it, but it didn’t change the fact that she was right.
Mikey came out moments later with her purse, and the guys met her at the door, giving her a hug and a little more shit for taking their money. She was all gracious smiles and warm thank you’s until the door shut, my brothers back inside, leaving us alone on the porch again.
I opened my arms. “Thank you for today. For tonight.”
But she just stared at me, her eyes filling with tears that wouldn’t shed. “Why did you have to do this?”
I frowned, letting my arms fall. “I—”
“No,” she said, shaking her head, hands clinging to the strap of her purse like a lifeline. “Everything was fine. I was fine until I met you. You’ve messed everything up.”
My brows furrowed more. “What, by reminding you that you have a choice? That you don’t have to marry someone who makes you feel this way?”
“I love him,” she spat.
“Fine. But does he love you?”
She scoffed. “Of course he does. How dare you even insinuate otherwise.”
I smirked at the word insinuate, sensing the well-to-do woman she was raised to be slipping back into place just like she always did.
Shaking my head, I put my arms up in a mock surrender. “You’re right. I’m sorry. Just forget about AmeriCorps, about school, about anything that doesn’t revolve around Anthony and his career. Clearly, you’re very happy and I was mistaken by saying anything at all. I sincerely apologize.”
I was being an asshole. I knew it, but just like I’d overstepped earlier, I couldn’t stop myself from doing so now.
I wanted her to wake up, to see what I saw.
Even if it hurt.
Ruby Grace’s bottom lip trembled a bit as she pressed it to the top, adjusting her purse on her shoulder before she growled and stormed off my porch.
“See you around?” I called after her.
My only response was one middle finger thrown my way over her shoulder.
Ruby Grace
Once again, I found myself speeding through town with the top down on my convertible, cursing Noah Becker’s name.
“Oh, the nerve of that man!” I growled, punching the gas again once I made the turn down the old road that led to my parents’ house. The warm night air whipped through my hair, little tendrils of fire red invading my vision as I drove. The radio was silent, the only noise the revving of my engine and the revving of my temper.
Noah had crossed a line. He shouldn’t have held me the way he did in the pool, with his hands on my hips, his chest so close to mine. And then on his porch, he’d stepped into my space like he owned it, like I was his and not Anthony’s.
And he’d even said it.
“If you were mine, Ruby Grace, your dreams wouldn’t come second to anything.”
My cheeks heated, a rush of blood flowing through me at the memory of my hands in his shirt, his in my hair, our lips touching just long enough to send a zip of desire through me.
I’d nearly cheated on my fiancé.
I shook my head, letting out another frustrated growl as I took the turn into my driveway.
“It wasn’t even a kiss,” I reminded myself out loud. “We got a little too close, but that was it. It was a mistake. We were just caught up in the moment.”
It would never happen again.
And I promised myself I’d stay far away from Noah Becker to ensure it.
By the time I put my car in park, punching the buttons on the consul to put the convertible top back in place, I’d made my decision. Noah was nothing more than the guy who showed me the barrel I purchased for Anthony. He wasn’t my friend, and he wasn’t someone I should lean on the way I had been.
It didn’t matter how I felt around him, or how I found myself already caring about him and his family.
He was a lightning storm, fun to watch from afar but dangerous to dance with.
I wasn’t going to toy with that line of danger.
I dragged myself out of the car, exhausted and ready for a hot shower and my bed, but the sight of a familiar car next to my dad’s truck in the driveway made me pause.
Before I could even register what that car meant, the voice that belonged to it spoke in the darkness.
“There she is.”
Anthony trotted down the steps of the front porch, his wide and brilliantly white smile visible even in the dim light of