Beating Ruby Read online

  “Yeah . . . I just . . . I guess I spaced out. Sorry about that.”

  “Something bothering you? Too much pressure at work?”

  I relaxed at the caress of his thumb, combing locks of hair away from my face. “No. The stakes are high, but I think we’re on the right track. We’ll be ready. I’m sure we will.”

  “Good. You know what I think you need right now?”

  I smiled. “No, but you’re gonna tell me?”

  “The same thing I need—something to drink and any junk food that could pass as dinner,” he said with a wink.

  “I’m in. Where are we going?”

  “Well, my hotel has this bar, kind of steampunk, with a piano lounge. I’d tell you they serve great Belgian beers, but I know you don’t like beer. I can, however, bait you with the promise of a gin-and-strawberry cocktail and the best pommes frites you’ve ever had.”

  Normally I’d have melted at his adorable English accent when pronouncing French words. Being half-French, the language carried a particular sense of nostalgia to me—something sweet and vaguely comforting, like the buttery scent of a Petit Lu. At the moment, however, I was stuck on two words. Insignificant and essential.

  My hotel.

  Alex’s hotel. As good as his place, really—even more so since I suspected he had never invited me to his house because he had no idea how to juggle a relationship with the demands of his role as Poppy’s substitutive parental unit. Except Alex wasn’t a parent, but rather a healthy twenty-eight-year-old male posing as a responsible and somewhat conservative authority figure.

  I felt his hands linger on my arms in an absent caress. My brain conjured the memory of our last date, a couple of days before his trip. After an awesome picnic in Central Park, Alex had driven me home and parked in front of my building. We both knew I wouldn’t invite him upstairs, since Joy, my roommate, best friend, and occasional therapist, was home. So he and I had chatted for a little longer. There’d been some playful flirting, and the inevitable kissing. The taste of a mocha Frappuccino lingering in his mouth, his stubble prickling my Cupid’s bow. His palm, so warm on my knee. Then just a little higher, venturing for the first time under my dress . . . until I’d squirmed away from his touch with some lame excuse that I was tired.

  It had been two months, six days, eight dates, and eighty-four chat logs. And I still couldn’t, for the life of me, figure out if I was ready.

  “You vanished on me again.”

  I snapped out of my considerations to see that Alex had picked up a black sports bag from the ground and flung its strap on his shoulder. “I . . . No! I was listening. Your hotel. We’re going . . . to your hotel.”

  Alex grinned in affirmation and pulled a key fob from his pocket. The lights of a beige Ford SUV flashed twice behind us. Last time his rental car had been a Hyundai. He opened the trunk, threw his bag into it, and unlocked the passenger door for me to climb in. I sat down, my fingers playing with the worn leather strap of my tote bag. I thought he’d start the engine, but instead he turned to look at me, with a calm, knowing smile. The corners of my lips quivered up in response, and I shrugged a little in a silent reassurance that everything was totally fine, and look at that, I’m oozing confidence and stuff!

  Alex’s hand found mine, and he shifted in his seat, leaning toward me until our foreheads were touching. His lower lip brushed my upper one in an almost chaste kiss. “Baby . . .”

  Funny how even after two months, I wasn’t used to that particular term of endearment yet.

  “If you don’t want anything to happen, nothing will.”

  Oh, right, I forgot to mention that Alex was an expatriate insurance expert . . . and a mind reader.

  I returned his kiss tentatively. “What if I just don’t know?”

  Alex’s grin turned impish. “Then I’ll kiss you until you do.”

  That one made me blush pretty much all over, until I realized that his eyes were looking past me and into my mirror. I craned my neck to check it, but I saw nothing out of the ordinary, save for the fact that a black Mercedes sports car had slowed down and appeared to be parked a dozen yards or so behind us.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “No. Nice car, though.”

  “I didn’t picture you as a sports car kind of guy.”

  Alex laughed as he started the Ford’s engine. “You don’t know me yet.”

  Don’t pretend you’re not trembling with anticipation, a long trickle of drool running down your chin as you wait for the filthiest details. Were the pommes frites that good? Indeed yes, crisp on the outside, soft on the inside. Did I drink myself under the table? No, but there was definitely more gin than strawberry in my glass(es).

  By the way, I’m not blaming anything on the gin. I mean, it did warm me up a little, but I knew what I was doing. When our hands started roaming under the table, I looked down at our fingers, laced on the leather of the seat, then up at Alex, with his messy brown curls and hopeful smile. And I made up my mind. I was five months away from my twenty-sixth birthday, in a healthy, wholesome relationship with a great guy . . . Goddammit, I could do this!

  Now, allow me to seize this opportunity to debunk a hoax that maybe has been told to you too—I know Joy told it to me, that’s for sure. So, it goes like this: if a mommy and a daddy love each other very much and they get together in an elevator at the appropriate time for that love to express itself in its purest form, they’ll push the stop button and bang each other silly against the walls of said elevator until their nether regions start to chafe. Well, I can think of at least one hypothetical case where this isn’t true: when an old couple enters the elevator as well.

  Those seemed like the longest, tallest ten floors of my entire life. Alex and I stood side by side, looking straight ahead and feigning disinterest, while the tip of his fingers teased mine and the tension between us grew to the point where I feared we might set the lady’s bun on fire before the elevator reached his destination. As fate would have it, their room was on the same floor as his, so we had to behave until they were out of sight.

  Then we didn’t behave so much. Alex’s lips crashed on mine the second their door closed behind them, and roughly twenty seconds later, we stumbled into his room. He didn’t bother with giving me a tour, or even turning on the lights. I didn’t mind; the dark made me feel safer. I figured it’d conceal my fumbling, my hesitations, even to myself. Hungry kisses were raining down my neck and I felt dizzy, maybe because of the gin after all, or those zings of electricity that seemed to sparkle all over my body. It was happening. I was in this nice room, facing the shimmering top of the Chrysler Building, and it was really happening. I actually had to place my hands on his shoulders to call a break, because it all felt a little too much.

  Alex cupped my cheek in his palm. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m . . . I’m good. Just getting a little worked up.”

  “That’s the whole idea.” He grinned, pulling me closer again.

  I stood there for a moment, shivering in his arms, trying to catch my breath. He gave me time, stroking my back, and when our lips met again everything seemed to slow down, hurried touches turning into sensual, explorative ones. I realized that one of his hands had lifted my dress and was now grazing my thighs. I tried to return the favor, inhaling that sweet cologne lingering on his shirt as I undid the first buttons. My fingertips met warm skin, and I think that’s when it became real to me. The notion of sex had been almost abstract in my mind until then. I wanted it, but “it” was little more than a word carrying vague implications and scary promises. Once he started undressing me, though, said implications reached a whole new level.

  I remember that Alex kept saying I was beautiful, kept calling me baby.

  I registered the whisper of clothing falling to the floor. My dress. His fingers left a trail of goose bumps on my ribs, my sides, traced the edge of my bra.

  It was happening. It was really happening.

  THREE

  The Polly Po
cket Shoe

  “Traci stared at his massive organ, which was glowing in the dark. Her instincts had been right—Oxo wasn’t from this world.”

  —Maxie Skye, The Dur’yân Chronicles

  “Oh my God! Yes! Yes!”

  I jerked awake in my bed at the sound of something slamming against the bathroom wall and Joy soaring toward felicity.

  6:07 a.m.

  You know what’s worse than being a virgin? Being a virgin and getting woken up before dawn on a Tuesday morning by people having loud sex in a tub you know you’ll have to step into afterward. I was reaching for my phone on the nightstand when I heard the bathroom door closing, along with a series of giggles past my bedroom door. Vince-the-cutest-photographer-in-the-world had performed his morning duties, and Joy would be in a good mood for the rest of the day.

  As for me . . . I was in the mood of a girl who had freaked out and fled her boyfriend’s hotel room because she couldn’t take off her bra for him.

  I’ll spare you the embarrassing details of how I went to hide in his bathroom under the pretext of an overwhelming need to pee. There, the bluish foil of a condom peeking out of his toiletries bag made me panic completely. I’d said I was sorry about a million times. He’d tried to hug me, kiss me, stroke my hair . . . told me it was okay—even though I could almost taste the frustration on his lips. I’d said I just needed time, promised to call, to text. And less than ten minutes later, I was three blocks away, running breathlessly up Broadway past homeless guys hauling bags full of cans.

  As you can imagine, I hadn’t slept much, replaying my evening with Alex over and over again to figure out why I had collapsed in front of the obstacle. Well, technically I knew why: my bra had come loose, I had pictured him touching my breasts, touching everything else . . . and my body had pulled the brakes on that shady arousal business, screaming that I wasn’t ready. What I truly feared was the deeper reason behind this failure. Unspeakable things happened in my Star Wars PJs at night, when I closed my eyes and remembered the feel of March’s naked body against mine during that last night in Tokyo, his scent, a combination of the mints he ate like a junkie and something that was just him, all that silky chest hair . . . But there appeared to be a considerable gap between dreams and reality. Alex, the hotel room, the condoms—this had been reality, and I hadn’t been able to handle it.

  I stared at the ceiling, vaguely aware of further sighing and giggling in the hallway. I didn’t want to consider the possibility that March had invaded and broken for good some tiny part of my psyche, and that I’d never be able to give myself to someone else . . .

  Dismissing this depressing thought, I grabbed my smartphone on the nightstand and started scrolling through my e-mails, wrapped in my flowery comforter like a Swiss roll. There was a chat notification from Alex, sent around one, telling me he was sorry things had moved too fast, and offering to take me somewhere for lunch before he returned to Washington. Overcoming the butterflies partying hard in my stomach—they had kind of been pushing the limits of their lease agreement lately—I agreed to meet him in Zucotti Park at twelve thirty.

  My fingers froze when I reached the most recent e-mails: a series of automated alerts from Ruby’s test servers, pointing to a massive crash around three a.m. I swore under my breath. Ruby would recover from the crash itself, that was no problem, but it meant that, six days away from our big reveal, it still wasn’t stable. I could already guess I’d arrive at EMT to find Thom hunched over his keyboard, wearing yesterday’s shirt and scratching his head compulsively. I rubbed my eyes and sent him a reassuring e-mail that I’d show up even earlier than usual to investigate the incident and help him set Ruby back on track.

  I crawled out of bed and dragged myself to the living room, where I was greeted by the rich aroma of coffee. On our old green couch, Joy and the new love of her life were snuggling and dipping Oreos in their double espressos—a repulsive habit only they understood, and which contributed to bringing them closer. Joy pushed a heap of blonde curls from her left shoulder and appraised me with bashful cornflower eyes. She was wearing Vince’s shirt—something I understood to be mandatory when you’ve slept with a man—meaning he, of course, was only wearing silk boxer shorts, as usual. I didn’t care. Vince was cute enough, but he was also a pompous jerk in need of a haircut, and who shaved what little chest hair he had.

  With my leg razors.

  Yeah, I know. In North Korea, people get executed for that kind of stuff.

  “Sorry about the—” Joy waved a dismissive hand and had the good grace to blush.

  Vince didn’t. Slanted black eyes scanned the stormtroopers on my PJs as a grin lit his angular face, revealing teeth that seemed even whiter against his bronze skin and coal stubble. “Oh, so you were listening?”

  Like I had a choice. I fought a scalding blush and, from the corner of my eye, noticed that Joy’s foot was kicking her boy toy’s calf in a bid to prevent any further descent into assholism.

  “No . . . It’s . . . Never mind.” I averted my eyes, went to fix myself a bowl of Apple Jacks, and sat on a wooden chair by the window. I loved nothing more than that peaceful moment when I’d eat my breakfast watching the darkened street.

  Behind me, squeals suggested that Vince was about to ravish Joy on the couch. My window-daydreaming time now ruined, I got up and glanced at the two of them just long enough to see his hand retreat from under the wrinkled gray shirt.

  Joy’s voice stopped me halfway to the kitchen as she let go of Vince to join me and carry both their cups toward the sink—where they’d make a nice addition to our rapidly growing pile of dishes. “How did it go last night with Jesus?”

  I cringed. “Please don’t call Alex that.”

  “You came home pretty late . . . but you came home,” she replied with a wink.

  “We just had a drink at his hotel’s bar.”

  How foolish of me to think that Joy wouldn’t pick up on that particular detail. As her eyes lit up, I could practically see the report writing itself in her mind.

  The defendant loaded herself with strawberry gin cocktails and agreed to follow Mr. Morgan to his hotel room at 10:49. To have wild, rampant sex all over the furniture.

  I took a wary step back. “It wasn’t like that.”

  “Aw, come on! You and Alex aren’t kids!” Joy groaned.

  On the couch, Vince finally expressed interest in our conversation. “Does he have, like, a problem with his dick? I knew this guy who had stuck a Polly Pocket shoe in there in first grade, and after that, he couldn’t—”

  “No! I don’t think . . . I mean, I’m sure it’s working fine!” I pictured myself hurling my dirty bowl at Vince’s face.

  Joy seemed to consider rinsing the cups for a second, before abandoning them to their fate and walking out of the kitchen. “I need to get ready for court, but tonight we’ll have to further investigate the issue.”

  Family lawyer, sexologist, urologist—was there anything Joy couldn’t do? Yeah, the dishes. I shrugged and rinsed my bowl, because March had made me a new and better person. Meanwhile, she flung herself back on the couch and into Vince’s waiting arms with a catlike grin. I frowned down at the war zone in our sink and the lime building up on our faucet.

  “Joy?”

  She disentangled herself from Vince with a squeak of delight. “What?”

  “You still don’t want to try those free cleaning hours?”

  “The ones from Maid-shit-whatever?”

  “Yeah. Maid Magic.”

  “I dunno, I don’t like the idea of someone coming into my place when I’m not home,” she said, her nose wrinkling in disapproval.

  I left the kitchen and padded across our living room to the long black sideboard on which Joy and I had made a habit of throwing anything that came either from our handbags or the mailbox. I went through the pile of receipts, ads, and unopened mail sitting on it. Indeed, between my cell phone bill and a flyer advertising a Hello Kitty–themed after party at some bar, I found
a coupon book for free housecleaning hours we had received a few days ago.

  “Are you sure you’re not interested? I mean, we got”—I counted the coupons—“ten of these. And their letter says we won a free trial for the VIP service with laundry, ironing, and antibacterial cleaning included.”

  “But I don’t want these weirdoes snooping around my house. It looks like some kind of scam. I didn’t even register for any contest,” Joy groaned.

  Vince nodded absently while massaging her shoulders.

  “Maybe you don’t remember,” I countered. “Or maybe it’s one of these websites where you click ‘Yes’ to read an article on the hairiest baby in the world, and they tell you that you just entered to win a golf cart.”

  She sat up. “I want a golf cart. I don’t want a cleaning lady.”

  I gazed at the coupons longingly, remembering how immaculate our apartment had been the morning after March had broken into it. He had cleaned our entire place while I slept off a migraine—admittedly sparked by his repeated threats to torture me until I gave him the Ghost Cullinan—nothing huge, just the biggest natural diamond in the world, stolen a decade ago . . . by my late mother. For some tentacular criminal organization, a bunch of malevolent assholes who called themselves “the Board.” Because she had never been a French diplomat, but rather some sort of glamorous international spy and superthief.

  Hey, I warned you that my life was weird.

  Anyway, there was something to be said about the way the man had turned his cleaning disorder into a gift for housekeeping, and he had branded me irremediably; I would start cleaning my apartment. Soon. Not today, but real soon.

  Behind me, Joy had resumed making out with Vince on the couch, and she struggled to speak in between noisy, slurpy kisses. “I vote no . . . to Maid Magic!”

  “We’ll see about that. I need to get ready,” I said, heading toward the bathroom. Sweet Jesus, I prayed these two had rinsed the tub well. Wouldn’t hurt to rinse it again.