I hadn’t even considered what Levi would do or think. Other than my initial guilt over sleeping with Logan on the same night I kissed Levi, I hadn’t considered his feelings.
Besides, he’d been gone since Logan’s death. He went to college and just… never came back home.
I guess I assumed he would never come home, that he was out of my life forever.
That I would never have to have this conversation.
But here he was. Standing in front of me and talking about that night. The night we kissed.
“What’s your point?” I asked him. The sky had grown even darker in the minutes we’d been standing here. The twinkly lights danced behind him, but his face was cast in shadow. “We kissed. One time. A lot of years ago.”
He shoved his hands into his pockets and shifted on his feet. “We just never talked about it,” he said.
Knowing I was being over the top with my bitchiness, but unable to stop myself, I said, “What’s there to say? Look, Levi, you’ve been gone for a long time. I hope you didn’t think I was going to wait around for you or something.” Letting my eyes grow wide and dramatic, I added, “I hope you weren’t waiting around for me.”
His shoulders straightened, and he turned his head to the side, giving me a view of his strong, ticking jaw. This was how he’d act when he used to get mad at me when we were kids. Even in elementary school, I remembered him looking away, the muscle in his jaw popping as he thought up what to say. “God, Ruby, no, I just—”
“There you are,” his mom’s breathy voice called from a few feet away. “We’ve been looking for you.”
Levi and I instinctively took a step apart, like we’d been caught doing something untoward. Even though I’d backed up too, I couldn’t help but be irritated at how quickly he wanted to distance himself from me in front of his parents.
He turned to face Darcy with a charming smile on his face and his shoulders relaxed. “Hi, Mom.”
She stepped up to him and gave him a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Is this where you want to eat?”
“Sure,” he said with a smile. “And I wanted to say hi to Ruby. Mom, you remember Ruby, don’t you?”
Darcy Cole turned her gaze on me as if only just noticing my presence. Her shrewd green eyes gave me a fast once over, determining my measure. Finding me lacking. “I don’t think we’ve had the pleasure.”
I wouldn’t call it a pleasure, but I’d only met Levi’s parents about a hundred times since kindergarten. “Levi and I went to school together,” I told her, forcing a smile.
“Oh, of course,” she said, her small smile just as strained as mine. “That was so long ago. I have trouble keeping track of his classmates.” She turned and waved her husband Rich forward. Where Darcy was all fashionable socialite in a khaki skirt and pale blue sweater set, her husband, Rich, was the quintessential cowboy—a crisp pair of Cinch jeans, shiny cowboy boots, a dress shirt with pearlized snaps and a big ass cowboy hat. They looked like they belonged in the glossy pages of some magazine called “Cowboy Couture” or something like that. “You work here though? My son would like to eat here, we’ll need a table for three.”
“Mom,” Levi laughed patiently. “Why don’t you go find the hostess and I’ll say goodbye to Ruby.”
Another quick up and down from Mrs. Darcy Cole before she nodded politely. “I can do that.”
“Thank you.”
“Come on, Rich. Levi’s in the middle of saying goodbye.”
I stared at his parents’ backs as they walked through the seating area and tried not to bubble over with irritation. The way Darcy Cole talked about me was beyond degrading, like I was some play thing they were forced to wait for Levi to finish with.
“If it makes you feel any better, she treats every female like that.”
My head whipped around, and I turned the full force of my glare on Levi. “It doesn’t make me feel better.”
“She’s impossible,” Levi continued, clueless. “Nobody is good enough for her. Her standards for me are beyond ludicrous. It’s like ever since Logan, she’s been completely obsessed with finding the right genetic match for me to carry on the Cole family name.”
His casual mention of Logan’s passing sucked the wind from my sails. “She doesn’t have to worry about me,” I murmured, more to myself than the man in front of me.
He focused on me again. “Anyway, I’m sorry if she seemed rude.”
“It’s fine,” I told him. And it was. I refused to let people like Darcy Cole walk into my life and try to make me feel useless. I was nothing to her, but that was fine because she was nothing to me too.
“I’d like to catch up with you sometime, Ruby,” Levi said softly, changing topics completely. “Dinner, maybe?”
My heart jumped in my chest and butterflies fluttered on cobwebbed wings. His eyes were so green in this light, his body so big and muscled and… imposing. Again, that urge surfaced, to run my hand over his head just to see what it felt like and then over his stubbled jaw.
