Page 34 of If This is Love

Liza stood akimbo next to the car door, throwing one hip to the side and nodding at the car. “Skye drove.” She cocked one eyebrow at him as she slipped off her large, black sunglasses. “What areyoueven doing here?”

Luke’s face went a shade paler, and he hastily whipped out his phone. Hetechnicallyreported to her, as she was the VP of marketing for Frenchmen Street Records where they worked. “Oh, I was just giving Chlo a ride while I did my weekly check-in calls with everybody.”

Liza gave him a mildly amused, mildly exasperated smile while she held the seat forward, and Ruth’s beautiful, distinctive calf stretched out the door. “You got it?” she said to Ruth while grabbing one of her hands and helping her out.

“Thank you, sweetie,” Ruth said, standing up and turning to address Skye, who had just popped up on the driver’s side of the car. “Skye, I have to say that is the single nicest car I have ever set my bottom in.”

The three women chortled, and I had to turn around to preemptively adjust myself now that I had mental picture of Ruth’sbottomthat didn’t seem to want to leave.

“Okay, everybody!” Chloe suddenly hollered above the chatter, waving her cluttered phone in the air. “Before we do anything—”

Skye sucked in a gasp, throwing her hands up in front of her. “Wait,what? What’s happening?” She gasped again and then whisper-hissed, “Did he propose?”

Liza clicked her tongue and bumped her hip against Skye’s. “Girl, no,he hasn’t—”

“No…” Chloe drawled with a long sigh and waved her clunky phone at them. She laughed, shaking her head and shooting a quick smile to Luke, who facepalmed. Poor guy had the ring and still hadn’t gotten the guts to pull the trigger yet. He could be such an overgrown man-baby sometimes. “I was just saying that I’m going to be over here filming, so try not to talk directly tomewhile we’re doing all this.”

“Hey there, neighbor,” came Ruth’s smooth, silky voice on the opposite side of me from the chaos. I turned, and she was standing next to me. She set her hand on the back of my arm, giving the length of my tricep a slow, firm, up-and-down rub, and I managed to not melt into a puddle at her feet. “Good to see you.”

I gave her a nod and met her eyes for a second. “Hey there, Ruth. How’s your boy?”

A bright smile broke across her face. “He’s good. I think he’s bummed that we don’t have our morning walking buddies anymore.” She laughed lightly. “But he seems glad that I’m not going as slow as I was.”

It had been about a week since her ankle had healed enough that I didn’t need to walk with her anymore, and I missed our morning routine, brief as it had been. I just didn’t have any idea how to ask if she wanted to keep doing it when there was no practical reason to, and the only reason I was left with was how much I hated when she wasn’t around.

And what she just said was the perfect segue to invite her to pick it up again, so I gathered every ounce of gumption I possessed and casually hitched my shoulders. “Well, if you want, I can—”

“Heeeey,Ruth!” Luke crowed, shoving his way into the small personal space Ruth and I were sharing, stealing the moment of opportunity from me. I gritted my teeth and scowled at him, but he was completely oblivious. “How are ya? I heard you and Gabe are morning jogging partners now.”

“Oh yeah, we were going out every morning.” Ruth chuckled. “It wasn’t quite jogging, but he did help me out while I was going stir-crazy while my ankle was healing.”

He nodded at her ankle. “So now that you’re all healed up, you guys can probably race or something, right?”

I squinted at him, but his happy-go-lucky dopeyness appeared to have a useful trajectory.

“Oh, well now that I don’t need a babysitter while trying to walk my dog, we haven’t been going,” she said, and I sealed my mouth to wait for Luke to do me a solid.

He flipped his palms incredulously. “What? No way, sis, now’s when you need to go jog with him in the mornings.” He wagged his finger at her. “Someone needs to finally beat him at his own running game, and you look like you’re a hell of a lot faster than this old tank,” he said, slapping my chest with the back of his hand.

I gave him a slow blink. “Old, huh?”

Luke flashed me a wide grin. “Or whatever,” he added mischievously while backing up to return to Chloe’s side. “Everybody needs a jogging partner.”

I turned to Ruth and said in my most perfunctory tone, “I mean, yeah, there’s no reason why we can’t still jog together.”

Ruth gave me a huge, bright smile and my favorite sound. “Oh…I—”

“Hey, Gabe!” Skye chirped, appearing at my side while she threw her arm around my waist and squeezed me. “Wanna go scope it out?”

God damn it. But it was fine because when I wasfinishedscoping out the hellscape my gazillionaire friends chose to buy, I would casually revisit the topic with Ruth.Privately.

“Sure.” I gave her a quick squeeze back and glanced at Brennan’s car. “Where’s Riley?”

Skye flitted her hand dismissively. “He’s flying today, and we’re not talking about that because I can’t have an anxiety pill because I drove,” she retorted hastily and then started leading the way to the gate. “Anyway, I’ll unlock it.”

She pulled out a key and unlocked the large chain, and then I stepped forward to drag the gate all the way open so everybody could file in. The brush was unruly, and there wasn’t much anyone could do beyond lingering just inside the fence, so I got to work kicking the weeds aside and pulling them out of the ground to make a walking path to the closest building.

“Luke,” I hollered behind me, kicking a few more weeds out of the way.

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