15. Henry
Chapter 15
Henry
I ’m in the kitchen at the breakfast bar when Ruby comes in through the back door.
I’d started wondering where she was, but I’d refrained from texting. I was proud of myself for that.
But when I see her face, I swear internally. She’s upset. Bloody hell .
I don’t know what about exactly—not that it matters—but I wonder if she’s heard from Scarlett.
“Hi,” she says, setting a container of brownies on the counter.
Just a container of brownies.
Yeah. Upset.
“Hey.” I give her a smile. “I just got a text from Elliot.”
That kid will cheer her up.
“Elliot has your number? Wait, Elliot has a phone?” she asks.
I grin. “Will has my number. Elliot’s using his phone.”
I love that he texted me. He wanted to share what he’s doing tonight and he thought of me. It’s not a big deal but…it is to me. I’ve convinced him that I’m someone who cares about him and what’s going on with him. That matters.
Ruby smiles and the tension around my chest loosens a bit.
“Okay, that makes sense. What’s he texting you about?” She shrugs out of her jacket, tossing it over the back of one of the kitchen chairs. She’s wearing the black fitted v-neck tee with I like Big Dick’s on the front in electric blue letters and I have to fight the urge to roll my eyes.
Honestly, the T-shirts are funny.
On anyone other than my…fuck it, my woman . She is. Whether we’re saying that out loud or she wants to admit it or not, she is.
She comes around the breakfast bar and slides up on the stool next to me.
I turn to face her, my knees on either side of hers.
I turn my phone to show her the screen. It’s a photo of Elliot. And a potbellied pig.
She grins. “Aw, that’s cute. Elliot’s excited to live with Porter, and April thinks it will be a great trial. He’ll get a chance to be around an animal and help take care of it, but they won’t have to commit to something they’re fully in charge of. If Elliot does well, she’s thinking about getting something when they move out on their own though.”
“Mandy and Will actually have a pig as a pet?” I ask.
“Yep.” Ruby looks up. “Their middle daughter, Riley, got him when she was in high school. Told them he was a ‘teacup’ pig, but teacup pigs are just a type of potbelly pig, actually ones that have been malnourished, so they stay small.” She frowns. “Anyway, he wasn’t truly a teacup pig, and he ended up growing full-sized. He’s nearly two hundred pounds. She couldn’t take him with her when she went to college, so now he’s Mandy and Will’s.” She laughs. “He’s also kind of mischievous.”
“I told Cian that teacup pigs weren’t actually tiny,” I mutter, looking at the photo. Should I send the photo to Cian with I told you so ? Or will that just encourage him?
“You and Cian talked about pigs?”
“Let’s just say that I’m considering volunteering our dear prince as a pig sitter for Mandy and Will and hope that gets it out of his system.”
Ruby laugh. “Mariah loves Porter.”
I groan. “Don’t tell me that.”
“Cian definitely seems like the kind of guy to have a pet,” Ruby muses. “He has a lot of energy. He probably needs a big rambunctious dog. Or a bunch of goats or something.”
I nod. “You’re right. He’s been around animals forever because of Fiona. Of course, he’s used to things like giraffes and lion cubs. Not just cats and dogs. And he had a bunch of goats to play with in Autre.”
Thank God. Those goats are trouble, and Cian thought they were hilarious. His willingness to help round them up when they escaped the petting zoo and ended up in people’s backyards, the motel’s front lobby, and the funeral home’s serenity garden probably kept them from becoming ground meat.
“You’ve never found a puppy hidden in the back of his closet?” Ruby asks with a grin.
I grab the container of brownies, pulling them toward me as I give her a may I? look.
She nods. “That’s your dinner.”
I smile. I’ll make her something else. She’s not eating just brownies for dinner. But it’s been a day. I pop the container open and pull a thick brownie with gooey frosting out. “Cian never had to hide anything,” I answer her question. “Thank God we went from the animal park in Florida to the animal park and petting zoo in Louisiana. He always had plenty of animals around. If he hadn’t, I’m sure he would’ve filled the house with ridiculous shit. We would have had chinchillas or something. But, as it was, he got his fill of otters and alpacas and tigers. Even penguins in Autre.”
I’d known Fiona O’Grady for years and lived with giraffes and emus in my backyard in Florida but I was still surprised to find a colony of endangered penguins in the tiny bayou town in Louisiana.
I feel Ruby’s eyes on me as I bite into the brownie and lick frosting from my thumb.
I take my time swiping the chocolate from my finger with my tongue.
I don’t care what she says, or tries to tell herself, the girl likes my tongue. And my thumb.
She clears her throat before she asks, “You like animals, right?”
We’ve never talked about either of us having pets, and I’m aware again of the other thing we haven’t talked about. There’s a lot about my past, my family, that she doesn’t know. Things she probably should know.
“Of course,” I say. “But taking care of a handful of Royals, who never follow a plan, was enough. I left all the animal wrangling to Fiona. And then Colin by default.”
“You never helped?” she asks. “I know a lot about Princess Fiona and her animal rescues. She’s done everything from breaking up puppy mills to rescuing endangered tigers from illegal trade in Texas. But you were around for all of that. You never got pulled in to help?”
“Oh, I helped.”
First, it’s nearly impossible to say no to Fiona O’Grady. She was born a princess after all. Second, she has a heart of gold. She asks for things like help rescuing abused and neglected animals. Who can say no that?
I hold out my right hand, flexing my fist and showing off the scar across the back of my knuckles. “Got a little too close to the wrong end of a tiger one time.” I turn the hand over and show her a scar running up my forearm. “And an emu decided I looked tasty another time.”
She gasps and grasps my hand, studying one scar then the other. “Oh my God, that is so cool.”
I chuckle. “It’s so cool that I’m scarred ?”
She looks up at me as she runs her thumb across the scar. “I’ve seen these before, of course, but I assumed you got them fighting or rock climbing or something like that.”
That makes sense. “I have few from that stuff too,” I say, pointing to a scar on my wrist that came from a mountain in India.
She runs her finger over it too. “They’re all cool,” she says. “Your family—well, the O’Gradys—are fascinating. The things you’ve all done, the way you just all dive in to fix problems and save people and animals and do the hard work, is amazing. I know you joke about them being spoiled, but all of the princes and princesses have truly gotten their hands dirty with things that matter to them. And all of the bodyguards—their best friends—have been right there beside them.”
I don’t say anything. I just give a slight nod. It’s true. But we don’t do any of it to be “cool” or for praise. It’s just all the right thing to do. I’ve never even punched anyone who didn’t really deserve it.
Suddenly, Ruby leans over and presses a kiss to the back of my knuckles. “Very cool. And very sexy.”
The touch of her lips to my skin sends heat sizzling up my arm. My gaze drops to her mouth again. “I know what you mean. All day long in that bar, I’ve wanted to grab you and kiss you. Your big heart and natural inclination to build community is sexy as fuck, Ruby.”
She is so not the woman I ever expected to fall in love with.
I never wanted to fall in love at all. But if I had entertained the notion, I would have guessed I would have been drawn to a woman with a stable, almost boring family and past, someone who did ‘normal’ things like dinner with her grandparents, and liked to bake and, I don’t know, knit? Someone who would counter my nightmare family story, someone who could balance the chaos that comes with my life and job.
But no, it’s Ruby.
A woman whose backstory is a hodgepodge of places and people and who attracts chaos because people in need find her like little floating metal shavings to a powerful magnet.
She gives them a place to stick. She grounds them.
She makes me feel like a powerful magnet, too.
God, I love her so much.
It’s not just physical between us.
Which makes it far more dangerous to my heart.
“You did grab me and kiss me,” she reminds me.
I sure fucking did. “I want it on record that I showed extreme restraint today. The fact that you left that bar with all the clothes on that you came in with is a testament to that.”
She looks like she’s fighting a smile, but she loses the battle. “Duly noted.”
She doesn’t even bother to joke that she wouldn’t have let that happen.
She would have. We both know it.
She lets my hand go to reach for a brownie of her own.
“So April does plan to move out?” I ask. “You said she’s thinking about a pet when they move out.”
She chews her bite of brownie, swallows, and nods, “Yes. Of course.”
“How long have they talked about her staying with Mandy and Will?”
It better be until several months after the divorce from Christopher is finalized. I don’t want them out on their own during any legal battles and the emotional toll that could take. I don’t want April to waver for one damned second. I do think that Mandy and Will can help her stay strong through it all, though.
Ruby seems to read what I’m thinking.
“It will be a while. For sure until the divorce is final, there’s a solid custody plan in place and it’s been working for a while,” she assures me. “And, if Mandy and Will have their way, until Elliot graduates from high school.”
I give a short laugh. “Really?”
Ruby shrugs. “Maybe not that. But they won’t be in a hurry for them to leave. They don’t love being empty-nesters. They’ll be good for April and Elliot. And vice versa.”
I watch her closely as I ask, “So you’re not worried about them at all?”
She takes a breath and then shakes her head. “No. I mean, yes. Kind of. But every time I think I should be, or something occurs to me to worry about, something happens, and I realize they’re okay.” She pauses, then says, “They might need help, but they don’t need me .” She gives me a small smile. “And that feels a little weird, and I don’t like it, but it’s true. Even at the grocery store…”
I don’t like the way she trails off. I lean in. “What happened?”
“We just ran into some women who were giving April a hard time about leaving Christopher. Defending him. And…she handled it. She was fine. Then, before I could say a word, someone else was there, sticking up for her and putting them in their place.” Ruby lifts a shoulder. “She didn’t need me at all.”
I’m quiet for a moment. I know exactly what she’s feeling. I’ve felt it myself. “And you were so damned proud of her and happy for her because you truly want her to be happy and confident and independent.” I pause. “And you were also a little relieved because you don’t have to worry as much.” I take a breath. “But at the same time, you felt a little sense of loss because that’s your job, and if she doesn’t need that, then does she really need you at all?”
She stares at me. Then nods slowly. “Yeah. All of that.”
“That’s how I feel every time I watch Cian and Scarlett together,” I admit. “That pride and happiness and relief and sense of loss were so fucking strong when I watched them say their vows.”
I don’t feel bad confessing that to Ruby. No one else in the world would understand all of that. I would never tell all of that to anyone else. I know it makes me sound like an asshole to not be fully happy for my best friend on his wedding day.
But Ruby nods again. “Yeah. All of that, too.”
“I felt kind of unnecessary all day today,” I say.
“Same.” She smiles. “At least you brought the cinnamon rolls.”
I chuckle. “I also got a really challenging part of the jigsaw puzzle put together.”
“Right.” She sighs. “I didn’t do much at all.”
I lean in, my elbow on the breakfast bar beside her. “You know that’s not true. Even if you didn’t do anything directly in the moment, you are a huge reason for everything today. For that place and that group of people even being there. For it being a place April feels comfortable and safe. April had the courage to leave last night because she knew she had a place to go. Your house, then Dick’s today.”
Still, Ruby shrugs. “I like being needed all the time.”
“I know.”
I get it. We’re the same.
“I feel that way sometimes.” I shrug. “Look at the group I hang out with. There are lots of instances when I’m not needed or where I’m the least important person in the situation. Not only are there lots of other people with power and money, there are other bodyguards who have the same training and skills I do.”
She tips her head. “Hmmm…you know, I never thought about it, but that’s got to be hard on you. Not always being the most handsome, or richest, or most charming, or most talented guy in the room…”
I narrow my eyes and drop my voice low. “Don’t even try that. You don’t even notice other men when I’m around.”
I can tell she’s fighting a little smile and I know she’s feeling a little better if she can tease me.
“To be fair, until Scarlett’s wedding, I was comparing you to men in Emerald, Ohio. That trip to Cara was the first time I’d met Jonah. And Torin. And Colin. And Declan…”
I grasp the edges of her stool, and tug her between my knees. “Let me tell you something right now, Gem.”
She swallows hard, her wide-eyed gaze on mine. “What?” she nearly whispers.
“If you need to be needed, there isn’t another person on this planet who needs you the way I do.”
Her pretty mouth falls open slightly.
I lift my hand and cup her face, dragging my thumb over her bottom lip. “You consume all of my thoughts,” I tell her. “I want you every second of every day. I wish like hell I could move on, but I already know for a fact that that’s impossible. I need you. If you need to be needed by someone, you don’t have to look any further than right in front of you.”
She stares at me for three beats. Then she says simply, “Show me.”
Those are the only two words I need.
Ruby needs to feel needed? She needs to be important to someone? She needs to be the center of someone’s universe?
I am that fucking guy.