“Oh, thank God you’re home!” Ruthie, Hallie’s roommate, stood in the doorway as if she’d been waiting for Hallie to return. She was wearing an apron that had a man’s ripped chest and speedo-covered junk drawn on it, and the cartooned Speedo had the words Got meat? written across the crotch in cursive. “I just made banana bread, and I want to get your opinion. Butter or no butter?”
Hallie moved around her and went inside. “My opinion on butter or no butter?”
Ruthie cackled at that. “Your opinion on the bread. Do you want butter or no butter?”
Hallie was stuffed and didn’t particularly care for banana bread at the moment, but she didn’t want to disappoint Ruthie, either. Especially when she was about to disappoint her by telling her she wanted to move out. “No butter, please.”
Ruthie literally ran over to the galley kitchen and threw open the refrigerator door. She yelled, “You know how I feel about butter, so I’m slathering this whole motherfucking loaf—aside from your slices—with all the Country Crock the law will allow.”
Hallie dropped her purse on the floor and slid out of her shoes. “I never doubted that you would.”
Ruthie Kimball was an absolutely ridiculous person. She was the sister of one of Hallie’s coworkers at the jewelry store, which was how they came to be roommates, and Hallie had never met anyone in her entire life who was so shockingly unpredictable. She genuinely had no idea—ever—what Ruthie was going to do, say, or think.
Ruthie drove a motorcycle year-round, whether it was sunny or snowing. If the temps were subzero, Ruthie bundled up in her puffy coat before climbing on her “hog” and proceeding to ride around town as if it were normal to have icicles forming underneath your nose.
And yes, she actually referred to it as her hog.
Incessantly.
Ruthie loved baking but hated cooking. She had piercings everywhere, but cried like a baby if she needed to get a shot. She took care of Hallie like an older sister, baking for her and ironing her clothes if she left them in the dryer for too long, but she scream-fought with her actual sister on a regular basis, shouting things into the phone like “I’d love to run you over with my hog but your stupid fucking ass would probably fuck up my suspension.”
Before throwing the phone off the balcony.
Somehow the phone was never broken when she retrieved it. Soft grass, Hallie supposed.
Ruthie was thin, of average height, and kept her head completely shaved because she found hair to be “so damn dumb.” She had huge blue eyes and a pixie face—like Ariel from The Little Mermaid—and she belonged to a super-secret fighting club that left her bruised more often than not.
Last year, Hallie had briefly worried that someone was hurting Ruthie and the club was an excuse, but when she finally got the nerve to broach the subject, Ruthie broke down in tears because she was so touched by Hallie’s concern.
And then she showed Hallie about a hundred pics of bruised, bloody women teeing off on each other in what looked to be a basement.
“Here it is.” Ruthie sprinted out of the kitchen and shoved a plate into Hallie’s hands. “My grandma’s recipe, but with a little Ruthie magic.”
“You know I can’t do edibles,” Hallie said, staring down at the hunk of bread. “They do random testing at my day job.”
“Drug-free, I promise. The magic is actually the addition of a drop of vinegar.”
Hallie sniffed the bread before taking a bite. “Mmmm,” she moaned, meaning it. “That is so good!”
“Yay!” Ruthie turned a cartwheel, knocking over the floor lamp. Once she had it back up, she said, “Listen, I gotta go take a nap. I met this girl named Bawnda who does synchronized swimming, and she said she’ll teach me if I don’t mind working overnights.”
“So . . . this is a job?”
“Did you not listen to me?” Ruthie smiled and shook her head, like Hallie was the ridiculous one. “I will be swimming in a synchronized fashion overnight tonight—not working—so I must sleep now. Night-night, Hallie baba.”
“G’night,” Hallie said, glancing at the microwave in the kitchen that showed it was seven p.m.
So much for discussing moving.
* * *
? ? ?
Chuck: So? How goes it?
Hallie picked up her glass and finished the last swallow of Riesling and responded with so far so good. She’d been sitting in bed with her phone since eight, just scrolling through available men. She’d heard the jokes about dudes being terrible at making good profiles, and it was actually not a lie. If what she’d looked at so far was indicative of the male species as a whole, there was a strong belief amongst them that a picture of a man with a fish was the pinnacle of profile photos.
Chuck: Jamie wants to know how swipe-happy you are.
Hallie snorted and responded: I haven’t swiped on anyone yet. I’m just window shopping.
Hallie was surprised by the eye candy. She simply hadn’t expected there to be so many relatively attractive specimens. But she could already see the cross-referencing problems.
Hallie: One guy is cute, but he’s wearing a backward hat and holding a beer in every single picture.
One guy has a nice face, but the fact that he thinks a picture of him holding up the head of a deer he killed by the antlers is a good profile photo tells me we wouldn’t be soul mates.
Hallie rolled her eyes when Chuck responded with Just go for it, you pussy!
She was going to take her time, and maybe not even swipe on anyone for a few days. There was no hurry—
“Holy shit!” Hallie squinted and clicked on the profile. It sure looked a lot like the wedding dude . . .
Jack Marshall.
Yep.
Dear God, it was him.
The photo was from the wedding—she’d remember him in that tux forever—so it had to have been taken the night she ended up sheet-wrestling with him. He was smiling and holding up a glass of champagne—giving his toast—and man, he was a stunningly beautiful human.
Whoa, he was a landscape architect. That sounded . . . interesting.
For some reason, she was surprised to see a guy like him on the app. He’d seemed too confident and dashing to be single.
But then she remembered.
Holy God, the man had bought an engagement ring and planned to propose a week ago. A week ago he’d been in love enough to pop the question, and now he was already on the app looking for ladies?
Clearly there was something majorly wrong with him.
She didn’t know what possessed her, but she wanted to mess with him. Hallie clicked on the message box and started typing.
Hey, Jack, it’s Hallie, the bartender from your sister’s wedding! Why haven’t you called? I really thought we connected and you were going to call, but . . . did you lose my number?
She sucked in a breath when she saw the conversation bubbles. Holy crap, he was responding! He was probably freaking out at the thought of a throwaway one-nighter coming for him, and something about that idea made her cackle.