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Ruby closes her eyes for one brief second, like she’s asking a higher power for patience. When she opens them again, she looks at the woman behind the counter.

“Nell.”

Nell looks between us. “What?”

“You knew.”

“I absolutely did not.”

“You showed me his picture yesterday.”

My eyebrows lift. “You were looking at pictures of me?”

Ruby’s attention snaps back to me. “Don’t get excited.”

Too late.

I lean one forearm against the counter. “This feels like some kind of cosmic punishment.”

“For which one of us?”

“Probably both.”

Nell’s gaze moves between us again, interest growing by the second. “You two know each other?”

“Unfortunately,” Ruby and I say at the same time.

That gets a laugh from Nell and a glare from Ruby.

“We share a wall. That’s the extent of our relationship.”

“Give it time. I just moved in.”

Her eyes narrow, and Nell looks delighted.

Ruby takes a breath and gestures toward the back. “You’re my eleven o’clock?”

“It looks like it.”

“When did you book?”

“Last week.”

Before I knew the redheaded woman threatening my speakers lived on the other side of the duplex. When I called Black Fern, I asked for the new artist from San Francisco everyone kept recommending. Nobody mentioned her name, and I didn’t care enough to ask.

At the time, I was more interested in whether she could take a vague idea about Europe and turn it into something I wouldn’t regret in ten years.

Ruby folds her arms. “If this is going to be a problem, I can move you to another artist.”

“When?”

She glances toward Nell.

Nell checks the computer. “Depends on who he wants. Three months, maybe four.”

Ruby looks back at me. “There you go.”

“Four months?”