Beating Ruby (2 page)

TWO

The Bra

“As soon as their eyes met, torrents of honey suddenly flooded the secret well of ecstasy concealed under her shift.”

—Ovidia Houghton,
Scandalous Victorian Nights

It wasn’t cold—the night air was in fact rather warm and humid for that time of the year—but I shivered. I wrapped my arms around myself, tucking my cardigan closer to my body as I paced in front of EMT’s building on Greenwich Street. Every time a car slowed down, my heart would jolt a little. Even after two months, I still experienced this odd mixture of anxiety and childlike anticipation whenever I saw Alex. I figured it had to do with how he was my first real boyfriend, and that made every single interaction between us a tentative step in the dark. On an ice rink. With ski shoes.

Alex was the one who had taken that first risky step, messaging me on Yaycupid one lonely night in February. Back then, I still thought I’d never get over March. My first exchange with Alex had turned into a suicide mission of sorts, during which I’d bluntly admitted to being this horrible aging virgin who had spent the past months nursing a broken heart and reading romance books to forget a man no suitor could ever replace.

For Alex to message me again two days later had been a spectacular and unexpected development—Joy said only Jesus would have come back for more, and that I should check Alex’s palms for stigmata should he offer further interaction. He
had
, in the form of an actual date at the Museum of Natural History, complete with a stop at a Greek joint. I could still remember the crunchy, squishy feeling of freshly salted snow under our feet as we shared falafels and discussed the romance scenarios in
Mass Effect 3
. He’d steal glances at me and just smile, almost to himself, like he understood some sort of vast mystery I didn’t. It was then and there, as I stared at Alex’s ruffled hair and his old sweatshirt advertising an ice fishing contest in Wisconsin, that I had been hit by an epiphany. Regular, decent guys were in fact available.

And maybe I had been so busy dissecting every second of my past fail
ures that I had missed this crucial detail. Of course, March had played in
an entirely different league: mysterious, dangerous—okay, sexy too—and
yet so goddamn flawed and tender. But he wasn’t a regular guy . . . and if
I
was honest with myself, he wasn’t even a decent one, judging by the fact
that he had chosen to knock me out while we were kissing, and sneak out
in the middle of the night, instead of leaving with a proper good-bye. Or just a fricking
note
. He couldn’t be there for me. Would never be.

Alex had been raising his younger sister alone in Washington’s suburbs since their parents’ death in a plane crash six years prior. He worked his ass off for a big expatriate insurance company—which at least gave him the opportunity to travel a lot, although mostly in third-world countries. He struggled to keep boys away from sixteen-year-old Poppy, didn’t like to cook, and enjoyed going out with friends, but was often too tired on the weekends to do so. He’d read and play video games instead, or message girls on Yaycupid in hopes for an actual relationship rather than the vicarious delights of the clumsy love letters he sometimes received from his sister’s schoolmates.

And so, one afternoon he had driven all the way from Silver Spring, Maryland, for our first date. Because he liked me. Because there was room in his life for someone. Because
he
was ready.

“Are you ready?”

My heart slammed against my rib cage, and I spun around. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you—”

My voice faltered, swallowed by his embrace. Alex nuzzled my hair, ignoring the few passersby walking past us on Greenwich Street. I buried my face in his neck, breathing in his light cologne. Something homey, not very sophisticated, made sweet and soapy by hours of travel and a little sweat. This was one of the many things I loved about him: the way he was so warm, so uncomplicated—that and the fact that at five foot eleven, he remained within marginally accessible heights for me. My fingers played with the light blue cotton of his shirt. Worn jeans, no tie, not even a jacket—typical Alex. I registered his voice, barely above a whisper against my earlobe. “I missed you . . .”

I shifted away a little to look up at him. Taking in his gentle cinnamon gaze and thick eyebrows, I couldn’t help but think of March’s guarded blue eyes and faint crow’s-feet. Alex had experienced loss, had made sacrifices to take care of Poppy. Yet, unlike March, who had grown up in poverty and spent almost half of his life killing, Alex still retained an air of innocence, as if he hadn’t been bombarded with life’s lemons yet . . .

His palms cupped my cheeks. “Earth to Island. Are you still with me?”

“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.