The Rules of Engagement: A Lesbian Romance (Rulebook Book 2)

by Cara Malone

  When Megan texted her in the afternoon, Ruby was caught off-guard.

  Still on for smoothies?

  Ruby grabbed her phone off the little table beside the lounger and pinched the bridge of her nose as she tried to remember the context for that question. Still? She had a fuzzy recollection of agreeing to meet Megan, but that had been before the proposal. Ruby thought it must have been after she went inside to check on Max in the bathroom, before she’d seen Max talking to her father on the other side of the pool.

  “Your girlfriend hates me, doesn’t she?”

  That was what Megan had asked, and the conversation was coming back to Ruby now. They’d been sitting together with their other high school friends and then everyone got up to refill their drinks and it was just Megan and her.

  “No,” Ruby had tried to reassure her, but she couldn’t make it sound convincing. She had tried to soften the blow by adding, “She doesn’t believe me when I tell her that neither of us has feelings for the other anymore.”

  “She doesn’t trust me,” Megan had said.

  “I think she’s worried about the two of us being in such close proximity all summer,” Ruby had admitted.

  And that was when Megan suggested meeting for smoothies – she said the three of them could meet on neutral ground and she’d let Max grill her until she was comfortable with leaving Ruby in Chicago with her. Ruby thought it was a good idea, and she planned to tell Max about it as soon as she rejoined the party, but she never did and it slipped Ruby’s mind.

  She sent Megan a response, being as vague as possible because she still hadn’t told a soul what happened last night.

  One small problem. Max left.

  When she came home from the bus station, she’d managed to just play dumb with her family and pretend that Max had always intended to leave on Saturday instead of Sunday, and she was so hung over that none of them badgered her about it too much. Megan wasn’t as easy to put off, instantly looking for details.

  What happened? Is everything okay?

  Ruby didn’t want to say too much, or betray Max’s confidence by telling Megan about a private moment in their lives, but she was also hurting a lot and Megan used to be her best friend. It was hard to keep her lips tight on the matter. She ended up parroting back the excuse that Max used – telling Megan that she got called home to help her father – and then begged off the meeting by telling her that she was too sick to leave the house.

  Unfortunately Megan, the aspiring doctor, took that as encouragement to pick up smoothies and bring them by the house. She showed up an hour later with smoothies for Jade and Celeste and fresh-squeezed juice for Ruby, and she plopped down in the lounge chair beside Ruby.

  “Best smoothies in Chicago,” she said, taking a sip from her own cup.

  “I know,” Ruby groaned. “My favorite. You shouldn’t have.”

  “It’s no problem,” Megan said as Jade and Celeste came out of the pool and wrapped themselves in towels to go inside and enjoy their smoothies in the air conditioning.

  “No,” Ruby said, slowly coming to sit upright as her head pounded from the change of position. Megan looked cheerful this morning just like Ruby and Celeste – Ruby must have been the only one to over-indulge last night, although she had good reason. “You really shouldn’t have. You coming over here like this is not going to sit well with Max.”

  “She’s really the jealous type, huh?”

  “It’s more about the circumstances,” Ruby said. She felt guilty just sitting across from Megan, knowing that Max was on a bus back to Granville and probably feeling just as awful as she did, minus the after effects of the alcohol.

  “Care to elaborate?” Megan asked.

  She looked genuinely interested, and Ruby could really use a sympathetic ear. She’d been so isolated with Max over the last six months, and it had never been a problem before… until suddenly it was. Ruby felt torn, and she opened her mouth but she couldn’t pour her heart out to Megan of all people. She settled for a shrug, putting her hands up in frustration and letting them fall to her sides again.

  “She didn’t seem to be particularly interested in the party last night,” Megan said gently. “Was that all on my account?”

  “No,” Ruby said. “She’s not the most social person. The number of strangers there was a bit much for her.”

  “There were, like, fifteen people,” Megan said, incredulous.

  “Yeah,” Ruby said with another sigh. Once again she felt compelled to explain Max. She knew Max didn’t like people to know about her Asperger’s diagnosis because she didn’t want them to see her condition instead of her. There was no denying that it would be easier to explain her behavior if she just let that small detail slip out, though. Instead, Ruby said, “She just doesn’t do crowds, or strangers, or small talk.”

  “Sounds like a fun girl,” Megan said with a laugh.

  “It’s not a big deal most of the time,” Ruby said, and that was true. She almost never minded Max’s idiosyncrasies – she loved a lot of them – and for the ones she wasn’t fond of, she set them aside because the reward of being with Max was so much greater than the sacrifice. “She’s one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met. She’s got encyclopedic knowledge on so many subjects, she’s completely dedicated to the people she cares about, and I learn new things about her every day.”

  Like the fact that she bought an engagement ring and brought it with her to Chicago.

  “But?” Megan asked.

  “Huh?”

  “Come on, Ruby,” Megan said. “There’s more that you’re not saying. I can always tell when you’re holding back.”

  Megan really was good at reading her. Ruby forgot how nice it could be to have someone understand her without having to spell out her feelings. She took another long sip of her juice and had to admit that it was helping to ease her headache, so Megan got that right, too.

  She let out another small sigh.

  “I just don’t know if I really want to be her keeper,” Ruby said. “We’re perfect when it’s just the two of us, or the two of us plus her best friend. But she hates crowds and socializing, and I didn’t realize just how bad it could get until last night. I guess I didn’t really get it until now, and it’s stifling knowing that I’m not only the most important person in her life, I’m also going to be the only person most of the time. I don’t know if I’m strong enough for that.”

  Ruby’s hand shook slightly as she reached for her cup again. All of this had been building in her for the past week, but until now she hadn’t acknowledged it. She was having a hard time being who Max needed her to be. Ruby knew that she was breaking Max’s confidence by talking to Megan about it, but she’d reached a breaking point last night and she needed desperately to get it off her chest.

  “Is she worth all that?” Megan asked after a minute of reflection.

  She didn’t get it. This would be a much easier conversation to have if Ruby could just explain about Max’s Asperger’s, but Max had just about disowned Mira when she found out last fall that she’d betrayed Max’s confidence on the subject to fill Ruby in. Still, it was just like Megan to throw in the towel on something that didn’t come easy.

  Ruby snorted. Here was the girl who refused to even consider the idea of a long-distance relationship because she couldn’t be bothered with it, who said it wasn’t worth the trouble even after Ruby offered to do all the driving and come to Megan every weekend throughout grad school.

  Megan caught the meaning of her expression and said, “I know what you’re thinking. It’s not the same thing, though. You know that, right?”

  “Deciding someone’s not worth it just because it takes a little effort to be with them? That doesn’t sound familiar to you?” Ruby asked.

  She rolled her eyes and sucked down a little more juice. Megan had disappeared from her life so completely last year when they broke up that she’d never gotten the chance to say any of this to her before. At the party last night, she thoug
ht she’d be able to just go back to being friends, but suddenly all the anger she felt last summer was bubbling back up.

  “That’s not why I broke up with you,” Megan objected. “It wasn’t a matter of effort. Ruby, you and I didn’t belong together – we were just together out of habit toward the end, because it was easier to keep dating than to try and separate our lives. Grad school was our chance for a clean break.”

  “It was anything but clean,” Ruby said.

  “I’m sorry,” Megan answered, sounding more sincere than Ruby wanted to give her credit for in that moment. “I know I handled the breakup all wrong, and if I had it to do over again I would have done it differently, but I wouldn’t have changed the outcome and I don’t think you would have, either. Am I right about that?”

  “Maybe I wouldn’t have donated all of your clothes that I found in my closet to Goodwill,” Ruby said. “There were some good pieces in there that I miss.”

  “You did?” Megan asked with a small laugh. “Bitch.”

  She was right, though. Ruby would have cried over Megan a thousand times if it led her to Max, and suddenly the idea of not being with her at all made their differences not seem so vast.

  “Look,” Megan said, “if you love her and you’re meant to be, then she’ll be worth the effort to overcome the obstacles.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Hell,” Megan said, cracking a smile, “the girl I’m seeing right now is straight, so if I can overcome that, you and Max can work on her small talk skills.”

  Ruby laughed. “You’re dating a straight girl?”

  “Well, dating is a strong word,” Megan said, looking away and blushing.

  She left soon after, leaving Ruby to nurse her juice by the poolside and think about their conversation. She couldn’t imagine her life without Max, so the obstacles must be worth overcoming, however large they loomed.

  By the time the sun was beginning its slow descent toward the horizon, she was feeling more like herself again and she’d come back around to thoughts of the proposal. It really had come out of nowhere, but aside from the fact that the setting had been all wrong, and Max had mostly done it out of desperation, Ruby didn’t hate the idea.

  CHAPTER 12

  Max spent the majority of her bus ride to Granville attempting to sleep. She leaned her head against the window and closed her eyes, willing herself not to think about anything that happened in the past week, but every pot hole the bus hit and every pit stop to load more passengers roused her out of her fitful sleep. In those moments, she thought about the proposal, and wondered what it meant for their relationship.

  She’d spent the short trip to the bus station this morning wondering if Ruby was about to have The Talk with her, the one in which they broke up. It seemed like the logical next step after a rejected proposal, so when Ruby told her that she loved her, it took Max completely by surprise and she didn’t know how to take it.

  By the time the bus reached the Granville depot, around three in the afternoon, a sour feeling had settled in Max’s stomach, along with a sense of impending doom. The Talk must be just around the bend, and it was a large part of why she wanted to escape Chicago so desperately, to put it off a little bit longer.

  The bus terminal was nearly empty, and there were only two other people getting off in Granville. Max’s father’s truck was one of only a handful of cars in the parking lot, and both of her parents jumped out of the cab the moment Max stepped off the bus. Her mom looked sick with worry.

  Max slung her bag over her shoulder and went to them, and before she was halfway to the truck her mother was calling across the parking lot, “Hi honey, is everything okay? You didn’t sound so great on the phone.”

  Max knew it was wrong to withhold details when she called earlier. Her mother had been working on an ulcer on her daughter’s behalf ever since Max was put on the autism spectrum in middle school, and she probably spent the last seven hours coming up with doomsday scenarios to explain Max’s early departure from Chicago.

  “I’m fine,” Max said, trying to sound as convincing as she could even though she was completely heartsick. She should have told her mother what happened when they spoke this morning, but she couldn’t bear to get into all the ugly details on the phone, and she didn’t want to talk about it any more now. She went over to the truck and opened the door. “Can we please go home?”

  “Of course,” her mother cooed again. “Nick, honey, help her with her bag.”

  “I’ve got it,” Max said, ignoring her father’s outstretched hand and holding her travel bag close to her chest. They only lived about ten miles from the bus depot, and she could hold the bag on her lap like she’d done for the duration of the bus ride. Its weight had become comfortable to her in the past seven hours.

  Max slid into the center of the bench seat and they headed for the little ranch house in the suburbs just outside of Granville that Max had lived in all her life. Now that she’d seen the mini-mansion that Ruby called home, it seemed embarrassingly small, and as they drove through the outer limits of the city, Max thought the buildings seemed like shadows of their former selves.

  “So how come you decided to leave early?” her mother asked gently, trying a more direct route this time. She knew after years of trial and error that the best way to get a reluctant answer out of Max on a subject she disliked was to ask a direct question.

  “I got tired of Chicago,” Max said. Then she went back to looking at the buildings, which she used to erroneously label as skyscrapers. She knew better now.

  When they got home, Max went straight to her room. She wasn’t in the mood to field any more questions – even the benign ones about her Chicago tourism, or the bus ride home. She’d never been so far from Granville before and she knew her mother would want to ask those questions, but first Max needed to recharge.

  She wanted to be alone, and to allow herself to think for the first time about what happened this weekend.

  Her bedroom was just as she’d left it after the winter break. Even the sheets were still thrown messily to the foot of the bed from the last time she’d used it. Her mother knew not to come in and move things, or change anything, but she had left a fresh set of sheets just outside the door.

  Max brought them inside, tossing them on top of her desk, and then she set her bag on the bed so she could unpack. She located the ring box in the bottom of the bag first, putting it in her bedside drawer for safe keeping and wondering if she’d ever have occasion to take it out again or if it would just stay there forever, shoved farther and farther to the back of the drawer like an old memory that would not fade but which could be repressed with great effort.

  Then she put away her toothbrush, threw all her dirty laundry down the chute in the hall, and plugged her phone into its charger on the edge of the desk. She didn’t have the nerve to check it, so instead she focused on the task of locating one of the shirts that her father’s landscaping crew wore. Max really did intend to go to work with her father in the morning – if nothing else, a day of hard labor would distract her from all the unwanted thoughts running through her head about Ruby.

  She went to her closet and started looking. The shirts were navy blue polos with the Saddler Landscaping logo embroidered on the breast, and Max had collected at least ten of them over the years, but of course none were hanging neatly from the clothes rod.

  Max found a laundry basket full of clean but hopelessly wrinkled clothes in the bottom of the closet and started picking through it. She had successfully located one polo, throwing it over her shoulder to iron, when her phone started buzzing on the desk.

  She ignored it, unable to face Ruby so soon. Max knew they’d have to talk eventually, but she was barely keeping herself together right now, so she let the phone go silent while she kept looking for additional polo shirts.

  Then it buzzed again, indicating that a voicemail was waiting for her. With trepidation, Max got off her knees and went over to the desk. For a split second, she hoped tha
t it would turn out to be Mira instead of Ruby, because even though she’d be wondering how the proposal went, she’d lend a sympathetic ear when Max told her about the disaster it had turned out to be. She wouldn’t gloat or tell Max that she’d predicted it, and she wouldn’t ask a million questions like Max knew her mother would if she confided in her. Her parents didn’t even know she had a ring.

  But the voicemail waiting for her was from Ruby, and with tears choking her throat, Max played the message.

  “Hey babe,” Ruby said, her voice quieter than usual, perhaps tentative. “I thought you’d be in Granville by now, but maybe you’re still on the bus. I just wanted to make sure you got in okay, so can you, uh, call me when you get home?”

  Fat chance. Max had no interest in speeding along the demise of their relationship, and for now, at least, avoidance seemed like the best course of action.

  “Well,” Ruby continued, “that’s all I wanted to say. That and I love you, and I miss you. I’ll talk to you soon, okay? Call me.”

  And then the message ended, and Max listened to it one more time all the way through. There was a sadness in Ruby’s voice – that was for sure – but there was also that tentativeness. It sounded like she was just as uncertain as Max, which shocked her. In every movie and television show she’d ever seen, the person being proposed to knew immediately after rejecting said proposal that they didn’t want to be with the person, let alone marry them. Ruby seemed upset, but she wasn’t recoiling in the way that Max expected her to.

  Max set the phone back down on her desk and said into the empty room, “I love you, too.”

  Then she looked at the pile of clean sheets on the desk and knew she’d need to change them before bed. Ordinarily that was a fairly simple task, especially when Ruby was around to stand on the other side of the bed and help stretch the fitted sheet over the mattress. In that moment, though, it felt impossible, too big to manage on her own.