Page 6 of If This is Love

Yes, it was reallycutethat my baby brother and some of our closest friends were all in love, but I had been there and done that and was left with nothing but divorce papers, a whole lot of hard feelings, and an imaginary girlfriend. I took a seat toward the back of the room at an empty table on purpose because Ipreferredit. Gunner turned in a circle before dropping his entire body to the floor and landing with a long, low groan.

I hovered the coffee cup in front of my mouth as I hid a smirk. Gunner had a language all his own, and a lot of the time it articulated my feelings quite perfectly. I still wasn’t entirely sure what Chloe wanted to talk to everyone about, but I’d been a serious asshole to her—even by my own standards—and she was definitely going to say yes when Luke popped the question, so I had to grovel. After all, Luke had managed to find the one thing that consistently evaded us both, and I wasn’t going to fuck it up for him.

Chloe and Mia had been the best of friends the whole time we were growing up, and we all—Luke included—had been really close before Chloe left town and Mia kicked the shit out of me. And when Chloe randomly resurfaced in Algiers Point over the holidays with a five-year-old son, six yearsaftershe and Luke had some kind of legendary one-night stand, I jumped to all the wrong conclusions. I wassurethat her son, Jackson, washisson. Mynephew. A flesh-and-blood member of our family that she just never mentioned. And I waspissed.

But that wasn’t the case. Not even close. And I humiliated myself making a big friggin’ deal out of nothing. So I had to grovel, which meant going out of my way to be nice to Chloe.

Which meant showing up for this random meeting she’d called at the neighborhood bar.

But never-fucking-mind.

I quietly grumbled into my coffee cup and stuffed the bag of cookies into the pocket of my black winter coat. That way I could break off little pieces and secretly snack on them without making my sweet tooth any more obvious than it apparently was—to Liza at least. I couldn’t even remember if I had a sweet tooth before she’d moved to the neighborhood a few years ago and started shoving little plastic bags of cookies at me almost every time she saw me.

“Okay, okay, okay, okay,” Chloe spoke up, her voice carrying over the conversation of basically everybody, clapping her hands between eachokay, the sound echoing through the still mostly empty bar. “Can we get started before a bunch of people start showing up?”

“Ruth isn’t here yet,” Sabrina Deneau informed her, twirling a pen between her slender, perfectly manicured fingers before she tossed a section of her long, blonde hair over her shoulder. Brina, as we all called her, was Connor’s youngest sister, who’d moved to California for college and had only moved back just a couple of weeks ago to start working for the new non-profit organization that Skye and Brennan were launching. Andboy,had she ever grown up. Luke had discreetly called heruncomfortably hot, and that was probably the most accurate choice of words. She’d grown up into a beautiful woman, but she definitely still had that baby-of-the-family mentality, and all I had to say about it was thank God Chloe had shown up when she did.

After all, the last thing any of us needed to deal with would be trying to keep Connor from killing Luke if he hooked up with Brina—which he absolutely would have because Luke did dumb-ass shit like that. Or at least he used to. Chloe was really good for him.

Chloe waved her hands. “I know. She texted me. She’ll be here any minute, and I already gave her the scoop on what we’re going to be doing.”

“You can start,” Skye said. “I mentioned it to her, too.”

“Perfect,” Chloe said, clapping her hands together one more time. “Okay, so here’s the deal, y’all. Since the first couple of write-ups about Destination Destiny have gone viral, NOLA Media Group has partnered with WNN to be featured on their new streaming platform, WNN-Plus. They want video content that follows Destination Destiny’s journey. The goal is to create a bunch of those short, inspirational videos that people share on social media, and ultimately, the plan is to pull everything together for a full-length, documentary-style film. It’ll premiere at the launch gala and be shown at all subsequent fundraising events.”

Frankie, another of our friends who worked with Luke, Connor, and Liza at a small local jazz record label, raised her hand and then spoke without waiting to be called on. “That sounds great, but—and don’t take this the wrong way, Chloe, but what does that have to do with any of us?”

“Right. So…” Chloe offered a wide grin that showed off all her white teeth. “I’ve asked you all to meet with me because the idea is that everyone on staff is going to vlog.” She paused, holding her wide, pleading grin, as though knowing exactly what kind of reaction this would get.

I didn’t bother stifling my groan, and Connor groaned similarly;louderin fact. Frankie dropped her head backward and huffed, her long, black braids dangling down her back in utter defeat. Sabrina didn’t protest audibly, but her slender shoulders did a slight, sudden drop.

“I know, I know, I know,” Chloe went on, tucking her shoulder-length blonde hair behind her ears, “but all you’re going to do is a short, informal selfie-style video where you just talk about what you’re working on and how it impacts the people that the organization is helping. It doesn’t have to be anything—”

“Hey!” Skye suddenly chirped, waving her arm. “Hey, Ruth! We’re all over here. Come meet everybody.”

My eyes flicked to the front door in pure reflex, and a white sunbeam at just the right angle through the glass blinded me for a second. All I could see was a woman’s silhouette against the bright light, and that shape…

There was somethingextremelyfamiliar about the outline of this woman’s body.

“Oh!” Chloe chirped from somewhere. “There she is! Hi, Ruth! Don’t worry, you didn’t miss anything.”

Ruth.

Ruth strolled all the way inside, striding across the old wood floor in a pair of tall heels and a well-fitting skirt while her tightly wound black curls bounced with every assertive step. There was suddenly a lot of movement and noise, but it was all knocked out of my mind, and all I could do was stare at her.

No way.

Her shoes continued to knock against the wood floor, and my eyes flicked to them, taking in their tawny-brown that was a perfect complement to the warm umber tone of her silky, sumptuous skin and dragging up the rest of her body. Her ankles were delicate, and her calves were strong and shapely. Her fitted beige skirt was sexy but classy as hell and hit just below her knees, and the sight of it kept my eyes climbing up her body and over the sweeping curve of her full hips to her nipped-in waist and perfectly round, soft breasts hidden under her ivory sweater, andno fucking way.

“Hi, Chloe! Hey, Skye! I am so sorry,” Ruth said in a smooth-as-silk voice as she approached Skye to hug her. “I got so turned around and decided to just park where I was and walk.” She gave a warm chuckle. “And my shoes slowed me down a bit.”

Ruth started hugging more of my friends as Skye introduced her and they made their way around the room.

So this wasRuth.

Skye had been mentioningRuthfor a number of weeks.Ruthhad worked for a religious charity in Lafayette, and in my mind,Ruthwas more of an old schoolmarm type. Maybe a nun. Someone with pallid, wrinkled skin and gray hair and spectacles hanging from the end of her nose. Notthis.

This was such a huge problem that I was frozen while I couldn’t look away from her.

---