Page 27

“Ruth.” I placed my hands on her bare arms, angling her to face me. “Quit panicking. Look at me.” She did, dancing her eyes between mine in a quick staccato rhythm. “It’s just dinner,” I reminded her.

“Yeah,” she breathed. “Yeah, okay.”

Just dinner, I thought, mocking myself internally.Like theyaren’t going to be unbearably embarrassing and gush over this woman in ways she is fully unprepared for. In this case, better to ask forgiveness than permission.

As we headed into the restaurant, Ruth got a text, and she pulled her phone out from the pocket of her jumper shorts. After glancing at it, her features pinched together, and she shoved it back into her pocket. I held the door open for her. “Everything alright?”

“Yeah, good,” she clipped in a way that clearly stated things weren’t.

I skipped a look from her pressed, pink lips to her red cheeks, and my intuition alarms blared in the back of my brain. Something was definitely up with Shortstop. Despite my suspicions, I let it be because my parents had spotted us from their table by the panoramic windows that overlooked the bay.

“Cal, sweetie!” My mom waved from the table, her wide smile as inviting as her hand that gestured for us to join them.

I pulled in a breath and leaned over to whisper in Ruth’s ear. “Ready?”

“No,” she whispered back.

Chuckling, I wrapped her cold hand in mine and led her up a short flight of stairs to the main floor. The restaurant was an older building, probably built in the seventies, but it had been updated several times over the years. The tables had been set with crisp, white linen and twinkling dinnerware. The carpet looked a little older, but it made the space feel warm and inviting, and the restaurant stretched out longer than it was wideand inviting diners to gaze out at the choppy, sunset-drenched water. With every table packed with patrons, we had to weave our way through them to make it to the seaside table my parents occupied. I kept a hold of Ruth’s hand, glancing down at her now and then to make sure she wasn’t on the verge of bolting.

She looked like she wanted to.

My mom stood from the table, gesturing with both her hands for me to come in for a hug. She looked older, somehow, than I remembered. It surprised me every time I’d been away from home, but more and more, Mom’s springy, black hair was being replaced by thick strands of white and gray curls, and the lines in her soft brown skin got deeper, too. She was wearing a loose, plaid button-down, and she wore the same locket she always did—the one I’d given her for her and Dad’s thirtieth wedding anniversary.

I indulged her request, keeping a hold of Ruth’s hand as I wrapped her in a one-armed bear hug. “Hey, Mom.”

“Look at you.” She squeezed her thin arms around my neck before stepping away to look at Ruth. “Hello! You must be Ruth.”

“Hi, Mrs. Reed,” Ruth said, holding out her hand.

My mom, predictably, ignored her proffered hand and swept her into a hug that forced me to relinquish her hand. “Come here, cute girl. You are absolutely gorgeous.” She set Ruth away with a bright smile. “Call me Jayla. And then tell me how this troublemaker tricked a pretty thing like you into dating him.”

“Oh, here we go,” I muttered rolling my eyes as my dad stoodand joined us. Dad had ridiculously bright white teeth that gave away his dentist profession, and he pulled me into a gruff hug. His jet-black hair was going white, too, and he kept it cropped close to his scalp these days. “Hey, Dad. How are things?”

“Oh, you know,” he grinned, pulling away. “Just trying to keep up with your mother.”

“Your father just discovered that furious bird… mad bird… whatever. That app game,” my mom said, waving her hand and going back to her seat.

Ruth rolled her lips between her teeth, clearly trying not to laugh. “Angry Birds? That is fun.”

“That’s like fifteen years old, Dad,” I laughed.

“I like it,” Dad said, pulling out his phone and holding the screen like two feet away as he peered at it. “I like knocking those stupid, fat bubble creatures over.”

“Better late than never.” I held out Ruth’s chair, and she sat down quickly. She gathered her hands in a tight fist in her lap, and I gave her an amused glance before I sat beside her in the seat closest to the window and across from my mom. I pried Ruth’s right hand away from her left and brought it to my thigh. I let my thumb caress the back of her soft, pale hand, hoping to soothe her nerves.

“So,” Mom said, her warm, brown eyes fixed on us with zealous interest. “Tell me all about it. How did you meet?”

Ruth opened her mouth, and I could tell her brain went copy paper blank. I jumped in quickly. “Actually, remember that matchmaker who set me up with Aniyah’s ex?”

Ruth turned enormous, “Are you crazy?” eyes on me.

My mom scoffed. “Yes, how could I forget?”

I forged on before she could say anything insulting about Ruth. “Well, it’s kind of a funny story, but Ruth is the matchmaker.”

My mom’s cranberry-colored lips popped open. She rotated a stare to Ruth. “No.”

My dad chuckled. “Oh, that’s funny.”