Page 128 of Recklessly Rogue

“Thank you. And I hope you all know that I’m only a phone call away if any of you ever need anything. I’ll do whatever I can. And I have a lot of resources.”

Will nods. “We appreciate that.”

“I thought you said Ruby was already in New Orleans,” April says.

“She is. We both were this weekend, but I came back to tie a few things up.”

“Uh…” April points to something over my shoulder.

I turn. And my heart skips.

“Ruby?” I start toward her immediately.

She’s standing just inside the door.

In flannel pajamas.

The set is light blue with little fat sheep all over them.

“You’re wearing flannel pajamas. In August. In a bar,” I say as I come to stand directly in front of her.

She nods. “It would have been fine if you’d been at the house in bed like I expected.” She lifts her arms out to her sides, then lets them drop. “But I have to tell you, these didn’t work worth a crap.”

She looks bloody adorable. From the top of her gorgeous head with her hair pulled back in a ponytail to the tips of her toes that are currently hidden by fuzzy light blue slippers.

“What didn’t?”

“I was sitting in that gorgeous apartment in a city I love, lonely and sad. So I ordered flannel pajamas. You said those would make me feel better. Comforted.” She takes a breath. “But you know what happened when they showed up and I put them on? All they did was make me realize that I screwed up.”

“You ordered the wrong ones?” I ask.

God, I love her so much. I know exactly what she’s telling me here, but I want to let her say it.

“No. I realized thatyouare my flannel pajamas, Henry.”

Okay, I didn’t expect her to say it likethat.My throat tightens and my heart feels like it swells in my chest. “I am?”

She nods. “Youmake me feel better.Youcomfort me. You make me a better person. You lift me up. When you were dropped off at school and could have used pajamas, it’s because you had lost what comforted you and you couldn’t get it back. When April and Elliot needed pajamas, it was because they had left the comfort of home and what was familiar, and couldn’t go back. But then you found “pajamas”,” she says, making air quotes with her fingers. “With Alfred, and then the O’Gradys, and then the Landrys. And you helped April and Elliot find“pajamas” by surrounding them with good, happy things, and the community here at Dick’s rallied around them.” She takes a deep breath and takes a tiny step forward. “The thing is…I don’t need to leave what comforts me. I don’t need pajamas to make me feel better. Because I have you. I just need to be with you.” She takes a breath and blows it out. “And I can be.”

She steps forward again until she’s directly in front of me and tips her head back to meet my gaze. “I can be with you, so why would Ichooseto not be?”

I lift a hand and cup her face. “Because of law school. Because you want to do more. Because youshoulddo more.”

She shakes her head. “I want to be a lawyer so I can help people. I can get my law degree at Ohio State and help people. It’s ridiculous to think I need to be in New Orleans.”

“But—” I start.

She keeps going. “What am I trying to prove? That Icando it? Of course I can do it. I know that. You know that. Everyone who knows me knows I can do it. That I can be on my own? Sure, okay. What’s that prove? I’m so fucking lucky to have so many people to love and who love me. Why do I want to be on my own?” She reaches up and grasps my wrist. “I don’t want to be away from you. We can have it all…the jobs that matter to us and the people that matter to us and each other. I’m not going to give that up.”

“Okay, that’s it,” I say.

I bend, cup her ass with both hands and pick her up. She wraps her arms and legs around me and buries her face in my neck.

I turn with her in my arms and realize we have an audience.

“We need a minute,” I tell them.

I stride toward the small room behind the bar that’s used as an office. I kick the door shut behind us, and sink into the officechair, with her legs straddling my thighs. I grasp both her thighs, squeezing gently.

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