“Glad the idea of a date has you so excited.” Shutting the door, I follow her inside.
“I have cramps from hell.” She’s curled into a tight ball on the couch, tea and paracetamol covering her coffee table.
“Okay,” I say, drawing out the word. Some things I don’t need to know. But Ruby looks bloody miserable. “Can I do anything to help?”
She peeks one eye up at me. “Are you really asking, or are you trying to play it cool, but actually don’t want to help me?”
“I’m trying to help. I don’t have the first fecking clue how to help, so you need to tell me.”
“Ice cream. I need ice cream and a new heating pad because mine is broken.” She tosses it off the sofa in a huff.
“And does one store sell both of those things?” I stand, grabbing a blanket and tucking her in.
“Pharmacy should have them.” Ruby gives me a weak smile.
“Ice cream and heating pad. I’m on it.” I drop a kiss to her forehead before I’m grabbing her keys off the hook and walking out the door.
Helping Ruby shouldn’t be that hard, right?
“What all did you get?”Ruby sits up when I push my way back into her house. Three bags fill my arms. “How many stores did you go to?”
I drop everything in the kitchen and grab the two most important things. “Do you know how hard this stuff is to find? One store didn’t have heating pads. The other had only one kind of ice cream. Then I thought, what if you wanted biscuits? Or crisps? I didn’t want you to be stranded with nothing to eat.”
Ruby’s face softens as she reaches for me. I hand her the ice cream, but she sets it down in front of her. “Come here.”
I walk to her, sitting on the edge of the sofa. “Did I get everything you needed?”
“Just need you now.” She makes room for me as I lay next to her, heating pad now between us.
“Is it always this bad?” Wrapping an arm around her, I pull her close. Now that I know she didn’t blow me off tonight, I don’t want any space between us.
“Sometimes they are. I’m just sorry I forgot about our date.”
I hug her closer to me. Her sweet scent lingers, even in her dressed down state. “I still get to see you, so that’s a brilliant night in my mind.”
“You’re something else.”
“Good something or bad something?”
Ruby’s laughter vibrates through me.
“Good something. Definitely a good something.”
“Glad to hear it. Now, are we going to watch the cheesiest romantic movie you own?”
Ruby pushes off my chest, her dark brown eyes gazing down at me. “Did you google what all you had to do for a woman on her period?”
I wince at that statement.
“Oh lighten up. Every woman has one.”
“Sorry, love. But no. I just figured it’d be what you wanted to do since we can’t do much of anything else.”
“I hate to disappoint, but I like to watch slasher movies.”
This time, I’m shocked. “Slasher movies? Really?”
“Don’t get me wrong, I love Pride and Prejudice as much as the next woman. Mr. Darcy is swoon-worthy. But when I feel like death warmed over, slasher movies make me feel better.”
