Chapter 8
Sebastian
HER TEXT MADE ME SMILE.
I then grabbed my keys and drove from my parents’ to Coral Bay.
Ruby opened the door in shorts and was braless under an old Star Wars tee. Her curls were a little undone, her face bare.
She looked drained. And beautiful.
“You didn’t have to,” she said, eyeing the bag.
“You say that, but you know you’re not going to leave me any spring rolls.”
She rolled her eyes and stepped aside to let me in. “God, that smells amazing. I forgot to eat.”
We sat on the floor like we used to, ever since the Force Alliance club meetings, backs against the couch, the food spread out between us. Back then, pizza was all we could afford.
“I let the temp staff go,” she said, not looking at me.
I paused. “How’d it go?”
She shrugged, grabbing a noodle with her chopsticks. “No one threw a plate at me, so I guess it went fine.”
“That’s your bar for success?”
She gave out a tired smile. “Thank God it’s after Labor Day. Most were already off schedule because we have only a few occupied rooms currently, and even those are checking out soon. So I only had to tell the rest they’d wrap up by the end of the week.”
I pressed my lips together, feeling her struggle. “You’ve had a rough day.”
“You helped some,” she said around a mouthful, swallowed, then gave me a cheeky close-lipped smile.
“That’s what fr—” I caught myself like it was a tripwire I had to skip over. Somehow, saying it felt more loaded than saying nothing at all. “Glad I could be of service,” I ended up saying with a smirk.
We migrated to the couch after the food was gone, empty plates on the coffee table, the low hum of the ocean outside, which was more audible at night, threaded in the silence.
Usually, by this point, if we hadn’t already, this would be where we’d grab each other and get into action.
But Ruby turned on the TV and navigated to a streaming channel.
She paused on Farscape, an old favorite of hers. “Feel like?” she asked.
“Sure,” I said, though I probably would have picked Stargate, which was more my thing.
“It’s like comfort food,” she said, pressing the play button and tucking her feet under her. “I need The Dork Side right now.”
“Exactly why I founded the club,” I replied, my eyes glued to the opening sequence. “This is basically therapy.”
Ruby leaned her shoulder against me, and I let the quiet stretch. A scene came on mid-episode that we used to quote, and I turned to say something, but her head had already tipped sideways, hovering an inch above my shoulder.
She was asleep.
My flight was in the morning. I should’ve left. But instead, I gently laid her head to rest on my shoulder, and stayed until the episode ended and the next one started. Her breathing settled into an even rhythm, and my arm started to go numb.
When her head finally slid fully onto my collarbone, I reached over and muted the sound. Just sat there, holding her. Letting her sleep on me, which was a rare thing in our long, weird history.
“Come on,” I said when her head dipped again, heavier this time. “Your neck’s going to hate you in the morning.”
She mumbled something unintelligible but stirred and got up, and I followed her to the bedroom. She climbed into bed without a word.
“You staying?” she asked, half-asleep, when I pulled the cover over her.
I hesitated, then lay down beside her. “Yeah.”
She curled against me, tried kissing my neck—probably out of habit—but fell asleep mid-kiss, her head resting on my shoulder.
And somehow, lying there next to her, fully clothed, felt more intimate than anything we’d done before.