Their Freefall At Last by Julie Olivia

41

Bennett

Three Months Before

Ruby & Bennett are Twenty-Nine Years Old

“My little gemstone! Ahh! Look at you! Oh my God, put away those weapons!”

Ruby giggles as my mom pinches her biceps.

My best friend has biceps.

If she twists them certain ways, you can see the little bulges poking out from her former twig-like arms. She’s got some meat to her now. She looks strong.

“I pick up heavy things and put them back down,” Ruby says proudly. “I’m basically a gym rat, Brittney.”

I snort with a grin. “We’ve had to tell her to get out of the trash cans actually.”

My mom’s head falls back in laughter right as Ruby crosses her arms with a grin.

“That would make me a gym raccoon,” she jokes.

“A gym possum.”

“I’m fine with that. Possums are cute.”

It’s been almost one year since the engagement party. Things feel normal again.

They’re great.

No, they’re perfect.

“Oh,” Ruby says, bouncing on her toes. “We’re having wings for dinner, by the way!”

My mom fans her face, still looking not a day over thirty-five.

“Wow. And she cooks too? Woman after my own heart.”

Ruby tips an invisible cowboy hat. “I intend to treat you right, ma’am.”

“Much better than my son. Refusing to house his poor ol’ mother? Tsk-tsk.”

“Mom …” I say, wrapping a hand around her shoulder right as she leans into me, swatting at my arm with a laugh.

She’s joking. My mom can work anywhere with her new job, so she decided to come into town for the last two months of wedding planning; said she missed Cedar Cliff badly. I insisted she stay with me and Jolene. But even though I had a bed cleared for her, our house has been so overwhelmed with Jolene’s handcrafted reception decor that Jolene said it would make the house too crowded with one extra body.

Thankfully, Ruby, my best maiden, offered up her house instead.

“So, how’s the project going?” Mom raises her eyes at Ruby with a small smile.

“What?” I ask. “What project?”

“Oh”—Ruby waves me off—“it’s nothing. A work thing.”

I laugh. “Okay, well, what work thing?”

“We just made some headway in the project, is all.”

“Emory is finally giving her the reins on a few things,” my mom tosses in, knocking Ruby on the shoulder. “She’s killin’ it.”

I’m still blinking through the new information. “You’re spearheading stuff?”

Ruby squints. “Yeah. Didn’t I tell you that?”

Did she?

There are too many things I no longer know about my best friend. I didn’t know she’d hit a personal best at the gym until Theo told me. I didn’t know she’d had a verbal altercation with her neighbors about parking in her driveway until Quinn and Landon baked her a celebratory cake and brought it to Trivia Night. I didn’t know she had been saving up for a better house until Lorelei showed up with the research she and Emory had done earlier this year for their own house. Even her wins at her dream job seem to be discussed with everyone but me.

“You need to step up your game,” Mom says, elbowing me. “Little Rubes has it all together.”

“Little?” My eyebrows rise. “Not so little anymore. She’s like a bull now.”

“Dragon,” Ruby corrects, absentmindedly handing my mom her glass of pinot.

“Bison.”

“Pegasus.”

“Why are you only choosing mythical creatures?”

Her green eyes dart to me through hooded ginger lashes. “Because they’re the coolest. And I’m cool.” She gives a slow, teasing smile that gives me a pause before snapping her tongs at us, just like Mom did when we were younger. “I’m gonna go check the wings. Stay out of trouble, you two.”

I watch after Ruby disappears through the sliding glass door. She opens the grill—something I couldn’t have imagined her doing a few months ago. Hell, she didn’t even own a grill until recently. But she does now. Ruby has been doing a lot of new things recently. She tried out rock climbing, joined Theo at yoga, and even paid Landon for some cooking classes.

Honestly, Ruby seems happy. I can see it in the way she bops in front of the grill to no music, the way her toned thighs and calves show off the commitment she’s given to the gym month after month, and the confidence in which she flips the wings over with the tongs without asking any questions first.

“Bennett,” my mom whispers.

I turn to look at her. Her eyes are wide, her eyebrows practically raised to the peak of her forehead.

“What?”

Her eyes float to Ruby and back. My chest tightens.

“What?” I repeat.

Ruby’s front door creaks open.

“Bennett?”

Jolene.

“Come on in!” I call back.

Jolene appears in the kitchen, a bag slung over her shoulder and a binder propped in one arm.

“Jojo!” my mom calls over, screeching her barstool back and embracing Jolene.

I bite my tongue to not laugh, but a chuckle still draws out. Jolene throws me a middle finger behind my mom’s back.

The sliding glass door whines open, and Ruby steps inside with her arms raised. “Jojo!”

“I swear I’m gonna kill y’all for that nickname,” Jolene jokes through gritted teeth.

Ruby’s phone lights up on the counter, and when she glances down at the screen, her smile brightens.

My chest feels pulled taut, like a wire.

Maybe she just saw a text from Theo or Quinn or Lorelei. Heck, maybe it’s Emory. He is her boss now after all.

Or …

Maybe it’s the mysterious man who stayed over after my engagement party.

Or maybe it’s not him. Maybe this imaginary person never even existed. I’ve never had it confirmed or denied. We’ve never mentioned that night again.

I look down at my own phone, but there’s no buzz even though I’ve been expecting one.

I started writing my dad again at Jolene’s insistence, and just two months ago, we exchanged phone numbers. He hasn’t been the best at responding, which is normally okay. But my last text was an invite to my wedding. The thread indicates it’s been read. But no reply yet.

Jolene’s eyes catch on my phone as I pocket it. I give a small, totally-not-upset shrug. I don’t want to worry her, but she frowns anyway.

“Okay,” Jolene says loudly, slapping her binder on the counter. “So, your thirtieth is coming up soon.”

Ruby and I simultaneously groan.

Mom waves her hand in our direction. “Oh, hush, you’re both still so young.”

“Thirty is a big birthday,” Jolene says. “I feel like it should be a blowout.”

I sigh. “We really don’t have to.”

“I’d look like a terrible fiancée if I didn’t plan something.”

“And I’d be a pretty bad fiancé if I didn’t say how much I hated the idea.”

“You can plan my birthday,” Ruby offers with a laugh, sipping on her cup of water.

Jolene’s face twists, a subtle glance that’s there for a moment, then disappears again. It’s the same weird look I’ve noticed more and more over the past year. I know now that I’m not imagining it. But I wish I were.

She shakes it off and smiles.

“Then, maybe I will since Bennett is being a big baby about it all.”

“It’s just … thirty is a weird age,” I say, running a hand through my hair. “Do my bones start creaking when I turn thirty? Do I wake up with a painful back? Do my hangovers get worse?”

“Yes, yes, and yes,” my mom confirms.

I point. “See? What’s there to celebrate?”

“Life,” Ruby says. “Freedom, I guess? All the clichés?”

Freedom.

Jolene grabs Ruby’s bottle of wine and pours herself a glass. “Well, I think your thirties will be the best so far. Y’know, I always thought you’d be married before thirty,” Jolene says to Ruby. “We gotta tackle your happy ending next.”

Ruby chokes on her water and follows up with a half-laugh. “Nah. Getting married has never been in the plan.”

I take the wine passing hand to hand through the kitchen and pour myself a glass.

Everything is absolutely perfect in my life. My best friend is making waves at her dream job, my mom is in town for two months, and my beautiful fiancée is planning the biggest birthday party I’ll ever have in my life.

I glance over at Jolene to smile, but her eyes are lowered. I follow them to the place they’re zeroed in—Ruby’s wrist. The pink bracelet still sits there, clear as day.

Yep. Everything is absolutely perfect.

“Let’s just plan this, okay?” Jolene says sharply, whipping open her binder. “And fix your hair, Ben. Christ.”

I tense, but so does everyone else in the kitchen. Jolene’s been more whip-quick with her words the closer it gets to the wedding. I think she’s just stressed. Wedding planning isn’t easy, especially with how particular she is with everything. I’ve been trying to handle things like flowers or invitations, but she insists on planning it herself.

I wish I knew how to help.

But for now, I laugh to lighten the mood, shoveling my long hair into a bun and tying it with the leather cord around my wrist. And when the hair tie accidentally snags at my pink string, I feel my heart stutter until it lets go.