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Paige watches me closely while I talk.
I tell them about running into him in the Arcata Community Forest and walking together for nearly two hours. About the way he talked about touring, without pretending he wanted a quieter life just because I did.
Then I tell them about the song.
Not every detail. Just that I heard him working on something through the wall, kept listening, and eventually asked why he was changing the chorus over and over. And how that turned into both of us sitting on the floor on opposite sides of the wall while he played and I tried to explain what wasn’t working in colors because that made more sense to me than chords.
By the time I finish, Paige leans back in her chair. “You realize you’ve spent most of dinner talking about this guy, right?”
“I have not.”
Dani laughs. “Ruby, we know more about Zander than we do about anything else you’ve been doing for the last few months.”
“I may have gotten slightly off topic.”
Paige reaches for the wine bottle and tops off her glass. “Ruby, you just spent twenty minutes telling us about his family, his music, the way he holds a baby, and a two-hour walk in the woods.”
“It was not twenty minutes.”
“It might have been longer.”
I lean back and cross my arms. “He’s a touring musician.”
Dani is the one who answers. “Okay.”
“He was gone for six months. If the band keeps doing well, he’ll leave again. That’s his life, and he wants it to be his life.”
“And you don’t want that kind of life,” Paige says.
“No. I moved because I wanted something quieter. I wanted to stop feeling like I was always trying to keep up with the next thing.”
Dani takes a sip of wine before she speaks. “Those are two different things.”
“What are?”
“What you want for your life and what he wants for his career. You’re acting like you need to know right now whether those things can fit together.”
I look down at my plate.
Paige reaches across and steals one of my roasted potatoes. “You slept with the man once. Nobody’s asking you to merge retirement accounts.”
“I don’t have a retirement account.”
“That’s a separate conversation and one I’m clearly going to need to have with you.”
I laugh despite myself.
Dani smiles. “All I’m saying is you don’t have to solve the end before you decide whether you want the middle.”
I hate that this makes sense.
Paige lifts her wineglass. “Go for it. You’re clearly already halfway there.”
“I am not halfway anywhere.”
Dani smiles. “You really are.”
“You like him, he clearly likes you, and according to everything you’ve told us, the sex was excellent.”
