The word gold-grey is stuck on his tongue as he stares up at the bright white sky, overcast and blinding. Ruby laughs and his eyes snap back to her like a yo-yo on a string.
"Can you really blame her?" the blonde asks her fuming friend as they walk ahead of him on the sidewalk. Moody has to squint, and he's not sure if it's from the cloud burn or her smile.
"I just feel betrayed!" Anne says loudly and it's not even the first time she's expressed that sentiment today.
"We know, Anne," Gilbert says with a roll of his eyes, but Moody catches the fond smile he ducks his head to hide.
"We always said that the first one of us to get a car would drive us all home. But where is Tillie? Driving home. And where are we? Walking."
"To be fair," Charlie chimes in, "the five of us wouldn't even fit in her Toyota Corolla."
"Ruby's small! She could just sit on my lap!" Anne argues, as if that was the only issue with them all cramming into the Corolla.
Ruby giggles again and the sound warps the word in his head into a song. His fingers itch for his guitar, or to at least tangle his fingers in her hair.
Anne keeps ranting as Gilbert and Ruby discuss the math homework and Charlie starts spouting off about the latest conspiracy he's fallen face-first into.
"And nobody has ever really stopped to think about it, but if the technology is readily available, who's to say the mayor isn't a clone? It would make a lot more sense than having a political dynasty of 'half-brothers' ruling over Avonlea for the past sixty years."
"That's fascinating, Charlie," Moody says as he scrolls through Instagram and pretends not to be eavesdropping on Gilbert and Ruby's conversation. She's frustrated that she isn't smart enough to keep up with the lessons, but that's total bullshit and thankfully Gilbert says as much, in much kinder words.
Ruby blushes and grins and his fingers itch again. He almost opens up the notes app on his phone, just to write down the half-baked line "love-pink cheeks and pearl-white teeth, something something all of me," but then Charlie would see the forty-nine other quasi-lyrics about some freckle-faced muse with kind eyes and soft hands.
Anne is still ranting about Tillie when they file between the Jeep and Jetta in the Andrews driveway and pour through the front door into the foyer.
"In the kitchen," is all Prissy says, eyes glued to her textbook as she stomps up the stairs to her room.
Jane's seated at the island with her phone in one hand and a bag of chips extended in the other.
"I was wondering if you guys would stop by today, considering Tillie's new ride."
She turns her phone to show them a Twitter post from five minutes ago of Tillie with her car in the carport of her house.
"She's already home?!" Anne snatches the phone out of Jane's hand, glaring at the smiling face of their friend as she sat on the hood with her Starbucks. "Treachery, thy name is Tillie."
"We've been abandoned," Ruby explains as she perches on the countertop. Her khaki uniform skirt rises up to the top of her thighs and Moody grips the countertop. He only half-listens as Gilbert explains the situation to Jane and misses it entirely when Charlie tries to pass the bag of Cheetos to him. It takes a clap on the back that knocks the air out of him to pull his attention away from her.
"Why can't you losers raid someone else's pantry every day?" Billy asks.
"What other asshole with a fully-stocked kitchen lives at the corner of our crossroads?" Charlie fires back, mouth full of Cheetos.
"Whatever," the senior grumbles, pulling the white uniform shirt they all have to wear over his head as he leaves through the back door. "Leave some food for us."
Jane rolls her eyes and slides the fruit bowl across the island to Moody. "Ignore him. He only eats protein powder anyway."
"Well, it's certainly working," Ruby mutters to a chorus of ewwwws from the others in the kitchen. Moody tries not to look too miserable at her comment, but Gilbert still quirks one of his eyebrows in that infuriatingly considerate way of his. Moody shakes it off, but his friend's concerned gaze lingers until Anne starts babbling about something else that steals his attention.
"With his brother's new work hours, Jerry says he can start meeting me halfway and driving me home," Anne says.
"Now who's the traitor?"
"Shut up, Charlie."
When they take their leave from Jane's house, backpacks full of snacks, Moody straggles in the back again all the way to the corner. Grey-gold, old road, gold-grey, new day, something something.
"See you guys tomorrow?" Gilbert says. "Text me if you need help with the homework, Ruby."
Ruby breaks apart from her hug with Anne to nod at Gilbert and dap Charlie up. They linger at the corner and watch the three of them take the turn towards their own neighborhood. When they're two blocks down, Moody starts walking and Ruby trails behind, giving Anne one last wave as they move ahead.
Over his shoulder, she's staring down at her feet as she walks, watching her shoelaces hit the pavement with each step. Moody fights with his tongue before asking, "You're quiet today."
"You're quieter."
"I've just been… thinking."
"Don't hurt yourself," she says with a smile that makes her nose crinkle and the smile he shoots back is involuntary. He falls into pace with her as easy as breathing. "You think the cloud cover would make the heat less dreadful."
Gold-grey floats back in his mind as her hair, frizzy with humidity, catches the light.
"True."
She looks sideways up at him, eyes too blue for a day like this, and says, "What's got your tongue twisted up, Moody Spurgeon MacPherson?"
You, he wants to say.
"A song," he says instead. "Just half of something I've been thinking of, but it's probably not anything good."
"That's for me to decide. I'm a founding member of the Avonlea Story Club, you know."
"The Avonlea Story Club?"
She reaches up for his hand as they cross one of the busier streets and he takes it, like she's been making him do since they all started walking home together freshman year. Their palms are both sweaty from the heat, but the one touch is enough to still the itch in his fingers.
Ruby looks both ways and then up at him as he pulls her to the other side. She always goes too slow across the street, and he wouldn't mind if there weren't always cars coming from both directions.
"Diana and Anne and I, we used to write stories as kids and read them to each other. And Cole was there sometimes too. Mine weren't any good, but it was still fun."
"Don't keep saying stuff like that," Moody says as they reach the other side. "You're good, at math and writing and stuff."
He wants to kick himself, but this is the part where she usually drops his hand and they walk their separate ways. She doesn't.
"Walk me home?"
She's so pretty. He has to squint just to look at her, but it's worth it. All he can do is nod. Moody looks back over his shoulder at the road to his house as she drags him towards hers.
"Tell me about your song. Is it romantic?" she says with another smile, lashes fluttering up at him in a way that makes his face hot. He gets struck by another wave of "gold-grey" and the chords to a melody he's heard a hundred times before.
"Yeah, I think it is."
Ruby goes pink again, and he can't look away. At some point, they had stopped walking. He doesn't know when.
"Can I hear it?"
"Yeah," he's answering before he can think. His brain catches up a second later. "Wait, no, I just… I just started. It isn't much of anything."
"Oh. Well, can I hear it when it's finished?"
Her eyes are swallow-him-whole big, that line pretty much writes itself, and she's leaning in, staring up. Moody swallows. Grey-gold, grey-gold, grey-gold. I usually talk the whole way home. Your pretty smile has got me quiet, your hand in mine and I go silent.
"Yeah."
She grins, whole face crinkling beneath the weight of it. He likes how big her feelings are, how they threaten to consume even him.
Ruby starts walking again, pulling him with her. He stumbles to keep up before they fall in step again. She starts talking and he can barely follow, something about recycling or upcycling and maybe thrifting is thrown in there and with his free hand, he jots down in his notes app that she needs a new bedazzler. She's wildly gesticulating with her free hand as she walks, but all Moody can really think about- with a frankly ridiculous level of glee- is their not-free hands, clasped together between them.
He barely notices they're outside the Gillis home until Ruby's hand leaves his.
"I'll see you tomorrow, huh? You can show me that song."
All he can see is her mouth, pink and pretty around her words like a frame. Gold-grey, gold-grey, gold-grey. There's nothing that I wouldn't say, just to hear you call me yours. You're everything that I adore.
He nods dumbly.
"Yeah, okay."
She smiles again, radiant, and he feels dizzy from the prolonged exposure. Ruby giggles and grants him a small wave, bouncing up the walkway to her front door.
Moody smiles too, wide like an idiot, and squints up at the grey-gold sky, humming a song all the way home.
I've been cursed to ship rare pairs. Leave a comment to make me feel better about it. Also does anyone else headcanon that Charlie would be anti-vax? He gives me big conspiracy theorist vibes.