Survivor: Steel Jockeys MC (4 page)

"If there's a better excuse to pop open that champagne a few minutes early," said Fox, “I haven't heard it."

Ruby turned, surprised to be reminded of the party Fox had been planning for after they closed the store. Chace frowned, though he didn't hesitate to grab one of the blue Solo cups stacked on the file cabinet and grabbed the bottle of Moet from the ice bucket Fox had put it in. Chace was like a dog with a bone; his brows were still furrowed, fixated on how Ruby had made that sale. "I don't get it. Old-school bikers wear ponytails, too.”

"But old-school bikers don't come in here. They buy old bikes and fix them up. They inherit them. They have other channels. But neophyte ex-hippies don't." She pointed to the ground beneath them, trying to remember not to look to Fox for approval again. She loved his praise, but sometimes she felt like a bunny rabbit, eating lettuce out of his hand.

She turned around to see an older woman seated patiently at the reception desk, purse balanced on her lap. Heather Albright was a teacher at an inner city Oakland middle school, where she directed the Boys & Girls Club. Her frosted blond tips curled just above the shoulders of her powder-blue turtleneck and a gold angel pendant hanging neatly over it.

"Damn, I forgot about Mrs. Albright," she said. "Chace, do you have the keys to the Sportster we’re donating?" Chace ducked into his office and tossed them to her. "Mrs. Albright--" When she spotted Ruby, the older woman leaped up from the chair and caught her in a motherly embrace, Ruby's cheek pressed up against her warm, soft bosom. The scent of Liz Taylor's White Diamonds filled her nostrils, reminding Ruby vaguely of her grandmother, who'd died long before her father.

"Ruby, I can't thank you enough for the donation to the auction. When I asked if you'd like to provide an item, I was thinking, you know, like a free tune-up or something. But a bike?" She held up the keys Ruby had given her. "This was way, way beyond anything we expected. When you called and told me the news this morning, I think I was half in shock. My students were looking at me like George Clooney had called me up for a date."

"It was all Fox," insisted Ruby. "He's really hands-on when it comes to charity. He's read about what great work you guys are doing to help underprivileged kids graduate and get into college, and he wanted to do something big to help out. Something more than just cut a check."

"Well, people are going to be crawling all over each other to bid on this. It's a truly remarkable gift."

Ruby smiled. "When he tries, Fox
can
be pretty remarkable." She hopped into her swivel chair and clicked "print" on the document she'd opened earlier.

Heather laughed. "Speaking of remarkable, what's the occasion?" asked the teacher. She installed herself behind Ruby's desk, watching her snatch each sheet of the document as the laser printer spit them out.

"What gave it away?" Ruby asked innocently.

"Maybe the champagne on ice?" hinted Heather. "Or the red velvet cupcakes?"

"Or the fact that I've been drinking since noon?" called out Chace, a cup sloshing in his big, red hand as he went to close and lock the door of the dealership, though it was still eight minutes before closing time.

"For heaven's sake, Chace, there's a customer still here," Ruby snapped back, though she felt a giggle bubble up in her voice. "In fact, it's technically still business hours."

"That's never stopped me before."

Ruby turned back to Heather apologetically.

"Don't think of me as a customer," laughed Heather. "After all, I'm not really buying anything. And since I'm not a customer, is there any of that champagne to spare?"

"Help yourself!" called back Chace. "We've got three more bottles in the mini-fridge."

Ruby rolled her eyes. "It's true. Fox had a little party planned for today. I guess it was originally supposed to be a surprise, but..." She looked down shyly as she snatched the last page out of the printer, collated, stapled it, and handed it over. "Fox is like a kid when it comes to surprises."

"Surprises for you, by any chance?" the woman asked, taking the pages and tucking them into her oversized purse while batting her eyelashes coquettishly.

"It's one my one-year anniversary of working here," Ruby admitted.

"Well, congratulations!" praised Heather. "Live it up, honey. Every time I come in here, you always look so gosh-darned serious. Let loose, for Pete's sake. Work to live, don't live to work."

"Trust me, I'd like to coast. More than you know. But I can't. For most of my life, I had nothing. And now that I have something, I want to do everything I can not to lose it."

Heather laughed. "Honey, whatever you went through, you've overcome and then some. Look at you, you little dynamo. Fox told me how many sales you've made this quarter. You're thriving. It's time to loosen your grip a little." She leaned over the desk conspiratorially, "Don't stop there. I can already imagine how you and Fox are going to make heads turn all over the W Hotel, walking into the charity gala together next month."

"What do you mean?" asked Ruby as she beckoned the older woman over to the file cabinet where the cups and champagne had been set up, taking two blue Solo cups off the stack.

"Well, as a donor, Fox gets two tickets."

She raised her eyebrows.

"Heather, it's not like that with Fox and me. He's my boss." She fumbled with the stopper on the champagne, thankful Chace had already opened it.

"Don't be coy, Ruby," said Heather, holding out her cup. "I know he's more than a boss to you."

"Well, that's true," she admitted, tipping the bottle and watching the liquid bubble to the rim of the older woman's cup. "He is more than my boss. He's my...my..." She noticed the older woman staring with a knowing, motherly, grin, and she was afraid it was because she was blushing.

"You do care about him."

Ruby nodded and gulped.

"It's not surprising." She stole a sly glance over to the entrance to the garage, where Fox's broad shoulders arced sensuously over the table, his hands resting on either end, examining a report one of the mechanics had given him.

"He's done so much for me, you don't even know. In fact, that's why he insisted on throwing me a party. A year ago, I was in a bad place." She hoped Heather wouldn't mind that she glossed over the details of the night Kyle died; the more she spoke of them, the rawer they felt. "Fox was the only one I could turn to. But he didn't bombard me with a bunch of questions I wouldn't or couldn't answer. He just welcomed me in, dried me off, offered me a styrofoam cup of coffee with a shot of Chace's Woodford Reserve in it and let me lie down and rest in his office. He actually invited me to stay in his own guest room, but I told him I couldn't impose. The next day, he drove me to one of his mom's rental properties and told me I could stay as long as I wanted.  Of course, I started paying market rate as soon as I could," she added, hastily filling her own cup and replacing the bottle.

"Fox is a surprising man. You'd think that after having supported us financially as much as he has, he'd throw his weight around, the way some of these bigwigs do. Tell us how to do things. But he doesn't. He really listens to us." Heather sipped her champagne thoughtfully.

"Once," said Ruby, “on a whim one Friday, we took off work at noon and drove to Big Sur. He takes out this big picnic basket full of baked chicken and pinot grigio. He even brought a real picnic blanket. I was speechless. It felt like a Match.com ad or something."

"Oh, does he cook, too?" exclaimed Heather, pretending to fan herself with the paperwork. "Ruby, my dear, take it from a woman who's been married thirty years to man who's still figuring out where the popcorn button on the microwave is. Do not let this one get away." She leaned in close and stage-whispered. Ruby looked down to where her small hand curled around her cup, getting a brief flash of how a diamond ring would look against her lonely olive skin. It was tempting, sure, but it also felt strange. She didn't think she was ready. Not yet, anyway.

"I find it hard to believe nothing's ever happened between you two."

Ruby grinned. "We've been alone together a lot, and he's never once made a move. He's a perfect gentleman. Oh, he flirts, sure after work when we've both had a few. He is a man, after all. I'd be suspicious if he didn't. But I'm also his employee. We depend on each other to keep this business running, and he respects that. I admire him for it, actually."

Heather gave her a knowing smirk. "You'll change your tune in a couple of years, when you turn twenty-five. That's when the train to the altar starts pulling out of the station. And if you're not on it--"

Ruby rolled her eyes. "I'm in no rush. I know what it's like to be with someone for all the wrong reasons." She thought of Farley, how grasping and desperate she'd been to find someone, anyone, who could pull her out of the vortex of poverty she and Kyle had been mired in. She didn't admire that about herself, and it was one of the reasons she was determined to stay independent. Sure, she'd turned to Fox to help her. But the moment after Kyle was killed was the darkest moment of her life. She'd managed to claw and gasp her way to the surface after nearly being pulled under, and she never wanted to be there again.

She also knew, though she wouldn’t admit to Heather, that she didn't want to become completely dependent on Fox Keene. If there was any chance their relationship could grow into something deeper, she was determined it should be as equals. "If he wants to be with me," she said shyly as Heather nodded, "I want it to be for the right reasons. Not because he feels obligated to me. I'm a person, not a project. Besides, I want to go to college. I'm applying for a scholarship from Berkeley."

"Oh?" Heather raised an eyebrow. "What do you plan to study?"

"Sociology I think," Ruby said quickly. She hadn't told very many people yet, and the idea still sound awkward coming from her mouth. Presumptuous, somehow. Nothing that felt right on her, at least not yet. "It won't cover all my expenses, but working here full time and going to school at night, I think I can make it work." She took a sip of champagne, swirled it around in her mouth thoughtfully, feeling the bubbles dissolve on her tongue then cascade to her head. "I just want to be independent. Kyle would want that for me."

She gazed down at the sole photograph on her desk. It had taken almost six months before she could look at it without wanting to scream, throw something, or crawl under her desk, curl up into a ball, and weep. She knew there were still emotions she needed to unpack about the night Kyle died, but her philosophy, since then, was to keep moving. To keep her eyes on the horizon. To never look back. "Kyle wanted to give me everything. But he could never figure out how. He didn't
know
how."

The photo, of course, had been taken in front of his bike on an autumn day, when the sun hung had hung hazily in the sky then burst from the clouds at the second the shutter clicked, making the entire side of his face silver, like a cloud. He was grinning, and pointing to his chest as if he wanted her to come closer. He was never very good at standing still for photos. Even as a child, all of his school pictures had a funny, artificial sort of smile with his teeth clenched together. It wasn't his real smile, which flooded his face with humor and light. No photo could capture it, but this one came close. Funny that a tattooed guy in a biker's cut could look angelic, but there it was.

"Trust me, honey. Independence is overrated. A man like Fox isn't hanging out on every street corner. Or in every college quad."

"I know what a catch he is. For most of my life, the only guys I knew were thugs and burnouts and low-life bikers who wouldn't know how to make an honest living if it rolled up in a limousine," she explained. "And the only alternative was some trust-fund brat who had everything he ever wanted handed to him. But Fox is different. He's something else. He's self-made. He knows what hard work is, and he never takes it for granted. And I don't, either. Besides," she added. "I don't think Fox is looking for another serious relationship. He was married once before, you know."

"Oh?" Heather primly took a stick of gum out of her purse.

"Yeah. I don't know too much about what happened. But from what I've gathered, it didn't end well, and I think it burned him. He doesn't talk about it much."