Class Clown (The Thornback Society #4)

24. Chapter 24

Chapter 24

Ruby’s Truth: Sometimes your brother’s friend just likes you better.

“What do you mean you’re not coming back to Texas?” Cole asked Nico the next weekend as we stood in the gravel parking area near Bearadise Lodge, saying farewell to our final campers. “You have a job there. With me. Back at the rec center.”

Nico wasn’t waving, big surprise, but he was nodding at the campers that waved to him, which was something. His hands were loose in his pockets, and his shoulder brushed mine when he shifted.

Yeah. We were together out loud now and I was standing close. We were wearing our matching uniforms, and as we’d walked from our cabin down to the lodge, I’d told him that maybe we should become one of those couples that matched on purpose. He said we could talk again when we were ninety. I really liked the idea of being ninety with Nico.

“I’m going with Ruby to Utah to explore my options there,” Nico replied calmly. “You’ll replace me, no problem.”

He was much calmer than I was. I was a sweating mess of balled-up emotion. If I wasn’t only thirty-two I’d think I’d entered menopause and was having hot flashes and hormone imbalances. As it stood, I was still reeling from the night before when he’d pulled me outside after dinner and told me that he’d decided to come home with me.

After only three weeks of dating.

So much for us having a dialogue about it. I’d been totally blindsided, and for the first time ever, I’d been the one wanting a little more detail about the plan. Wasn’t it a bit soon? I would understand if he wanted to do long distance for a while. Where would he live and work? How would he pay for things? Was he sure he wanted to follow me? Because I was really great at first impressions, but neither of us could predict how I’d be as a long-term partner.

He had answers for all of it. He had savings, he’d lived with me for several months now and saw no red flags, he could find work and had a lead on housing. In short, he knew what he wanted and that was in Logan, Utah. So, yeah, he was coming with me.

When he’d gone back to the lodge to finish prepping the final campfire program, I’d slunk off to the health center to stare at a wall. I was a chaser. I had no idea how to be chased. It didn’t take long to realize that this side of things felt pretty good and that maybe I could get used to it. I decided to forgive him for being heavy-handed about his announcement. He’d clearly thought it out and I was willing to let it play.

“Where are you going to live?” Cole asked, barging in to my thoughts.

“Meredith’s boyfriend has a spare room until I find a place,” Nico answered easily as he reached over to wrap his warm hand around mine.

He’d apparently exchanged numbers with Meredith when she’d come to visit, and they’d been plotting behind my back the past day or so. Steely, barbed-wire Meredith thought Nico was the best, and she’d never, not once, liked a guy I was with. It was the greenest flag in the history of green flags.

And honestly, having a guy secretly plotting ways to stay with you? Three cheers for that. I liked it a lot.

“What about a job?” Cole asked, going down the same list I’d had.

“I have savings,” Nico replied for the second time in twenty-four hours. “My salary from the military has been building up and earning interest. I never bought a house or anything, and was deployment enough that I wasn’t spending money. Plus, I’m thinking about using my veterans benefits to go to college. Logan has a great university.”

Cole looked at me behind Nico’s back. “You’re cool with him totally uprooting his life this way?”

I blinked, and scowled. “Am I not worth uprooting for?”

Cole shook his head, but Nico jumped in to answer. “If I had a life to uproot, you’d have a point, but I don’t. I haven’t lived in Texas for more than a few months here and there for ten years. Right now, Ruby is the closest thing to roots I have.”

Cole’s eyes grew big, and I flushed.

“I’m your roots, man,” Cole retorted, clearly a little hurt.

Nico put a hand on his shoulder. “You’re right. Poor choice of words. You’re my roots, but your sister is my future.”

I had no idea he saw me that way, as a steady place. Had I ever been someone’s steady place? Had I ever been my own? It was both flattering and scary. I wanted to live up to that, but again, we’d only been together for three weeks. How could he already trust me that deeply?

“This is borderline disgusting talk,” Cole said jokingly, and I was grateful for the humor.

“I thought you wanted us to date?” I interjected, a little stumped.

“I do.”

Nico dropped his hand from Cole’s shoulder. “I guess you don’t want me to tell you that I find her incredibly attractive and I’ve been interested in her for a long time. These feelings aren’t new.”

“Stop it, now.” Cole wrinkled his nose.

“I sneaked a picture of her from your parents’ house and took it with me on my deployments,” Nico said. Cole groaned, but my breath caught and my head felt light. I looked to him to see if he was telling the truth, but he was still facing Cole. “She’s the most beautiful, interesting, talented, warm-hearted . . .” Nico started listing, and with each thing he said his smile grew, and so did Cole’s moaning.

“She gets feisty when she eats sugar,” Cole stated.

Nico shrugged. “Who doesn’t?”

“She really, really loves sugar,” Cole said. “She’ll chew your hand off if you try to take the last candy bar.”

I gave Cole the stink eye. “Shut up. He’s trying to profess his feelings for me.”

Cole rolled his eyes and walked away, greeting a parent with a smile as he moved to where a group of kids were saying goodbye to each other.

My heartbeat was in a spiral over the things Nico had said, out loud, to my brother. Things I didn’t know he felt. It explained why he was willing to jump in with both feet. I felt like I was still catching up a little.

I made my voice light when I said, “Anything else you want to tell me about how wonderful I am, and how hopeless you are against your feelings?” I asked, facing forward again, keeping up the professional fa?ade for the parents who were picking up their kids.

“I think I covered it with Cole.”

“You really think all those nice things about me?” I pressed. He nodded. “Quinn wasn’t my first stalker?” I squeezed his hand.

“Yeah. I really understood the little guy and where he was coming from,” Nico replied.

“Wow. Stealing my picture is pretty next level.”

“It was the snapshot they had on the mantel of you holding a fish you’d caught.”

“Ugh, Nico. I was maybe fifteen, with braces, and hadn’t figured out that I had to wash my hair regularly,” I moaned.

“It was a crime of convenience. I wanted your senior portrait, but it isn’t easy to sneak an 11x14 framed picture off the family room wall.”

I tapped my arm against his. “You know I have to replace it with something better.”

“Oh, I’ve been taking candid pictures of you all summer. While you were sleeping, eating, dancing the hokey pokey . . .”

I turned to him, my mouth dropping open. “You have not.”

His grin was sly. “Wasn’t it you who told me at the start of camp that you were going to take my picture whether I liked it or not? I thought you’d understand.”

“I’ve created a monster,” I whispered. “A super good-looking, secretly nice, weirdo.”

He laughed. “Lucky for you, this weirdo is coming home with you.”

The drive from Windsong Summer Camp outside of Flagstaff, Arizona, to Logan, Utah takes roughly ten hours. Ten hours is a really long time, and I was thrilled to have Nico all to myself for the first time ever, even if I was still slightly off-center over him confidently loading all his things in my car in order to come home with me.

He was content and easy while I was overthinking all of it. My little car chugged down the dirt road toward Flagstaff at the terrible hour of six a.m., and I hadn’t slept a wink the night before. Between the excitement of road-tripping with my guy, and the worry that he’d discover he didn’t like Utah, it had been a rough go. My eyes stung, my hands gripped the wheel, and my knee was bouncing around of its own free will.

Nico sat calmly looking out the window, not talking to me, which was a point in his favor. He knew I wasn’t a beautiful morning princess, and respected that. I was tired and angsty, feeling a little tender after saying our goodbyes to Cole. I’d loved being with him for the summer, and I’d miss him.

The goodbye with Kristy had been harder, because her feelings were still hurt and mine were still guilty. We’d hugged and promised to keep in touch – we wouldn’t – and Gina hadn’t even bothered to come say goodbye at all.

Nico had been stoic about all of it, offering me a one-armed hug after Kristy had marched to her cabin in the dark last night. He’d carried that peaceful mentality through this morning too, quietly going about the last packing details and loading up my car. He hadn’t even acted weird about seeing my bags next to his, or asked me which route we’d be taking.

I was being kooky enough for both of us. My free-spirited self was whooping it up. My anxiety-riddled self had grabbed onto this idea that Nico and I had skipped the necessary steps. Usually it was meet, flirt around a bit, talk some, go on dates, and more dates, and then establish your mutual regard after seeing each other in a variety of situations. That should take months.

But nope, not us. We’d been thrown together as surprise roommates, lived together for the summer, flirted a bit, kissed some, and now we were going to show back up in my town as a couple.

The dirt road met pavement and my shoulders bunched.

“Bee?” His hand rested lightly on my shoulder. “Breathe.”

I shook my head. “I don’t do nearly as many nice things for you as you do for me.”

“That’s not true.”

“Name one nice thing I’ve done.”

“Alright. You talk when we’re in a group so that I don’t have to, you clean the bathroom sink when you’re done getting ready because I like it tidy, you . . ..”

I interrupted him. “I do that because I like it clean. ”

He chuckled. “Okay, good to know. You throw my dirty towels in with yours because I’m always short on time, you gave me a couple of shoulder massages after long days, you helped me after my nightmare.”

It was good to know I wasn’t totally selfish. I blurted out the next thought. “I don’t know enough about you.” The act of saying that out loud allowed my breath to woosh in and out once more. “Which means you don’t know enough about me, this woman you’re moving for.”

His hand left my shoulder and I saw him look toward me out of the corner of my eye. “Why do you say that?”

I glanced over at him and back, quickly. “We’re about to go live in the same town, and be a couple, and I’m worried that you’ll make this huge change, not truly knowing me, and regret it.”

He nodded, and I faced the road again. “Are you worried that you’ll get to know me better and want to ship me back to Texas?” he asked.

I swallowed and frowned. “Definitely.”

He laughed. “I was not expecting that answer.”

“You’re that sure of yourself?”

“Not at all. I figured it would be the truth, but thought you’d try to spare my feelings.”

I bit my lip. “Sorry.”

“Bee, you know me.” His voice was steady and sure. “And I know you.”

“Did you know that I never fill up my gas until the fuel light is on?”

“Seriously?”

I nodded. “Yes, and I won’t change. I like the thrill of rolling into the gas station on fumes.”

His hand landed on my knee. “I can accept that if you can accept that I refuse to let my gas tank go under the halfway full mark.”

“Oh my gosh. Nico!”

“What?” he looked to me.

“You don’t have a car. How are you going to get around Logan?”

He chuckled. “I have a motorcycle in Texas. We’ll figure out how to get it to Logan.”

I eased back into my seat. “You ride a motorcycle?”

“Yeah.”

I smiled. “That’s hot and I have no more questions. ”

He chuckled. “Since I don’t want this to keep bothering you, what do you think you need to know about a person before you make big life decisions regarding them?”

I chewed on my lower lip as I thought. “I guess I’d want to know if they’re kind and ethical, if I could depend on them, if they’re trustworthy, and if they know how to cook or not.”

“Food is important,” he agreed lightly. “You already know those things about me.”

My mind skipped over our months together at camp and I realized I did know Nico. I knew some of his background, but other parts would take years to unfold even if we had started out the ‘normal way’. My friends insisted that even after months of dating they were still finding out new things about their boyfriends. I knew he was dependable, and trustworthy, and I knew he could make tea like nobody’s business.

“Do you feel like you know me well enough to be making these big changes for me?” I asked him, feeling better about this new adventure.

“I do. I put together a spreadsheet and you’re looking like a good bet.” I laughed and he squeezed my knee. “This is probably not the best timing for this, in a car speeding down a two-lane road, but I’m in love with you Ruby. Completely and without question. There was no way I was going home to a state where you didn’t live. I need to be with you every day.”

I eased my car off the road onto the soft shoulder and put it in park before I dared to look at him. His dark eyes were filled with confidence and love. He meant it. There were no shadows, or hidden places in his gaze. It was all open, and all for me.

“Nico,” I sighed out his name and reached across to grab his forearm. “I think I love you too.”

His lips tugged up. “You think?”

“I’ll know for sure after we’ve road tripped for an entire day, but it’s looking really good for you right now.”

He leaned forward and pressed his warm, smiling mouth to mine, kissing me, making me believe, and leaving me so filled with sunshine I could burst.

Our arrival in Logan was absolute chaos. Nico had driven the second shift and I’d gotten restless as we hit the town limits. He’d laughed and poked me playfully in the ribs, telling me that if anyone should have ants in their pants it was him.

He parked my little car along the curb in front of Brooks’s house, his eyes taking everything in. And by everything, I mean all of my friends and their boyfriends standing around the yard watching us with very interested looks.

“Yeah, so that’s everyone,” I bounced in my seat, thrilled to be reunited with my Thornbacks.

“Everyone?”

“Well, Lizzie and her husband Jackson aren’t here because they live in Moab, but, yeah. Even Ford. I’m kind of surprised Hailey got him to come.”

Hailey’s boyfriend, Ford, was a single dad who owned a huge company and didn’t always participate in the group shenanigans due to time constraints – and probably some personality constraints to be honest. He was a little older and a lot more mature, after all. But there he stood, still in his full suit, arm around Hailey’s waist as she beamed at us from underneath a shade tree. My heart melted at the site, knowing he’d positioned her there to keep her comfortable in the August heat.

Meredith was marching toward the car while Brooks stood near his open front door, his bearded face breaking into a welcoming smile. That was also so ‘them’, that my heart softened again. Meredith always marching off to battle, and Brooks waiting at home, the soft spot for her to land. Aryn was jogging toward the car, her shy boyfriend Wesley making his own way over slowly. Sigh. They, too, were perfect. Aryn the athlete and her golden retriever geek guy, happily trotting along after waiting years to be with her.

Man, I loved them all.

I reached for Nico’s hand. “Are you nervous about meeting the rest of the group?”

He turned off the engine and squeezed my fingers. “Not at all. I spent a week sharing a cabin with Meredith, and she tells me that everyone else is, her words, ‘a pussy cat in comparison’.”

I laughed. “She’s not wrong.”

My door swung open and Meredith’s head dipped into my space. “What is taking so long?”

“I’m scared,” I said. “I’ve never brought a boy home to the family.”

She scoffed. “I’ve scared off at least five of your boys in the past two years. It’s about time you brought home a man.” She pointed at Nico. “Let’s go introduce you to your new roommate.”

I watched Nico unbuckle and step out of the car, sure and calm, a steady presence, and I could see what she meant. He was a man. Holy tamale, I’d managed to nab one at long last. There he was, facing down all these new things without any hint of worry, and I didn’t want to miss a second of it. I nudged Meredith out of the way and got out of the car myself.

Aryn and Wesley had arrived and the two men shook hands while Aryn hugged me. “I knew it, I knew it, I knew it.” She chanted. “I bet Wes twenty bucks you’d do something unexpected this summer. He owes me.”

Wesley turned to me and pushed his thin-framed glasses up onto his nose as he smiled. “I fully expected you to come home with a new pet hawk or something, not a man.”

I laughed and hugged Wesley too. “I love that me showing up with a hawk wouldn’t have phased you. I hope you never doubt my ability to surprise you.”

He gave me a soft squeeze and stepped back, taking Aryn’s hand in his. “Cross my heart.”

I walked to the back of my car and popped the trunk. Nico followed me around to grab his duffle bags as Hailey arrived at the curb. Ford was barely a step behind, a smile on his handsome face.

“Welcome back, Ruby.” He greeted me with a handshake. “This means Hailey will be able to sleep at night again.”

I made a face. “Like I’m the reason she’s stressed. You should look in the mirror, friend.” I replied.

He grinned. “Fair point.” He looked toward Nico who had slung one of his bags over his shoulder and held the other in his left hand. “This is the guy, huh?” He asked, reaching for Nico’s hand. “I hope you never try to change her.”

It was unlike Ford to say something so personal and complimentary, and I broke out into a big smile. “Fooord,” I oohed at him. “How sweet.”

He shook his head with a chuckle and moved back behind Hailey, resting his hands on her shoulders as she smiled up at him and said, “He’s becoming such a marshmallow. ”

“You’ve been a good influence,” I replied, launching forward to hug her close. “I’m so happy to be back.”

Nico and Hailey got in their introductions and we all made our way to the front door where Brooks had stood, observing it all in the way he often did. He did a great job of keeping us on the right side of the prison bars.

I gave him a light hug, and hooked a thumb over my shoulder at Nico who was standing close behind me. “I didn’t even kidnap this one. He came willingly.”

Brooks smiled. “What a relief.”

“He’s house-broken, and I can vouch for his good hygiene practices,” I continued.

Brooks looked over my shoulder to Nico. “That’ll be a nice change of pace.”

Meredith swatted at Brooks playfully. “I told you, perfume counts for at least one shower a week. You really need to drop it.”

Brooks grabbed her hand and tugged her into a hug, pressing a kiss to the top of her head and then sniffing it loudly. “You smell like an angel.”

She wriggled out of his hold, a telling smile on her face, as she rolled her eyes. “Let’s go. Everybody inside. Brooks has cookies, and Nico is probably ready to be grilled by all of us.”

Brooks stepped outside and gestured for all of his guests to enter his house. As Nico passed, he shook Brooks’s hand and gave him a nod.

“To be fair, I spent the last ten hours grilling him,” I called to everyone.

“And?” Aryn asked.

“He passed,” I replied. “I’ll give you a very detailed report when we’re alone. For now, we should skip that part and just eat cookies.”

My friends graciously did that, settling into the furniture in Brooks’s living space as he led Nico to the spare room. I followed along, leaning against the doorjamb as Brooks gave him a quick rundown of where things were, and handed him a house key.

“I really appreciate this, man,” Nico said to him. “I’m a stranger, and I know that.”

Brooks shrugged. “You spent a week with Meredith and impressed her. I don’t need any more recommendation than that. She’s a tough egg to crack.”

Nico nodded and dropped his things on the bed. I stepped aside to let Brooks back out to join the group .

“So, that’s everyone,” I said, coming further into the room. “You’ll have to meet Lizzie and Jackson another time.”

“It’s cool that they all showed up here. They obviously love you,” he responded with a small smile.

My throat grew lumpy and I swallowed as the truth of that ran through me. They did. And they were going to love him too, I knew it.

I knew another thing too.

Before he had a chance to see it coming, I kicked the bedroom door shut behind me and braced my hands on his chest to push him against the wall across the room.

“Ha ha,” I said. “You didn’t suspect a thing.”

His smile was slow, but it filled up his face as he chuckled. “I let my guard down.”

My hands slid down his chest and around his waist as I stepped closer. He followed suit, running his hands lightly up and down my arms before pulling me in. I tilted my face and kissed him lightly at first, before ramping it up a bit at his warm response.

Kissing Nico had only gotten better over the past weeks. He engaged with me in whatever mood I met him with. He kissed playfully, thoughtfully, and occasionally gave me peeks into some deeper emotion than I’d expected, pouring sweetness through the contact that left me feeling like the most precious thing in his life.

As the kiss progressed, I released the last of my fears. This wasn’t something silly and fun, with me in the haphazard driver’s seat. This was real and the acceptance of that brought with it an unexpected joy.

I pulled back, laying my head on his shoulder and pressing my nose under his chin. “I think you should know that I’ve decided I am in love with you,” I whispered.

His breathing was unsteady as he responded, “Thank goodness.”

I laughed. “I had you worried, huh?”

He rubbed my back lightly. “You didn’t fall without a fight.”

I sighed and playfully punched at his back where my hands were still resting. “Yeah, well, I’m still learning to read your mind.”

He pressed a kiss to the top of my head. “Eventually we’ll become telepathic and annoy others with our connection.”

I laughed. “That actually sounds kind of awesome. ”

His voice dropped low and intimate, and he pressed his mouth to my forehead, speaking against it. “I’m gone for you, Bee. I’m yours, totally. Forever.”

“Okay.” I smiled. “Forever.”

I leaned back to kiss him some more, because, hi, declarations of love deserve some kisses to seal it, but Meredith’s voice interrupted us before we could indulge more than a few pecks.

“The cookies are getting cold!” she cried.

I laughed and released my hold on Nico.

“Please feel free kick the door closed and kiss attack me any time,” he mumbled as we headed out of the room.

“Your wish is my command,” I replied with a wink.