Excerpt from Probably Ruby by Lisa Bird-Wilson, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Today Kal and she were four sessions in and she was trying to decide if she would renew with him. That was, if her insurance would allow it. Six was the upper limit on the first assignment, and she got six because "her stepdad died." Which was not really true but, as far as she could tell, insurance companies had no truth­auditing process. She didn't have a stepdad. But if she did he might have died, because he'd have been old, right? Ruby's parents were old, because she was adopted. They were the same age as her real grandparents, and by "real" she meant "birth" grandparents. So if her mom had remarried someone who was even older than her—which he likely would be, because that's how patriarchy works—well, then he would be so old that he might have died. In that case, it was entirely believable that Ruby could have had a stepdad who died. Really, Alice had broken up with all the losers she dated after the divorce, thank god, but still, Ruby was starting to feel a bit sad about the whole dead-stepdad thing, once she'd thought it through like that. 

Her options with Kal at this point were to try to renew her insurance so she could stay connected to him, or to be brave and make a move on him soon. She just didn't know if he was ready. And then, just as she was weighing all the options, during appointment number four, Kal said this: "Do you want to book your next appointment at my home office? I find it quieter, and it might be a nice change of scenery for our discussion." 

Aha. Up to now, they'd always met at his downtown office, where there was a chaperone. Okay, secretary. At his home office Ruby imagined there would be no one but the two of them. In his house. This was looking promising.

She arrived exactly fifteen minutes early—if there was some Lori before her, she wanted to see her leaving. But there was no one. She was relieved to see Kal's house wasn't smelly or desperate. Or, worse yet, too clean. It looked mostly ordinary. As he led her inside she pointed to a yellow sombrero hanging on the wall between the kitchen and living room. 

"Nice," she commented. 

He laughed. "Mexico. Last winter. I should probably take it down."

"Don't you dare," she said. "It's the best."

Hoodies on the coat pegs and sneakers near the back door provided evidence of his kids, who were older teenagers. He shared custody with his so-called ex. 

Once, during appointment number three, when Ruby talked about her irrational devotion to Dana, Kal told her, "I understand how you feel. I'm still in love with my ex."

"Are you? Would you go back with her?" she asked. This turn of events had never occurred to her before. She'd taken at face value his previous pronouncements of "ex," whom she had started to think of by that name. Ex, in her mind, had been a final, strongly held identity. Now Ruby was all wound up like a jewelry-box ballerina. Who knew which direction she might end up facing? One minute, he said "ex" as if he meant it; the next he was pining to get her back. Ruby realized she didn't even know Ex's real name. 

They stopped in the kitchen while he finished making two cups of tea. 

"We drank a lot of tea as kids," he said. "With loads of milk." She identified drinking milky tea as a kid as a Métis thing. She loved that Kal was part Métis, like her. Only she didn't grow up with her "real" family, and she never drank tea as a kid, her mother Alice being partial to instant coffee, which had a completely different vibe altogether. She watched Kal pour the hot water into the teapot and longed to know more, to connect to that part of herself she'd never had. 

"I bet you were a cute kid," she said, and filled the room with her big laugh. Kal just smiled and poured the tea.

Excerpted from Probably Ruby by Lisa Bird-Wilson. Copyright © 2022 by Lisa Bird-Wilson. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.