My head was buzzing. It had been all afternoon. I still didn’t quite comprehend that Tate had asked me out. More like demanded I go out with him. But he had done so in such an epic way that he’d also somehow managed to get Mac to leave me alone for the rest of the day.
And then there was that hug. It was just a hug, but damn, he felt good. His body was hard and strong. He didn’t seem to mind that I’d squished up against him. He had wrapped his arms around me and held me. It was wonderful. Would have been more wonderful if Mac hadn’t been there.
I hadn’t stopped thinking about it for the rest of the day. It was a lovely daydream of what could have been if Mac hadn’t been there. I could have happily chatted away with Tate as I wiped down the booths and tables. But he had a life, unlike Mac who seemed to be working full-time at annoying me. Normally, the walk home after work would clear my mind of the day’s stressors, but everything swirled together in my mind this evening.
I knew what Mac wanted. He had waited a year, told me he waited out of respect for my parents before he started asking me to live with him. At first, I thought he was offering to take me and Ruby in, like adopted children. That’s not what he meant, and I had been dodging his advances ever since.
I didn’t want to think of Mac, not when Tate was a much more interesting prospect. He was tall and handsome, and his smile did something squirmy to my insides. And I realized I hadn’t told him I couldn’t date while I had to care for Ruby, an excuse I had repeated often to Mac.
I unlocked the door to the apartment. The TV was too loud. Ruby was home.
“Is your homework finished?” I called out over the noise.
She picked up the remote from where she sat on the floor. We had perfectly good furniture. Actually, we had really good furniture. Mom had good taste and they had been able to afford quality. But Ruby seemed to prefer the floor.
“All done,” she answered.
“Even with the make-up work?”
“Yes.” She sounded so annoyed. “I went to the library after school, did everything there.”
I put my purse on the little table behind the couch and hung my coat on the hook by the door.
“If I ask you to show me…”
“Seriously? Kenzie, I did the work. It’s in my backpack in my room. If you need to go look through my things, screw you. I bet Mom didn’t look through your stuff!” She turned the TV up again.
She couldn’t have been too mad at me. She didn’t storm off into her room and shut the door.
I sat on the couch behind her.
“No, Mom didn’t go through my stuff. I’m sorry. I’m trying here, Ruby. School is important. I just want you to have the best possible opportunities in life.”
“I’m in the eighth grade. I don’t have opportunities,” Ruby mumbled.
“You do, you just don’t know it yet. The study habits you form today will help you get through high school with the best grades possible.”
“And I need good grades so I can get scholarships, yeah, I know.” Ruby let out a long sigh.
“I don’t want you to get stuck in this town like me.”
She picked up the remote and turned the TV down again, but she didn’t look at me.
“You mean stuck with me.”
Fuck. I was saying everything all wrong. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it. I meant stuck working in a fast-food restaurant with creepy old men hitting on you and not understanding that no means no, and not try harder.”
“What if I like it here? What if I want to be a ski instructor and stay in Flat Rock?”
I flopped back into the cushions. “I want you to have the choice to stay if that’s what you want. I want you to have the opportunities I didn’t.”
“What do you want, Kenzie?”
I didn’t think Ruby realized just how loaded that question was. What I wanted now was so very different from what I wanted at her age or when I was nineteen.
At thirteen, Ruby was just about one year old. I wanted a little sister I could play with, one who could talk and walk and be interested in playing dress-up. I wanted a living doll. Instead, I had a baby sister who took all of Mom’s attention, who was fussy and cried, and who was not potty trained. At nineteen, I wanted my parents back. I wanted to take classes at Shasta College so that I could transfer to Sacramento State and finish a degree in fashion. I didn’t have big New York or LA dreams, but I did once upon a time dream about owning my own little sewing boutique. I got my sewing machine when I was fifteen. I barely used it anymore except to hem things. Now, I couldn’t even get a full-time job at the local bridal shop.
“I want Mac to leave me alone.”
“Really? Cause I thought you’d want to go shopping for a new dress,” Ruby said.
I stared at the back of her head in confusion. She twisted around and smirked at me. She had a distinctive mischievous sparkle in her eye.
“What do you think you know that I don’t?” I asked.
She practically jumped as she spun around and sat on the couch next to me. “I heard that someone in this room has a date for Valentine’s Day.”
“How in the hell do you know that?”
Ruby was giggling now, all animosity of our previous discussion forgotten. Flat Rock was a small town, and gossip spread fast, but there was no way that Ruby…
“Did you run into Tate today?” I asked.
“Yeah, so?”
“What did he tell you?” I was convinced that’s how Ruby knew. How else would she have found out?
“Let’s see. He gave me a ride to the library and said he knew where you worked. I didn’t tell him, I promise. Oh, and he said the nurse kept him out at the hospital. Did he say he was sorry?”
I nodded. “Yeah, he apologized. And yes, he found me at work.”
“So it’s true? He came in like some kind of superhero and told Mac to fuck off?”
“Ruby, language!”
She pressed her lips shut and grimaced. “Sorry.”
“You’re hanging out with Jake, aren’t you? He cusses too much. You know I don’t want you using language like that.”
“Kenzie, it’s not just Jake. It’s everyone. Everyone cusses.” She tried to weasel out of being in trouble.
“Not everyone, not you. You’re cleaning the dishes after dinner tonight. No arguments.”
I pushed to my feet. I stepped into the small kitchen to see what we would be having for dinner. It looked like another chicken casserole with macaroni and cheese night.
“Sorry I dropped the F-bomb, but did that really happen?” Ruby asked, following me into the kitchen.
“Yes, Tate came in. I don’t know what he said to Mac, but it seemed to work. Who told you?”
“I stopped by on my way home from the library. Latisha filled me in. She said there was practically a fight over you in the parking lot.”
“Latisha is exaggerating. They didn’t fight. Besides, that would be really stupid for Mac to try anything. I mean, Tate is so much bigger than him.”
“He’s kind of cute too. I mean, he’s got that same look of all the actors you like.”
“You think Tate is cute?” I asked.
“No.” Ruby dragged the word out into several syllables. “You think he’s hot. I’m just saying he looks like you would like him. So, are you going out with him or not?”
“Yes and no. He asked me out for Valentine’s Day, but I said no, but—”
“You’re going to go out with him not on Valentine’s Day,” Ruby finished for me.
I nodded and ran water into a pot. “What veggies do we have in the freezer?”
“California blend and broccoli,” she answered.
“Pick one,” I said.
I held out my hand. She placed the bag of the frozen blend with carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower into my hand. I set it on the counter next to the box of noodles and the can of chicken.
“So, if you’re going out with Tate, you still need a new dress to wear.”
“I can’t afford new clothes right now. My checks in February are always short, so we have to be careful.”
“You could use my money. My check is always the same,” Ruby said.
“I appreciate the offer, but your Social Security check is for rent, not clothes I don’t need.”
“But you need a new dress,” she practically whined at me.
I needed a lot, and a nice new dress to go out with Tate in would have been wonderful, but it wasn’t in my budget.
“Why are you so obsessed with my getting a new dress?”
“That’s how it works on TV, you get asked out on a date and you suddenly need a new wardrobe,” Ruby said. She was right. On TV, a date was an excuse to go to the mall and have a complete wardrobe remodel.
“When a TV show starts paying for our new clothes, that’s when I’ll go shopping,” I said. Being responsible and on a budget was boring.
