Page 113 of Almost Ours

“A bit.”

“Bad weird?”

“I don’t know yet.”

I rub my hand slowly over her back, feeling the soft fabric of those stupid cat pyjamas beneath my palm. “Do you want Oscar?”

“No. I only want you.” She presses herself closer, cheek settling back against my chest while her leg stays tangled carefully with mine.

I half expect some kind of joke to follow, but Ruby only burrows closer and tightens her arm around my middle, my heart literally constricts in my chest and I suck in a breath. “Only me?”

“Yeah. I only want you.”

I don’t know what the fuck I’m supposed to do with that, so I do the one thing that feels natural and pull her closer, sliding my hand up between her shoulder blades and holding her there while I press my mouth into her hair. “Alright,” I murmur into the top of her head. “You’ve got me.”

Her fingers curl against my stomach. “For today?”

I hesitate, I know what the right answer is. The correct answer. The thing I should be saying. That yes, she has me for today.

But the word feels wrong.

I look down at her and brush my thumb carefully over the back of her hand. “For as long as you want me here, Rubes.”

She sighs contendingly and I realise I’m a no-good liar. I mean it now. That’s the fucked part. Right now I’d stay here for as long as she asked me to, but I know what happens when my head turns on me. I know there’ll probably come a point where I bolt and call it protecting her.

Ruby might want me here for a long time.

I don’t know if I know how to stay.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Thursday

December 17th 2015

Ruby:

“That’s eight.”

“It’s seven.”

“It’s eight, Ruby.”

“It’s seven, and you’re a liar. Someone needs to be taking score.”

“Who?” Josh spreads his arms at his empty flat. “We’re alone.”

“So what? You should be taking notes.”

I’ve lost seven games of Connect 4. Possibly eight. We’re not going to resolve it. The board came out from under the sofa about two hours ago and it’s missing eleven counters, which Ewan has replaced with 2p coins because Ewan bought it in a charity shop. Josh is red and I’m the coins, which feels unfair.

“You’ve got the proper ones,” I whine, holding up a 2p between two fingers. “You’ve got the established counters. I’m playing with shrapnel.”

Josh laughs. “You picked shrapnel.”

“I picked shrapnel because you’d already taken red and I was being polite since we’re in your house.”

Josh tips the board out and forty-odd counters scatter across the carpet between us, some red, some yellow and eleven bits of copper that roll in every direction. He’s had two glasses of wine in an hour, which for Josh is basically a bender, and the difference is subtle but there.