, two half-eaten boxes of pizza propped open on the kitchen counter behind us. My house was the one most “in town” between me and my brothers, just a few blocks off the Main Street drag on the south side. Jordan’s house was ten minutes out of town, to the west, and Logan’s was northeast, a little farther out than Mom’s.
I still couldn’t be sure if we’d meant to surround Mom’s house the way we did, flanking her on all sides, or if we’d done it subconsciously. Either way, none of us were more than twenty minutes from each other, and we were all less than ten from Mom’s.
My house was the closest to beer and pizza, however, which meant it was the prime choice for poker night.
It was pretty standard for my brothers and me to get together sometime during the weekend to play cards.
Ruby Grace, however, was a new addition.
“That’s bullshit!” Logan yelled, thrusting his cards forward. They fluttered over the massive pot he and Ruby Grace had built up during the hand, and he sulked further when she reached forward with a grin to rake it all in.
“Don’t hate the player, Logan.”
“I hate the cheater,” he said, folding his arms over his chest.
“I don’t even have sleeves to hide cards,” she pointed out, gesturing to her toned, tanned arms. “Come on, now. Beckers aren’t sore losers, are they?”
“Don’t let his little boy actions speak for all of us,” Jordan chimed in. He was being a good sport with our new guest at the table, but I didn’t miss the questioning glances he shot me over his cards the whole night.
Logan stuck his tongue out, but then smirked, shaking his head and gathering the cards for his turn to deal. “You didn’t warn us that you were bringing a shark to the table tonight, Noah.”
I shrugged. “Ruby Grace is full of surprises.”
Her eyes caught mine, then, my brothers picking up the conversation around us as we stared. Her smile was soft and sweet, the blush on her