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

by Cara Malone

  Even if Ruby hadn’t had The Talk with Max, she still had eleven more weeks alone in Chicago with Megan to convince her it was necessary. Max couldn’t count on anything, and she couldn’t start mending her splintered heart because she was in limbo, just waiting for the day when Ruby would decide to shatter it completely.

  ***

  Eventually, Max called Ruby back. She told her that she’d gotten into Granville just fine, and then reminded her that she hated talking on the phone. That was true – it was too hard to infer emotions without the benefit of visual cues and body language – but she also found herself shying away from Ruby, anticipating the final blow. They started emailing and texting instead, and the summer progressed in one long, slow chain of dispirited emails.

  Ruby took on most of the effort to keep them going, emailing or texting at least once a day, asking Max about the landscaping projects she was working on with her dad’s crew and what books she was reading and how she was filling her days, but Max could never shake the fear that every conversation they had might be their last.

  They both diligently avoided any reference to the proposal – an email hardly seemed like the place to have that conversation – but Max got her chance to talk about it a few days after she arrived home, when Mira finally called to check on her.

  “Well?” She asked the moment Max answered the phone.

  “Well, what?”

  “When’s the damn wedding?” Mira asked. “Did you get up the guts to propose like you wanted?”

  “I did,” Max said with a wince. She knew it wasn’t going to be an easy conversation, but it would be nice to unburden herself to someone besides her journals. “She turned me down.”

  Mira let out a sigh, then teased the details out of Max. She demanded to be walked through the entire night – one that Max would much sooner forget. Then after a moment of contemplation, Mira said, “Okay, so she said no, but she didn’t break up with you. Now what?”

  “You tell me,” Max said, actually becoming hopeful that Mira might tell her what to do and end the agony of uncertainty she’d been living in.

  “Have you talked about it with her?”

  “Hell no.”

  “You probably should,” Mira said. Max didn’t want to tell her that there was a better chance of hell freezing over this summer than Max voluntarily bringing up the proposal with Ruby, so she just stayed silent and Mira added, “It doesn’t sound like she was saying no to the whole idea. I think she just assumed your proposal was driven by some insecurity about Megan being there.”

  “It was,” Max said.

  “Well, she probably wants a more genuine expression of love before she says yes,” Mira said. “I don’t think all is lost for you two.”

  Max just grunted, and Mira changed the subject, filling Max in on her new job as a reference librarian. She was working in a public library and after a week she already had a handful of stories about the strange patrons she’d encountered.

  About once a week for the rest of the summer, Max would find an email from Mira, or a series of text messages, relaying the details of her latest interesting, crazy, or weird patron interaction. She had stories about everything from book thieves to teenagers making out in the stacks to people who took it upon themselves to reinvent the Dewey Decimal System and reorganize all the books.

  As the summer dragged on, Max’s email thread back and forth with Ruby became shorter and more strained. It was hard to keep a two-month-long conversation going, especially when only one of the participants was motivated to do so, and Max couldn’t bring herself to take Mira’s advice no matter how much she thought about it. It just seemed safer not to talk about the proposal, and to let it fade into distant memory.

  Because of the quality of their conversations, and her own general unresponsiveness, Max was surprised when Ruby said she was still planning to come to Granville in July. She even tried to convince Ruby that it wasn’t necessary, telling her that the landscaping crew was busy as ever and she might not even be able to take the mornings off to spend time with her.

  Max was terrified that seeing Ruby again would finally necessitate a serious conversation, and it would wake Ruby up to the fact that they were just two very different people. She’d realize it wasn’t working anymore, and that she was happier in Chicago with Megan, and that would be it for them. Max told her there was no swimming pool or cleaning service, and that Granville had no tourist attractions like Chicago did. But that did nothing to deter Ruby from coming.

  One Sunday night at the beginning of July, she arrived on Max’s doorstep. She rang the bell and as soon as Max opened the door, Ruby threw her arms around Max’s neck and pulled her into a deep, longing kiss.

  The smell of her hair, the curve of her body pressed against Max’s, the softness of her skin, her lips… Max melted into her instantly, her legs feeling like gelatin. It felt like her heart was breaking and her whole body was swelling with love all at the same time.

  “I missed you,” Ruby whispered, and then kissed Max again, even more passionately.

  Max never wanted to let her go, and she wanted to fight to stay in that perfect moment. Any resolve she’d had toward the goal of protecting herself from heartbreak was gone, and Max was truly, utterly Ruby’s once again.

  CHAPTER 13

  Ruby had been counting the days until her reunion with Max ever since their unsatisfactory separation at the bus station. Max had been steadfastly avoiding the subject of the proposal ever since, and she’d become less and less responsive to texts, emails, and phone calls over the past few weeks.

  This wasn’t how she imagined the summer would go – she thought they would talk every night and tell each other what they did that day, and maybe even watch movies together and fall asleep with their phones pressed to their ears. But Max hated being on the telephone and she thought that saying the same things every day was a waste of time. Ruby knew she was busy working for her father, too, but the distance growing between them worried her.

  Ruby was relieved when Max returned her kiss with the same passion, and when she threw her arms tightly around Ruby’s waist, but she didn’t get to savor the moment for long. Her parents, Nick and Janet, appeared in the doorway, eager to greet their house guest and take her bags inside.

  “Hi Ruby,” Janet said, giving Ruby a hug as soon as Max stepped aside on the narrow porch. It was a warm welcome that Ruby thought was better suited to a long-lost relative than her daughter’s girlfriend of less than a year. “How’s your summer been, honey?”

  “It’s been good,” Ruby said, glancing at Max and wondering if ‘good’ was the right word for it. In the last few months she’d been catching up with her parents and her sister, seeing old friends here and there, and Megan dropped by once in a while but mainly focused her attention on Jade and Celeste. It wasn’t a bad summer, but because things weren’t right with Max, every day seemed to have a cloud hanging over it. She asked Janet, “How about you?”

  “Oh, wonderful as always,” Janet said. “We’re keeping busy and Nick won a contract with the city this year so there’s no lack of work to be done.”

  “That’s great news,” Ruby said, smiling at them as Max looped her arm around Ruby’s waist again.

  “Well, let me take that bag off your hands,” Nick said, reaching for the duffel that Ruby had slung over her shoulder. Nick was always a little more reserved than Max’s mother, and Ruby thought that Max took after him in a lot of ways. When she’d come for dinners during the school year, she always enjoyed drawing him out of his shell – it was more of a challenge than talking to Janet, who wore her heart on her sleeve, and in that way Max was her father’s daughter.

  “Thanks,” Ruby said, handing over her bag.

  “I bet you’re hungry from that drive,” Janet said, stepping aside and waving Ruby into the house.

  “I could eat,” Ruby said.

  “We’ve got reservations at a steakhouse downtown in an hour,” Nick said. “I hope that’s okay.
”

  “Sounds great,” Ruby said.

  Max released her to let her go inside the house and Ruby took her hand, then followed Nick as he led her down the hall to Max’s room and set her bag down in front of the desk. She had a moment of surprise as she realized that he meant for her to sleep in Max’s bed this week – something that her own parents would have died before allowing, let alone suggesting – but on the other hand, none of their parents were naïve enough to think that they didn’t sleep in the same bed all year long. Nick and Janet were just a little more practical about it than her own mother and father.

  Nick and Janet left Ruby to get settled for a few minutes, and she pulled Max into another hug, holding her tight and repeating, “I missed you so much.”

  “I missed you too,” Max said, her voice sounding tremulous.

  Ruby pulled back and held her at arm’s length, studying Max’s expression and wondering if they had enough time to really talk seriously before dinner. She didn’t want to get into the thick of a conversation about Max’s proposal only to have Janet popping into the room with her characteristic enthusiasm, telling them to hurry up or they’d lose their reservation. In the end, Ruby settled on, “Well, we have an entire week together and you better believe I’m going to be stuck on you like glue. Then after that, there’s just three more weeks and we’ll be back at school.”

  Max seemed to buck up at that thought, and for the hour before dinner, she helped Ruby unpack her bag so that her clothes wouldn’t wrinkle and they talked in-depth for the first time in weeks about how their summers were going. Ruby told Max about the new menu her mother was working on for the restaurant – one that involved an excessive number of sample chicken dishes being served at home – and Max entertained Ruby with Mira’s horror stories from the public library reference desk.

  Then Janet and Nick reappeared to gather them up, and the four of them drove over to a fancy-looking steakhouse in a part of downtown Granville that Ruby had yet to see.

  “This is one of our favorite places to eat,” Janet explained when they’d arrived at their table and she was passing menus around to everyone. “Nick and I come here about once a month. Has Max brought you here before?”

  “No,” Ruby answered. During the school year, she and Max had primarily concerned themselves with restaurants that had take-out menus.

  “In that case, allow me to recommend the house red,” Nick said. He passed Ruby a drink menu and pointed it out. “It’s a cabernet blend with cherry undertones, and I don’t think I’ve found anything on the menu it doesn’t pair well with. It comes from a local vineyard just outside the city.”

  “My husband, the sommelier,” Janet teased, hitting Nick’s arm playfully.

  “Of course,” he went on, “there’s also an impressive selection of soft drinks and Italian sodas if you’re not much of a drinker. Max always gets the orange cream soda.”

  “It’s basically a liquid Creamsicle,” Max said. “It’s delicious.”

  “Maybe I’ll try one of the Italian sodas,” Ruby said, looking over the menu.

  After the trouble that whiskey sours got her into at the beginning of the summer, she wasn’t sure more alcohol was a wise choice. If she’d been a little more sober at the party, she probably wouldn’t have found it so easy to fall back into old conversational habits with Megan, and she might have reacted more conscientiously to the proposal.

  “You should try the red,” Max said.

  “I don’t need to,” Ruby objected.

  “I know you like wine,” Max said. “My dad says it’s really good here.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t want to pass up the opportunity to taste the local flavors,” Ruby said.

  When the waiter came by to take their orders, Nick got a bottle of the house red to split with Ruby and his wife, and Max got her customary orange cream soda. Once she’d discovered something she liked, it was very hard to convince her that something else was worth trying.

  “Can I have a taste?” Ruby asked as their drinks were distributed around the table. Max slid her soda bottle over to Ruby, and just because she knew that Nick and Janet wouldn’t think twice about it, she put her hand on Max’s thigh beneath the table. She took a sip and slid the bottle back while Nick was pouring her a glass of red. “Wow, that really does taste like a Creamsicle.”

  “Told you,” Max said, putting her hand on top of Ruby’s and smiling at her.

  The four of them chatted while they waited for their meals to arrive, Janet monopolizing the conversation most of the time with a never-ending stream of questions that Ruby was accustomed to from the dinners she’d eaten with the Saddlers during the previous school year. Max had her mother’s curiosity, and Janet wanted to know everything about everyone – how Ruby’s parents were doing, how her little sister was liking her first year of college, and so on – even if she’d never actually met any of them.

  Ruby just laughed and played along, filling her in on all the summer happenings in Chicago. Max listened politely, and Ruby was careful to avoid any anecdotes that might involve Megan just to curtail any possible jealousy that was still lingering on Max’s part. Ruby wanted to talk to her about that, to make sure that Max didn’t still think Megan had some secret plan to steal her away, but now wasn’t the time to get into it.

  By the time the food arrived – Ruby had ordered a big, beautiful, medium-rare steak and a baked potato – she was able to steer the conversation away from herself and take a moment to breathe. She turned to Nick and said, “So, Max says you’re having a good summer and you’ve been keeping her busy.”

  “Couldn’t do it without her,” he said as he picked up his knife and fork and attacked his own steak. “She’s a big help every summer.”

  “I can imagine,” Ruby said, smiling at Max. Some evenings – in the rare times when she could manage to get Max on the phone – she could hear the exhaustion in her voice after a long day of outdoor work. She looked so tan and so healthy, though, and Ruby thought when they were hugging earlier that Max must have been building muscle this summer because she was squeezing her a little tighter and Ruby could see the definition of her biceps. She added, “Especially with a city contract to deal with on top of your other clients.”

  She was telling me the other day that you’re working on a big project at a new restaurant this week,” Ruby said.

  “Yeah,” Nick said. “Although this week it’s all hands on deck for a big restaurant grand opening. It’s basically just dirt right now, and we’ve got to get the flower beds planted and the lawn installed before the soft open a week from Thursday.”

  “Wow,” Ruby said. “Sounds like there’s a lot of work to be done.”

  “Oh, but of course we’ll manage without Max,” Nick added. “I won’t keep her from her visitor.”

  “Actually,” Ruby said, “do you think I could be of assistance, too?”

  The idea hadn’t occurred to her until that moment, but it didn’t seem right to take away one of Nick’s employees in a critical time, and Ruby wouldn’t mind rolling up her sleeves and getting to work. It might be fun, and it would definitely be a good story to tell.

  “You want to work for my dad?” Max asked, surprised.

  “Why not?” Ruby asked. “If you need an extra hand, then I’d be happy to help. I mean, I don’t know much about landscaping, but if someone shows me the ropes I’m sure I can manage. I’d love to earn my keep for the week.”

  “You don’t have to do that, dear,” Janet cut in, but by now Ruby was already thinking that this might be an excellent opportunity to bond with Max and make some new memories in a setting where she was comfortable. If a week of tourism in Chicago wasn’t Max’s thing, then maybe they’d have a better time planting flowers and trimming hedges all week – it didn’t matter to Ruby as long as she got to spend time with Max.

  “I think it’d be fun,” she said.

  “You’re sure you don’t mind getting put to work?” Nick asked.

  “Not a
t all,” Ruby said. “It would be an honor to help.”

  Ruby looked to Max for reassurance, to make sure she was on board with the idea. Max shrugged and said, “I have a few extra polo shirts you can borrow.”

  “Well then, welcome to the crew,” Nick said with a big smile. “We’ll use all the help we can get.”

  ***

  After dinner, Ruby and Max went out to Max’s back yard just as the sun had finished setting and the fireflies were lighting up the neighborhood with their nightly mating dance.

  “There’s no pool,” Max said. “Do you think you’ll be able to survive the week?”

  “Stop,” Ruby said, grabbing Max by the hem of her t-shirt and pulling her in for a kiss. When they separated again, she added, “My parents’ house is not that big.”

  “It’s pretty fucking big.”

  “You know what it doesn’t have, though?” Ruby asked. Max shook her head, so Ruby pulled her down to the grass, laying down on her back and looking up at the sky. “This view.”

  The light pollution in the suburbs of Granville was so much less extensive than it was in Chicago, and she could just make out the Big Dipper. The longer they stared up at the night sky, the more stars she could see and the smaller she felt in the context of the universe.

  “This is okay, but there’s another view I like even better,” Max said after a while, and then she propped herself up on one elbow, leaning over to kiss Ruby.

  “Smooth,” Ruby said with a giggle.

  “Really?”

  “No, that was insanely cheesy,” she answered, but she propped herself up too, facing Max. “Are we still doing okay?”

  “I don’t know what that means,” Max said.

  “It seems like you’ve barely wanted to talk to me for the last few weeks,” Ruby said. “I know that I hurt you when I turned down your proposal, but I didn’t want it to change anything between us.”

  “How could it not?”