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“Lexi…” Ruby rushes over to me and places her hand on mine. I’m so eager for the contact that I don’t even care about the flour spreading over me. “What’s wrong?”
“Who said anything’s wrong?” I whisper.
She tsks. “You can’t fool me. I’ve got special pregnancy mind-reading powers, remember?”
I laugh, remembering the first time she said that with that classic Ruby look on her face. She’s always so optimistic, even when things get dark, so upbeat, trying to make everybody around her happier. “Even if you’re not pregnant anymore?”
“Yep, they’re lingering!”
“I guess I just needed to see you, kid.”
She takes my arm and leads me into the house. Soft music greets me from the kitchen. Ruby speaks quietly. “Lexy is sleeping.”
I smile at the emphasis she places on the y. We’ve all been doing that. I’m Lexi, and she’s Lex-eeeeeeeee. Mom thinks that will be her first words because we all say it to her so much.
In the kitchen, there’s a laptop open on the counter, showing a recipe.
“Easier to read than a journal article?” I ask.
Ruby rolls her eyes. “I wish. It’s more complicated, somehow.”
“So why do it?”
Now she looks at me like I’m crazy. “You really are in a mood, aren’t you? Has Mom been getting on your nerves?”
I should’ve known that Ruby could read my mood even through my tone, nothing else. She’s got that sort of ability and always has. Over the years, I’ve had to be careful not to let out too much when the conversation veers to dark places, like Ralph and the humiliation.
Ruby walks around the kitchen island and places her hand on my arm. “What’s going on, Lexi? And don’t say, Nothing, kid.”
“Colt said he wants a family with me.”
I blurt it out, watching as Ruby’s face registers the news. It seems to happen in slow motion, her eyebrows creasing, eyes narrowed as she tries to work out who and what I’m talking about. Then she smiles. That’s her first response—a big grin spreading across her face.
“I knew you wanted him. So you’ve been having a fling, have you?”
“You’re not mad?”
“Mad? What? Why?”
“I don’t know… for not telling you.”
She squeezes my arm. “I just want you to be happy. I understand you’re different from me. You need your own company, your own headspace. I mean… I did, too.”
She’s referring to the photo the congressman’s son took, the sick things he tried to use to bully and blackmail her. “Sometimes, we have to fight our own battles,” I murmur.
“So what happened? When did it start? And he wants a family? What did you say?”
We move into the living room, and I tell her everything, minus the Ralph stuff. I still can’t bring myself to do that. Maybe when he’s in jail and can’t cause any more problems, I’ll be able to then, before he can brag about it as some warped, messed-up revenge.
“I thought he would hate me for lying about a stalker. It’s so messed up that I did that, but now we’re close, Ruby. Way closer than we have any right to be.”
“Yep, yep,” Ruby says, nodding with an almost dopey smile.
“Why do I feel you’re thinking about some pretty crazy things?”
“It just makes sense, Lexi. Scarlet, me, you… We all found the men for us. None of us had to doubt it. I’m telling you. We’re all sources, every one of us, contributing to a hypothesis that’s hard to ignore.”
“Okay, lay your academic take on me,” I say.
“Fate is pushing us together,” Ruby beams.
I shrug. “I’m not sure I’d go that far, and honestly, the way we left things doesn’t feel like fate. It doesn’t feel like that was supposed to happen. He looked so sure one second, and then it was like he wanted me to go.”
“Do you want a family with him?” Ruby asks.
Before I can answer—it’s like my namesake saves me—Lexy starts crying over the baby monitor. Ruby gives me a knowing look. “Don’t say it,” I tell her, and she mimes, sealing her lips shut. We both know she was about to start more of that fate talk.
“Come on,” Ruby says. “She’ll want to see her aunt.”
We head upstairs together. Ruby picks Lexy up from her crib and then brings her over. I’m always so stunned by how tiny she is, her small hands, her tiny heart beating in her little body. It melts some part of me—a part meant to be hard.
“You don’t need to answer the question,” Ruby says, her hands clasped to her chest. “You’ve never held her like this before.”
“Like what?” I whisper, my voice hoarse.
Lexy moans softly. She’s not crying anymore as I hug her closer to my chest. The love pours from me, and I can’t help but imagine the love I’d feel if she were my child. Something deep inside aches.
