Page 15 of Lessons in Heartbreak

“Hey, Bruiser,” I murmured. “You’re not gonna eat me, are you?” His response to that was a happy groan as my fingers dug into the spot right behind his ears. Ruby scoffed quietly, and the annoyed sound made me grin. “You love me.”

“How do you know his ...” She snapped her gaze forward. “Never mind.”

“Bruiser and I met outside the bakery.” I smiled as he licked my fingertips. “He’s definitely happier to see me than you are.”

Her brow furrowed slightly. “Of course he is. He’s a dog, and his critical thinking skills are lacking because you taste like muffins.”

“Nah, I think he’s a great judge of character.”

“Youwouldthink that.”

I fished around in the bag and pulled off a piece from the top of the blueberry muffin. “May I?”

Her answer was a tiny roll of her eyes, but her chin dipped a fraction of an inch.

“Bruiser, sit.” His butt kept wiggling. “Sit. Gotta do something good to earn it, buddy. Otherwise, the next thing I know, you’ll be chomping my face off because she said the scary word.”

Ruby pinched the bridge of her nose, sighing heavily.

The massive pink tongue hanging out the side of his mouth made me smile, but his butt went nowhere close to the ground.

“Bruiser, wiggle your butt,” I commanded. That he did epically, so I tossed the chunk of muffin in the air. His mouth opened wide, and the muffin bounced off the side of his snout. Ruby rolled her lips together to hide a smile, and we both watched as he snuffled the piece off the ground.

Since she wasn’t commanding her dog to eat me, and she had yet to tell me to get the fuck away from her, I decided to risk it. There was enough space on the bench that I could sit and my shoulder wouldn’t brush hers, so I set down the bakery bag first, allowing it to serve as a buffer between us. Ruby eyed it as if it were a bomb.

“That’s from, uh, the blue-hair.”

Ruby dropped her chin to her chest briefly. “Blake,” she said. “She owns the shop. She’s always ... always making sure I eat something when I come in for my morning tea.”

I nodded slowly. “Good to have people like that.”

Instead of answering, Ruby reached into the bag and broke off part of the muffin, chewing quietly while I stared at the small creek. Tall grasses lined its banks; rocks covered in soft green algae popped out of the slowly moving water as it wound its way around a bend and toward the large brick building next to us. In front of the building was a deep-green sign with white letters—the library where she worked, apparently.

Ruby brushed the sugar crystals off her hands, and in my peripheral vision, I saw her lick a few crumbs off her bottom lip.

“How long have you lived here?” I asked.

“I thought about punching you in the bakery,” she said instead of answering.

My head reared back, my mouth fighting a smile. “Yeah? I bet you’ve got a mean right hook, Tate.”

“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never hit anyone in my life.”

I whistled. “You’re missing out. Very few things in life feel as good as whaling on someone who really deserves it.”

“So you’re admitting you deserved it? I’m shocked at the self-awareness.”

Her dry tone had me grinning. “Maybe a little.”

“There would be a certain poetic justice to you being my first. First boy who teased me about how I was always reading.” She turned her knees to the side, facing me with big, earnest eyes. “You made me think you were him.”

“Actually, you assumed,” I told her, wagging a finger in the air. “I never once told you that I was an escort. You have to admit, it’s not something that comes up much in polite conversation. Naturally, I was curious why a pretty thing like you would need to hire someone to ...”

Even though her cheeks flushed pink again, her eyebrows arched slowly. “To what?”

“Anything.” I held her gaze. “He wasn’t exactly very forthcoming with me after your sudden exit.”

Ruby faced forward again, blinking rapidly, her chest rising and falling on short breaths. There was a slight wrinkle in the high neck of her blouse from where she’d crumpled it in her fist.

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