Chapter One
If you don’t have anything nice to say, lie.
Ruby
I’m going to whack William Ivan Delimar Hart with my cane, and I’m going to enjoy it.
“Will.” My voice is even. Sweet. Cajoling. “Would you mind taking a few steps closer to me?”
The shadow of a man moves toward me, broad shoulders backlit by the large windows in his office, to the point where even I can see their outline.
“Whatever for, Rubble?” The laughter winding through his voice has me grinding my teeth, along with that stupid nickname.
“My name is Ruby,” I grit out.
Ruby, because I was born with a puff of red hair, which inspired my parents to scrap the name they had chosen – Gertrude? Really? – and give me something a little more on brand.
He knows this. He’s known this.
“I prefer Rubble,” he informs me, and his shadow stops approaching just out of reach. One tiny step forward and I could get a decent swing in…
“If you hit me with your cane, that’s considered workplace violence,” he says in his idiotically cheerful voice. “If I told anyone, that is. Which I wouldn’t. You know I love it when you give me attention.”
He’s like a child acting out, but worse, because he knows he’s like a child acting out.
“Not all attention is good attention, moron,” I snap.
“Sure it is,” he replies. “Something about a thin line between love and hate. We’re walking it, I do believe, and one of these days you’ll tip right over onto the love side. I have faith.”
Faith.
Right.
What an idiot.
“We’ve known each other for fifteen years. I think if I was going to love you, I’d have done it by now.”
He shifts, the light in his direction changing – bright, dim, bright. It’s giving me a headache.
“Stop moving,” I snap.
He stills.
“Sorry, Rubble,” he murmurs. “I forgot.”
Yeah, I’ll just bet he did.
Forgot.
“Forgot that I’m blind?” I ask. “While I’m actively threatening you with my cane?”
The “idiot” is implied that time.
“In my defense,” he starts, and my blood starts to boil.
He better not.
“You’re only eighty-five percent blind. That’s hardly anything, really. Why, I reckon I see about the same without my glasses. Would you like to try them?” His shadow moves again, and I just know this moron is holding out his reading glasses to me. They’re not even real glasses. He just wears them to look smart when he’s “working”.
Screw whacking him with my cane. I’m going to kill him.
“Will,” I warn.
He doesn’t take the giant neon sign sized hint I’m giving him to shut up.
“You’re right,” he says. “I can’t give you these! They’re my disability aids! Man, you’re so smart and caring. Of course you wouldn’t want me to go without my aids. See – oops! Hear , this is why I love you, Rubble. Always looking – ah, not again. Always listening out for me.”
There is quite possibly steam coming out of my ears.
“This is your stupidest bit. You know that, right? It makes you look uneducated, insensitive, and unkind. And also stupid , in case you didn’t quite get that. Extremely, extremely stupid.”
His laughter is a thousand tiny needles stabbing into my skull.
“Can I just get the finance report I came in here for, sir ?” I ask, striving to bring a bit of professionalism back into the space. Nevermind the fact that I contributed to lack of professionalism in the first place. He started it.
“I’ll give you the report if you say one nice thing about me,” he replies without hesitation. It’s the same response he gave me when I came in here ten minutes ago requesting last quarter’s financial report – a report he’s supposed to share with me as part of his job duties. A report Liam Warrick, our boss and the CEO of Whirlwind Branding, will not be happy about him withholding.
Aha.
I can use that.
“I’m telling Mr. Warrick,” I say, then twist away from his shadow and toward where the exit should be. I sweep my white cane in front of me to make sure I’m actually facing the door. Nothing would be more embarrassing than staging a dramatic departure right into a wall.
“Oh, come on,” Will whines as he follows me into the hall. “You can’t think of one nice thing to say about me? We’ve known each other half our lives!”
His footsteps catch up to mine, and we head toward Mr Warrick’s office together.
“For the record, Liam’s totally going to be on my side here,” Will says. “We’re name twins! He would never forsake his name twin!”
My eyebrows rise. Name twins. Right.
What an idiot .
“ Liam isn’t as fired up about sharing a name with you as you seem to think he is,” I say, continuing my march down the hallway, passing desks and cubicles belonging to the various members of our team. As heads of the department, Will and I have private offices, but most of our team share the open space between them and the elevators.
We reach said elevators as Will dramatically – and loudly – protests. “You wound me!” He falls against the wall between the elevators, pushing my hand out of its path toward the call button, and likely drawing every eye in the room.
My eyes narrow as the little round button lights up, a bright spot in my vision.
“I can get it,” I hiss.
“Get what?” he asks, playing dumb. The man is an idiot, but he’s not actually stupid. He knows exactly what he’s doing. It’s the same thing he’s always done.
It’s him, holding doors for me everywhere we go, smacking my hand away when I reach for the handle.
It’s him, making me coffee in the break room every morning.
It’s him, pulling out my chair in the conference room when we have our weekly department meeting.
It’s him, getting on my every last nerve.
“I’ve told you, oh, I don’t know, a million freaking times , I can do things for myself.”
The elevator’s ding nearly drowns out his put-upon sigh. Nearly, but not quite, considering Will doesn’t know the meaning of the word subtle, and his sigh was more like the breeze of a hurricane.
“I know you can do things yourself, Rubble.” His voice is exasperated. As if I am the one acting ridiculous.
“Great,” I say, stepping into the elevator. “Then you’ll let me do them.”
I jab at the button for Mr. Warrick’s floor. It’s the one at the very top, so I don’t have to worry about embarrassing myself hesitating over the panel while I felt for the right button.
Not that that would be embarrassing, exactly. The nature of reading braille is, as a fact, more time consuming than simply reading with one’s eyes. I know that. Will knows that.
Still.
There’s something very satisfying about being able to hit the exact right button at the exact right time to emphasize my point.
The elevator shifts slightly as Will’s weight joins mine, and I grip the railing beside me, worried for the millionth time about whether or not the contraption will hold under us. Or worse, if the power will.
I’ve listened to enough books to know that an elevator is never safe. If they’re not falling at terrifying speeds, they’re being shut off and used as a plot device to drive two people together.
As far as I can tell, being alone in this thing with a grown man within romancing age is about as high of a risk as I could possibly take, and I’m not foolish enough to believe that my complete and utter disdain for this particular man will save me from an elevator scheme. The readers love a good enemies to lovers.
My cane twists in my hand, spun by impatient fingers.
Why is the top floor so far away?
“You’re thinking about elevator plots again, aren’t you?” Will asks into the silence, making me jump. I do not appreciate his amusement.
“You didn’t think it was so silly when you got stuck in here with Sally from sales,” I remind him.
“I thought we agreed not to talk about that,” he replies, amusement gone.
I snort. That’s what I thought.
“You agreed,” I reply, glee rising. “Personally, I think we should review it. At length and often.”
There aren’t a lot of times in my adult life that I’ve wished for better eyes. When I was really young, every day brought more prayers that I could see like the other kids – be like the other kids – but I came to terms with my lack of sight as I got older and realized what an excellent weapon a cane could be.
The only time in recent memory I can recall truly wishing for sight was the day Will got stuck in the elevator with Handsy Sally for three hours. His voice when the firefighters finally got him free is something I will always remember fondly. Flustered. Shocked. A little bit scandalized.
Will scandalized.
It made my entire year.
It made several of my years.
Will shudders, and the elevator shudders with him.
“I’m doing the sign of the cross,” he says.
The buttons. The doors. The narrating.
My glee at his remembered distress quickly vacates the death trap.
“I don’t need to know everything,” I tell him.
“I read that sign language interpreters are supposed to interpret everything for their clients, not just the stuff they think is relevant. It’s important to give the client as much information as possible.”
I blink, then turn, slowly, toward him, careful to keep my hold on the railing.
“I’m not deaf,” I enunciate. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe the idiot is stupid.
“I know you’re not deaf,” he huffs. “But I figure the same principles apply.”
“You’re also not my interpreter. You know, on account of how I don’t need one?”
His brain gets smaller and smaller by the day. I’m sure of it.
“You’re saying you don’t want to know what’s going on in the environment around you?”
I open my mouth, but he rushes his next words before I can respond.
“The things that you wouldn’t hear or sense with your special blind girl senses?”
My mouth snaps shut.
I do not want to admit that he’s right – that it is rather nice to know what’s going on around me, even if it’s something small and inconsequential. Any extra connection to my environment is actually quite helpful and appreciated normally. Just… not from him.
Keeping my mouth shut, I swivel toward the door, and give him my back. His chuckle echoes behind me before petering off into silence. Or what would be silence, if Will wasn’t whistling.
Seriously, how tall is this building? And how slow is this elevator?
Approximately one age later, a ding heralds our arrival to the top floor.
“Finally!” I exclaim, pushing forward the moment my cane lets me know the door is clear.
The piercing tones of Yankee Doodle Dandy trail me all the way to Mr Warrick’s office.
My left eye twitches.
“Will? Is that you?” a woman’s voice calls out ahead of us. Teresa. Mr. Warrick’s assistant. The keeper of his time and the guardian of his office. We’ll need to get past her if we want to get to her boss. Typically, getting her to push you through to him is what most would consider to be an impossible task.
Typically, one doesn’t possess the special skills that I do.
“Me and Ruby!” Will calls back, blessedly halting his shrill patriotism.
I forge onward – twenty steps down the hallway, veer right, walk until my cane hits Teresa’s desk. Perfect.
My teeth twinkle at her pleasantly while I pretend like Will isn’t so close to my back that his body heat is making me sweat.
When my pretending fails miserably, I elbow him. Regret flows through me as my elbow nearly breaks against his granite stomach.
I go back to pretending he doesn’t exist, ignoring my smarting elbow as well.
“Teresa,” I greet, looking in the direction of shuffling papers and clacking keyboard keys. I simper, aiming my eyes slightly above where I believe her to actually be and speak to the air above her head. “Does Mr. Warrick have a moment? We only need a couple of minutes. Less than five.”
A soft sound of sympathy floats from her, and I do my best not to grin.
Got her.
“Oh, dear, I’m down here!”
Shock. Surprise. Mouth drops. Eyebrows furrow.
“Down there?” I ask, and my lower lip sneaks out. I tilt my head down, just a little too far. Will snorts behind me. I resist the urge to kick him.
A weight falls on my hand. Warm, soft, and entirely unwelcome. It takes all I have not to flinch. Why do people do that?
“Don’t worry about it, Ruby,” Teresa says, her hand leaving mine, then returning in a pat. “You need help from Mr. Warrick, you said? He has ten minutes until his next meeting. I’m sure he’d be willing to assist you with whatever you need.”
I hope she’s right, and that her boss assists me by firing his incompetent, time-wasting CFO. I hope he laughs when he does it. I’ve never seen Mr. Warrick laugh before, but he totally seems like the type to find joy in ruining someone’s life. He’s kind of like if Scrooge and The Grinch had a baby, and that baby took hating Christmas and turned it into hating everything. Times about one thousand.
“We’d be so grateful,” I tell her. “Won’t we, Will?”
“Of course!” he proclaims, voice loud enough to deafen a girl. This girl, specifically.
“Back up,” I hiss the moment Teresa lets go of my hand to pick up her phone, quickly speaking to Mr. Warrick.
“I like it here,” Will replies. “You smell good. Like cherries.”
My nostrils flare.
I don’t want Mr. Warrick to fire him.
I want him to kill him.
“He’ll see you now,” Teresa says, and Will’s heat presses ever closer. It pools over the small of my back, hesitating, then his hand is there, against me, guiding me to the office door.
I speed up until his hand falls off.
Then I do something really, really stupid.
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