Page 55 of Love's a Script
Her face softened. “You are?”
“Yeah. You’re as devoted to your job as I am to fulfilling my commitment to the matchmaking process. Our night together was amazing, but there’s no need to complicate things.”
There was dead air as Mary blinked, and just as Ruben began to fear he’d misread the situation, she smiled. “Yes, I-I’m glad you understand,” she said.
“Of course! I was?—”
“Order for Ruben Byers?” said the delivery person who’d suddenly appeared.
“Yeah, right here.” Ruben reached for a cash tip in his pocket only to realize he’d forgotten his wallet inside the apartment. “Give me a second,” he told the delivery person and Mary. As he entered his home, his cousin barely scrambled out of the door’s path, making it obvious she’d been eavesdropping.
He ignored her and retrieved his wallet from the bedroom nightstand, quickly returning to the corridor where only the delivery man remained.
“She said she had to go,” the man said as they made their exchange. Ruben thanked him and peered down the carpeted hallway for sign of Mary before stepping back into his apartment with an odd feeling.
Junie was waiting for him in the kitchen, and as he put the takeout bags down, she asked, “Why did you not tell me?”
“Tell you what?” He feigned obliviousness in sheer hope that she was referencing something else.
“About you and your matchmaker.”
“Never came up,” he said, lining the deli containers along the counter.
Junie huffed, exasperated. “I should’ve known when you told me you guys shared a hotel room for days during the blizzard, then stopped working together.”
He didn’t comment as he pulled plates from the cabinets and utensils from a drawer.
“So, what now?” Junie asked.
“I have a date next week with Larissa P., and?—”
“You mean you and Mary aren’t…”
Ruben forced himself to laugh passed the dryness in his throat. “No.”
His cousin looked confused.
“We have professional obligations,” he said.
“But you like her, no?”
“Sure, but I’m not risking the radio feature for something that in all likelihood would fizzle out in four months.”
“You don’t know that for sure.”
He shrugged. “You’re right. But what I do know is that the feature is important to me and that love is a wily fucker.”
Junie frowned. “A what?”
“A wily fucker.”
His cousin studied him, and Ruben looked back defiantly. He was prepared for her to press the matter, tell him to be brave or bet on love or something equally patronizing, but Junie’s expression relaxed, and she gently said, “All right, pass the guacamole.”
Stepping out of Ruben’s apartment building, Mary found that it was now snowing. Nothing major, just flurries. But she stopped in the small parking area to tilt her head upward, letting the soft flakes disappear on her hot skin.
She’d drawn from feeble wares of courage to come there that evening to tell Ruben she was falling for him. It was an epiphany that followed her visit with her father. Her dad had scribed his own destiny, unconcerned with others’ opinions.
That was admirable to Mary because she often felt like she contorted herself to please people in hopes they’d like her, love her, praise her. It usually resulted in an insecurity that left her needing more confirmation, more affirmation that the false image she’d presented was landing correctly.
