“It does, actually. You just never know.”
“Of course it does.”
They stood there, the waning evening light slanting through the window between them. She became hyperaware of the space separating them, maybe two feet, close enough to notice the way Ruby's pupils dilated slightly. The way she swallowed, her throat moving.
If she wanted to, she could close that distance in one step and find out if Ruby's skin was as soft as it looked, if her lips were as warm.
And that was exactly why she needed to move.
Celeste took a deliberate step back. “I'm going to use the bathroom and freshen up.”
She grabbed her toiletry bag and escaped before Ruby could respond, closing the bathroom door and leaning against it. Her entire body was shaking.
The reflection in the mirror looked flushed, like someone on the edge of making a terrible mistake.
Get it together,she told herself firmly.
But her heart wouldn't listen. It continued hammering against her ribs and kept reminding her of how close Ruby had been. How easy it would be to just—
No.
Celeste turned on the faucet, splashing cold water on her face. The shock of it helped with grounding her back in reality.
She couldn't let herself feel what she was feeling. Because Ruby was everything Celeste couldn't have. She'd seen what happened when people like her came out and the accompanying disappointment. The shame.
Her family loved her, but that love came with conditions she'd always met. The successful daughter, the devoted mother and respectable lawyer. Everything they'd sacrificed for, everything they'd dreamed she could become.
If she came out, she'd lose all of the pride and trust they had in her. The twins would grow up seeing their family fracture, watching their mother become the subject of whispered conversations and pitying looks.
They would already have to put up with the judgement from less open-minded people because their father was gay. To have their mother come out as a lesbian on top of it would be cruel to them. And her family? They already judged Braden for his decision to come out. Well, that wasn’t fair.
They judged him because they believed he had betrayed her, but at the end of the day, the result was the same. If she also came out, it would make an already complicated situation much, much worse.
She couldn't do that to them. To any of them.
Even if Ruby was interested—which was a massive assumption—what could Celeste offer her? A relationship that could never be acknowledged, never be real?
Ruby deserved better than that. She deserved someone who could love her openly and without fear.
And Celeste wasn't that person. She didn't know how to become that person.
She looked at herself in the mirror, at the lines of tension around her eyes and the tightness in her jaw.
Stop,she told her heart, which was still thrumming with want and hope and dangerous possibility.What you want can never happen.
Chapter Eight
Ruby
Ruby stared at the closed bathroom door, willing herself to stop replaying the last couple of minutes like some lovesick teenager.
What the hell had that been, the closeness between them? That was flirting, wasn't it? Except it hadn't felt calculated or intentional. It had just happened. Like her mouth and body operated independently of her brain whenever Celeste was within a five-foot radius.
This was a problem. A big, complicated, absolutely terrible problem.
Because between Cheyenne Valley and this tiny room above an antique store, Ruby had increasingly found herself drawn to Celeste Russo. A draw that made her chest ache, her thoughts scatter and her usual confidence evaporate like morning dew.
She'd always been drawn to people who challenged her, who made her work for their attention. But this felt different. Deeper. Like Celeste had reached within and rearranged something fundamental inside her without even trying.
