that she didn’t see that as an option anymore. That night, I had left it alone. But tonight, I wanted to probe. “What happened?”
She sighed, finally pulling away from where I held her and leaning her hip against the railing. “Well, Annie found Trav. They got married, she’s pregnant now. She never did go to UNC. And I… well…” She held up her left hand, pointing to the rock on the third finger.
I nodded. “Yeah. I mean, I know it’d be a little different without Annie, but you could still go. Right?”
She scoffed. “Of course not. I’m getting married.”
“I guess I just don’t understand what that has to do with anything.”
“It has everything to do with all of it,” she said, flustered. “I’ll be a wife. A politician’s wife. I have new duties now, new things expected of me.”
“And would your new husband not understand if you wanted to chase your own dreams for a while?” I countered. “It wouldn’t be forever. Why can’t you have what you want while giving him what he wants, too?”
She shook her head. “You don’t understand.”
“Oh, I think I understand just fine.”
I stepped into her space, and before I could think better of it, my hand touched her arm, sliding up to her neck, her jaw, until I slipped my fingers in the soft strands of her hair and framed her face, tilting her gaze toward me again.
“You deserve to have the things you’ve dreamed about, Ruby Grace,” I said. “And when you marry someone, you become a team. It’s not all about him and his dreams and his achievements. You are not just a sidekick.”
I paused, licking my bottom lip as I considered my next words. Ruby Grace’s eyes were soft, wide, almost a little scared as she watched me.
“You are the heroine just as much as he is the hero,” I reminded her. “And if he loves you, he will support you and your dreams just as you’ve supported his and will continue to in the future.”
She leaned into my touch, eyes fluttering shut before they opened slowly again. “You make it all sound so easy,” she whispered. “So simple.”
“With the right person, it is,” I told her. I swallowed, glancing at her lips before I found her gaze again. “If you were mine, Ruby Grace, your dreams wouldn’t come second to anything.”
It was an overstep I didn’t mean to make.
The words came out before I even realized what I was saying, and now, it was too late to go back. There was a line between us, one we never had to draw because that ring on her finger had drawn it for us the first day she came back into town. But there on my porch, in the soft, cool, Tennessee summer night, those rules didn’t seem to apply.
We were in another universe altogether, and in this one, that ring on her finger didn’t exist.
I hadn’t even realized her hands were on me, not until they fisted in my t-shirt at my abdomen, pulling me closer. My hand in her hair gripped a little harder, her eyes on my lips, mine on hers until we were so close I couldn’t even see them anymore. Our breaths met in the space between, hot and heavy with words we wouldn’t say.
Her lips parted.
Mine grazed hers, eliciting the sweetest gasp.
But before I could connect the kiss, before I could pull her in, feel her melt into my arms, the front door swung open.
Ruby Grace jumped back, folding her arms over the railing and looking out over the yard like she had been before. I looked up at the awning over my porch, suppressing a groan as Mikey bounded out, completely oblivious.
“Two root beer floats,” he announced proudly, handing me two Mason jars filled to the top with the frothy vanilla ice cream and soda mixture. “And Ruby Grace, we demand a double-or-nothing rematch.”
She finally turned toward us, her smile weak.
She wouldn’t look at me at all.
“Thank you, Mikey, but I actually have to run. I didn’t realize how late it was. Would you mind grabbing my purse?”
He shrugged — again, completely oblivious. “Sure! Be right back.”
When Mikey dipped inside, I sat the floats down on the table by the rocking chairs before turning back to her. “You’re leaving?”
She still wouldn’t look at me.
“I think we both know it’s for the best.”
Her words twisted like a knife in my chest, but I didn’t have any words to say to make her stay.