"No she never stops eating," I sighed. "It helps fuel her mayhem."
"That's why we love them," Randi said, handing me my card back. "They help make life interesting."
"That's for sure," I agreed, hefting the bag off the counter. "Take care now. I'll probably be seeing you really soon!"
"Stay warm!" she called. "And make sure you shut the door all the way? Wind gets it and it goes flying open."
I nodded and braced myself before heading back out to my car. The damp threat of snow was hanging heavy in the air. Winter was coming on fast. Luckily there was a bag of yarn in my car, just waiting to be turned into a warm, cozy hat.
I was headed to my monthly knitting club, a ritual I held as sacred as a church service. The fact that I had to get cat food meant I was running late now, and that wouldn't do at all.
I threw the door open, and then caught it before the wind sent it slamming into the building. I lifted my knitted scarf up around my mouth and hurried, head down, to where I'd parked my car on the street a few doors down. I was rushing right past the Crown Tavern when the door of the bar swung open.
"Ruby?"
The wind was still whipping around me but I suddenly felt very warm for some reason. "Jonah," I said. "I thought you'd be gone by now."
It was a pretty bitchy thing to say, I'll be the first to admit. But it was the truth. Claire had told me he was leaving right after the funeral and here it was days later.
He walked towards me, a little stiff legged. Something about the glaze of his eyes and the set of his mouth made me wonder if he was drunk. At one-thirty in the afternoon. "Did you want me gone?" he asked, somehow managing to sound both arrogant and wounded at the same time.
I shrugged like it made no difference to me, but inside I was burning up with curiosity. Why was he staying? How long was he staying? And what happened? I couldn't imagine it was out of missing his family. He and his brothers had been fighting for years.
Jonah wrinkled his nose like he could read my thoughts. "Well I hate to disappoint you, but I'm not."
"Why not?" I blurted.
For a second a keen pleasure burned in his eyes. Like he was happy to have my attention. Claire always said he was a spotlight hog growing up and his behavior after the breakup of the King Brothers only proved it further.
But then his eyes dulled and his mouth turned down. He spoke like the words got stuck in his throat. "Change in management."
"Yeah?" That was interesting. The reason Gabe hated Jonah so much had something to do with management.
He nodded, looking me right in the eye. "He fired me."
I hoped like hell he couldn't see how funny that was to me. "Really? He fired you? He can do that?"
The corner of his mouth tugged up. "Apparently? I didn't know either."
"Why?"
He shrugged. "Still trying to figure that out."
I looked at him again. Whether it was his connection to Gideon, or something wholly his own, I couldn't deny that there was some kind of connection with him. I felt like I could read hi, see past all the shiny rock and roll bullshit to the real guy lurking underneath. There was a story here and I was dying to hear it.
And he was dying to tell it too. I could tell by the keen gleam that shone in his eyes again. It was the same kind of gleam my kindergartners got when you got down to their level and listened to the story they were bursting to tell. I shifted the bag of cat litter in my arms. I was going to be terribly late for my knitting club meeting. "No, really, why'd he do it?"
He blinked. He wasn't expecting me to pry and that pleased me for some reason. "What?"
I lifted my chin. "I can see it all over your face. You're dying to bitch about what happened, so go ahead. But can I set this down in my car, first?"
Chapter Nine
Jonah
Stung, I followed her to her car, and as I did, I took another look at her. I thought I liked long hair in girls, but there was something about the way her thick, dark hair framed her face. She looked like some kind of portrait, especially with the way the wind pinkened her cheeks. The short hair added to her instead of taking something away.
I remembered how she used to look, that long thick hair tumbling around her face like a curtain. It was too much, I realized. Like gilding a lily or something.
She opened the back door of her bright green car and plopped the bag into it. Then she emerged with a woolen cap that she immediately plopped on her head. Once she pulled on matching mittens, she looked at me and folded her arms. "There," she said. "I'm ready now. Let's hear the story."
I was still stuck on what she had said a few minutes ago. "Dying to bitch about it?" I repeated.
She paused, hesitated.
"Is it that obvious?"
Her smile broke wide and spontaneous, like it caught her by surprise and she clapped her mittened hand over her mouth to catch her laughter before it took over. Then she eyed me warily. "You gonna get all pissy?"
"Do I usually?"
"Pretty much."
"What makes you say that?" I genuinely wanted to know. "You barely know me."
She took a breath and let it out. "I know everything I need to know."
"What, what my sister says?" I asked, incredulous. "What Gabe says?"
Her face hardened a little. "I know you haven't been home in two years."
I was starting to get angry and the beer in my bloodstream wasn't helping matters. "Kind of hard when I'm always on a fucking plane, don't you think?" I snarled, more sarcastic than I wanted to be.
Her lip curled a little and I could tell she wanted to argue with me but didn't know enough about my life to protest. "So why did you manager fire you?" she pressed.
I looked down at her fierce little face. "Boy you like to twist that knife, don't you? You're supposed to be a kindergarten teacher?"
She ignored me. "Let me guess," she mused. "He wasn't up to your standards?"
It felt like she was deliberately poking at a sore spot. I laughed, a short, mirthless sound. "He fired me, remember?"
"Fine." She crossed her arms. "Okay, here's another idea. He wanted to do something different. Maybe go home for the holidays once in a while."
"He let me go because I had a shitty show!" I suddenly exploded. All the anger I'd been holding back - promising myself that I'd have my revenge by being an even bigger success now - burst out of me in a flood. Like she'd cracked a hole in a dam I'd only just erected. "One fucking shitty show out of like a million. One tiny slip up and that's all it takes." I looked down. "And it wasn't even my fault," I finished, aware that I sounded sulky and not caring for once.
I thought Ruby might throw me a bone now. Give me some sympathy, maybe pull me down into one of her nice hugs. I was having that feeling again. This moment wasn't dipped in several coats of memory. This was new. Brand new, and I wanted to keep feeling this way.
But she just kept looking at me with that disbelieving smirk on her face. "Not your fault? Whose fault was it then?"