“Problem?” he prompted.
“Ralphie. We started off like this.” She held the index fingers of her two hands together. “I went down and he went up.” Separating her hands, she opened her arms as wide as possible, one above her head, one lower down. “Everyone loved Ralphie. And everyone forgot about me. Potsticker?”
Dropping her hands, she went to the table and snatched up the plate of potstickers and two forks. It gave her a chance to hide the flush coming across her face. Even though all that was in the past, it still embarrassed her.
He was shaking his head when she got back. She handed him a fork. “I doubt anyone forgot. My guess is that you wanted to be invisible and they obliged you.”
“Maybe,” she admitted, jabbing a fork into a potsticker. “I did get a 4.0 average out of my lack of social life. And I got to watch Ralphie date his way through our class, the class above us, and the class below.”
He helped himself to a potsticker too. “So now you want to be another notch on his bedpost, is that it?”
“No,” she said defensively. “God. You make it sound so gross. I just want…” She shrugged, searching for the right words. “I just want him to see me. I want to prove to him that I’m not the same ridiculously awkward girl I was back then.” To emphasize her point, she waved the potsticker in the air—only to watch in horror as it flipped off the tines of the fork and landed with a squishy thwack on Alastair’s forehead. A spray of soy sauce flicked across his face.
Alastair clapped his hand to his forehead and peeled off the sticky dumpling. “You were saying? Something about awkward? I didn’t quite catch it because of the random potsticker attack.”
She dashed back to the table to grab a napkin. “I’m so sorry. Let me get that soy sauce out of your hair.”
“It’s Nama Shoyu,” he grumbled as she dabbed at his face and hair. “Expensive, too. Never planned on using it like aftershave.”
“It’s just a couple drops, don’t be so dramatic.” His hair was soft, she noticed, as a lock slid through her fingers. It had a thick wave to it. And he smelled nice, apart from the soy sauce. A cool, fresh whiff of the outdoors. “And yes, I still have my awkward moments, in case we still needed proof of that. Hang on, there’s a drop inside your ear. How the heck did it get in there?”
As she delicately blotted that bit of soy sauce, he gave a low rumble of laughter. Then another. His laugh was so infectious—like a chuckle deep in his chest—that she giggled too. Then he threw his head all the way back and roared.
She watched, smiling along with him. He wasn’t laughing at her, she knew, or even because getting soy sauce in your ear was funny. It was a release from whatever tension that envelope had caused him.
“Ruthie, you really know how to lighten things up.” He wiped his eyes when he was finally done laughing.
“Feeling better now?”
“Actually, yeah.”
“More relaxed?”
“A bit.”
“Less grouchy-bear?”
“Sure, why not?”
“Then what’s in that letter?”
Her rapid-fire interrogation technique worked. He opened his mouth, and this time he didn’t snap it shut before he spoke. “I just inherited a fortune.”
Four
“What?” Ruthie dropped the soy sauce napkin on the floor, but didn’t appear to notice.
He bent down and picked it up, grateful for the chance to collect himself. Ruthie’s flustered reaction helped him momentarily forget the news in that letter, but now the reality came rushing back.
“What fortune?” she asked when he straightened up again. “From whom?”
Only Ruthie would make sure her grammar was correct while she was questioning him about this bombshell.
“It’s from my sister and her husband. Life insurance. It was finally released because their case has been solved—officially speaking. Apparently they named me as the sole beneficiary of the policy. Carole must have wanted to take care of me if something happened. Always watching out for me, she was.”
He handed her the letter and let her read it. Her jaw fell open. “It’s a fifty-million-dollar policy.”
“Aye.”
“That’s a lot of money.”
“Aye.”
“And yet you seem really upset. Are you opposed to money?”
“I’m not opposed to money.” He dragged his hand through his hair, which still felt a little damp from the potsticker incident. “I’d rather not talk about it.”
Her eyes were still fixed on him. When he first met Ruthie, he would have described her eyes as brown. Just that, brown. But now he’d use a different word. Maybe…chestnut chocolate ganache. A rich, warm, and soulful kind of brown.
“Come on, Alastair. It’s me, Ruthie. Your work wife. By the way, I’m not expecting to share your new fortune with you, in case there were any questions about just how far the work wife thing goes.”
He smiled. “I’ll make a note in our never-nuptial agreement.”
Ruthie really did have a knack for lightening the moment. And he knew she was a true friend. She’d proved that in many ways, starting with an extensive apology phase after she’d screwed with his kitchen arrangements. She’d researched vendors who shipped spices and other hard-to-get ingredients to Alaska. She’d also put in some repentance sous-chef time in the brewery kitchen, which then became a part-time job. She’d even volunteered to keep the books for him because he disliked that part. Bit by bit, they’d developed an easy camaraderie that he truly valued.
He pulled out his phone and checked the time. This time of year it could be very difficult to tell just from the light. The sun was below the horizon now, but vivid streaks of orange and fuchsia still glowed in the sky. His phone told him it was after ten. “I need to finish my kitchen cleanup.”
She waved him off. “Don’t worry about that, I got it. Just a little thank you for making those amazing potstickers. Honestly, I think they were the highlight for Ralphie. That and when I offered to help him with his quarterly taxes,” she added ruefully.
He groaned. “You didn’t.”
“You know I did. It’s no big deal for me, but Ralphie was always really bad at math. I helped him out in middle school, so why not now?”
Setting his jaw, he forced himself to let it go. He hated to see Ruthie make a fool of herself over a feckless fisherman, but it was her life. He had his own problems to sort through.
“If you give me a hard time, I’ll take back my cleanup offer,” she threatened. Spinning on her heel, she went back to the table to clear it off. “Just admit you don’t understand my feelings for Ralphie and move on.”
“I don’t understand your feelings for Ralphie. There. Easily done.” He helped her stack the plates and glasses in a busboy bin she’d stashed in the corner. “But I promise not to give you a hard time. You’re a grown woman. It’s your choice. I…support you.” It was hard to get that last part out, but he did it.
“Thank you.” Her pleased smile warmed his heart. For so long he’d felt mostly cold in that region, except when he was angry or grieving. But Ruthie had a knack for thawing it out. “Now if I could just get Ralphie onboard.”