"Okay," she says, still smiling. "The park. You and me and Marcus."
"And after," I say, "we find you an apartment."
Her smile dims slightly. "Jake, I can't afford—"
"The club has properties," I tell her. "Good ones. Safe neighborhoods, reasonable rent. I'll talk to Pope."
"I don't want charity."
"It's not charity. It's what the club does for employees who need a hand." I hold her gaze, steady. "It's what I want to do for you. Let me."
She's quiet for a moment, the independence in her warring with the exhaustion of someone who's been doing everything alone for too long.
"One step at a time," she finally says.
"One step at a time," I agree.
She starts gathering herself together: sliding off the desk, finding her clothes and dressing. I pull my own jeans back up, run a hand through my hair, and retrieve her apron from where I threw it.
I hold it out. She takes it, ties it around her waist, and then looks up at me.
"How do I look?" she asks.
Like someone who just had the best sex of my life in a break room. "Fine," I say.
She narrows her eyes. "You're a terrible liar."
"Nobody out there is going to say a word," I tell her. "I promise."
She takes a breath, squaring her shoulders, and I watch her put the Ruby-who-works-here back on over the Ruby-who-just-came-apart-in-my-arms, and I feel something fierce and protective swell in my chest because I know now that both of those women are real. And both of them are mine.
I unlock the door.
She goes first, stepping back into the hallway, back toward the casino floor and her tables and the rest of her shift. She's three steps away when she stops and looks back at me.
"Jake."
"Yeah."
"Don't run this time."
I look at her standing in that hallway. Tired and beautiful and brave in ways she doesn't fully recognize, and something in me settles. Goes quiet. The particular quiet that I've spent years chasing in the wrong places, the kind that doesn't come from absence of feeling but from the presence of the right one.
Pope found me on a curb with a gun and gave me a reason to stay.
Ruby found me on a casino floor covered in beer and gave me a reason to live.
"I'm not running," I tell her. "I'm done running."
She holds my gaze for one more second, and then she smiles, and turns back toward the casino floor.
I watch her go.
Then I follow, because that's what I intend to do from now on. Show up. Stay. Follow her into whatever comes next with both hands open and no intention of flinching.
It won't be simple. She comes with a kid and a history and walls built from years of people failing her. I come with nightmares and a scar and a club that is my whole world. We are two people shaped by damage trying to figure out if the shapes we've become might fit together anyway.
But I've been in worse situations than this.
