Page 57 of Win My Heart

Now it’s my turn to roll my eyes. “You know that’s not true.”

She gives me her big ole puppy dog eyes, her bottom lip popped out, and she reaches out and grabs my hand.

“Ugh. Why? I don’t need to be there for it to be fun. I’ll probably complain the whole time.” Internally, I’m starting to cry because I don’t think I’m going to get out of this.

“You don’t complain, like ever, so try a new excuse.” Ruby cracks the whip on that one.

“I’m not going to be the seventh wheel while doing something I hate. Not happening.” There, that reason is gold. She knows sometimes being the only single one isn’t fun for me, so she normally doesn’t push it. I’ve laid down my card, and I’m going to win this round.

Until the Cheshire cat grin slides into place. I narrow my eyes.

Before she can speak, Matt walks back into the main space from down the hall.

“What did I miss?” he asks as he throws himself down on the couch next to Simon. Was he not here the whole conversation? I mentally shake my head. Not my job to keep track of my teammates.

“Ruby is trying to talk Bernie into going camping with us this weekend,” Link tells him, walking out of the kitchen with a handful of pretzels and shoveling them into his mouth.

“Oh, camping. I want to go!” Matt says.

Link nods enthusiastically, but he can’t talk because of the pretzels.

Simon looks over to me. “Now it’s not a couples’ thing.”

I bite my lip. I don’t want to go camping. And as much as it’s gotten easier to hang with Matt since Morgan and Dex’s wedding, I don’t want him to be the one I stick with. His crush on me hasn’t completely fizzled out.

I play my last-ditch-effort hand. “I have zero camping stuff. And I’m not going to buy anything for one night.”

Ruby opens her mouth—I’m sure with some kind of retort—but Link, mouth empty this time, says, “No worries. We’ve got enough between us.”

Simon and Matt nod and voice their agreement.

I use my eyes to plead with Ruby—please don’t make me do this.

She lowers her voice, her sneaky grin still present. “Wade’s coming.”

I try to keep my composure. I haven’t told her or Gia or Morgan about my current extracurriculars. I’ve wanted to so many times, but they haven’t forced girl talk on me, and I’m worried they’re going to lecture me on what it means to be someone’s secret. It’s not like I’m some other woman. It’s just that Wade hasn’t told Dex yet, and I told him a few weeks ago, I would be patient.

“Cool. Hope you all have fun.” I do a quick spin in my chair and face my computer, pretending the conversation is over.

But Ruby leans down next to me, her face next to mine, and whispers, “You’re going camping, my friend. If not, I’m going to stop pretending I don’t know how you and Wade have been spending a lot of one-on-one time together.”

I suck in a breath and angle my face slightly toward her. She’s smirking and looks mighty proud of herself.

How does she know?

“I’ve got questions,” I mutter.

“You and me both, sista. But we’ll have a nice long chat after we get back from our camping trip.” She leans in and pecks me on the cheek.

“Good news, boys. She’s coming!” she says in a triumphant tone as she walks away.

The guys cheer, and I close my eyes.

What’s happening right now?

Is this karma for that time I started a rumor in seventh grade about how Sasha McDaniels had warts all over lady bits? It was totally made up, of course. But I was pissed that she was telling people I was a bad kisser because her twin brother, Andy, had kissed me at the bus stop, and I hadn’t known what to do. I’d never been kissed. I was thirteen! That was the one and only time I went out of my way to be mean to someone.

Looks like I’m going flipping camping.

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