Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
R uby tried to lose herself in the monotony of her work.
Smile, pour drink, smile, take order, keep smiling, pour another drink, ignore Sal’s chatter.
But the thought of Rafe’s gaze on her while she touched herself would not leave.
If she was being honest, she’d be surprised if it ever left.
She’d be a little perverted old lady still daydreaming about the hottest moment of her entire life.
Because it definitely had been. And then he’d fled the scene like he’d been caught gawking at a car wreck.
She shook her head, wisps of hair escaping from her updo, trying to get Rafe out of her mind.
For whatever reason, he didn’t think they should?…
fool around. And Ruby wasn’t in the habit of begging.
Even though she really, really wanted to beg for more of what Rafe gave her this morning.
More of his rough stubble on her face. More of his hands on her ass.
More of his lips and his teeth and his big…
She glanced up to find Macy looking at her with a concerned furrow in her brow. Ruby gave her a tight smile and arranged the drinks evenly on her tray like it was the most important thing in the world.
“You okay?” Macy asked.
“Yep. Fine.”
Macy’s purple braids skated across her shoulders as she lined up the drinks. “You sure? You look like you’re doing math in your head.”
Ruby sputtered a laugh. “Nope. No math. Everything’s fine.”
“That girl is not doing math,” Sierra cut in. “She’s thinking about sex.”
“I am not!”
Sierra ran a manicured finger around the rim of her martini glass. Sierra was the only person in this place that drank martinis. They stocked olives just for her.
“Deny it all you want. I can tell. Flushed cheeks, dilated pupils…”
“Oh my God! Stop looking at me!”
Sierra chuckled. “Okay, whatever you say.”
“You haven’t seen that Wyatt guy around anymore, have you?” Macy asked, mercifully changing the subject. The look on her face said she would personally kick his ass if needed, which Ruby found comforting.
“No. Haven’t seen him.” Of course, she couldn’t say that Rafe had sniffed him loitering in her backyard because that was an insane thing to say. Even if it was true.
“Okay, good. We put his picture up.” Macy pointed to the wall of shame above the register.
A blurry polaroid of Wyatt had joined the three others that had been there for years.
One was Macy’s ex who still came in all the time, ignoring Macy’s jabs and the photo.
One was a hiker who had come in a few years ago with an injured squirrel in his backpack.
Or he thought it was injured until the squirrel escaped and ran rampant around the bar.
And he hadn’t even left a good tip. And the third was Paula, Ruby’s third-grade teacher who’d gotten so caught up in a multilevel marketing scheme that she’d tried to get the whole town in her “down line.” Macy told her she was welcome to come back whenever she agreed to not speak a word about supplements.
She hadn’t been back in years.
“Thanks, Mace.” Ruby appreciated the gesture, but everyone else on that board had committed only the silliest of crimes. Wyatt had done so much worse.
“Where’s Rafe tonight? I thought I saw him earlier.”
Ruby could feel the heat flooding her blood just at the mention of his name. “He?… uh… He dropped me off.”
Macy continued her inspection of Ruby’s face like she could read everything Ruby wished she could do to the man as soon as she was done here.
“Are you two really a thing?”
That was what she’d told Lena, wasn’t it? That they were together? She’d better keep her lies consistent. Sierra had perked up again on her bar stool like she was also interested to hear the answer.
“It’s?… um… It’s new.”
Macy smiled. “He’s a good guy from what I can tell. Amazing woodworker.”
Ruby nodded, eyes on the tap as Macy filled the last beer, a perfect head of foam on top.
“Not bad to look at either,” she added with a grin. “If I had any interest in people with penises, I’d be jealous.”
“I’d love to see what he can do with his wood,” Sierra said, sipping placidly from her drink.
Ruby choked on her laughter. But it felt good to let some of the tension of the day go. Her shoulders relaxed until she had to lift the tray filled with drinks.
“God, Sierra, keep it in your pants.”
The older woman gave her a mischievous smile. “Live a little, Ruby! If I had a man like that following me around I would?—”
“No one wants to know what you would do,” Macy cut in, saving Ruby and the rest of the bar from hearing what Sierra wanted to do with or possibly to Rafe.
Ruby had plenty of her own ideas.
Sierra shrugged, her off-the-shoulder leopard-print top moving along with the gesture. “I’m just saying, the man is positively edible.”
“Thank you for that input,” Ruby said.
“Anytime. And keep us posted. We’d love to live vicariously through you.” She winked and Ruby found herself biting back a laugh as she weaved through the crowded bar.
Unfortunately, the table she was headed to held Trina, Kurt and friends. A surefire way to ruin her mood completely was interacting with these dingbats.
“Thanks, Ruby,” Trinia said. Her smile was saccharine-sweet as Ruby set out the drinks.
“You bet.”
“We heard you’re seeing the new guy in town.” Trinia whispered it like they were sharing a secret. Like they ever had or ever would.
“Did you? From who? Sal?” Ruby gestured toward the bar where Sal was currently regaling some out-of-towners with his last Bigfoot sighting. Sierra was chiming in with her own inappropriate thoughts on big feet. “He’s a very reliable source.”
Kurt’s buddy snorted a laugh and Trina glared at him. Kurt was too busy studying Ruby to pay attention.
“You should stay away from him, Ruby,” Kurt said. “He looks like a serial killer or something.”
Trina cackled like Kurt was telling a joke, but his gaze on Ruby hadn’t wavered. He was even looking at her face tonight instead of her tits so he must really be serious.
“Gee, thank you so much for your concern. I’ll be sure to be careful and to run all my future prospects by you first.”
“Ooo, and he just walked in,” Shreya cooed like they were still in middle school and she was completely missing the point of this conversation.
Ruby turned to look, and Rafe’s gaze found her immediately through the dwindling crowd.
His hungry stare tracked her movements like the predator that he was.
She knew how he must look to this table of her former peers, his hulking shape hiding in the shadows of the bar, his eyes following her.
He looked like a threat. And he felt like one, but she couldn’t take her eyes off of him.
“See,” Trina hissed. “He looks like a psycho killer.”
“I don’t know,” Shreya countered. “He’s kinda hot.”
Ruby left the table of idiots arguing over whether Rafe looked like an ex-con or a rugged LL Bean model.
Rafe hadn’t come in alone. Lena was tucked in his shadow and dread dropped into Ruby’s gut. Had something happened? Why did Rafe bring her here?
“What are you two doing here?” she asked as they slid into a booth by the door.
“I was hungry,” Lena said with a shrug. “And Rafe stopped by to grab a jacket from the house, so I asked him to bring me here.”
Rafe wasn’t wearing a jacket. He’d obviously just been checking on Lena which made Ruby’s heart do a concerning triple beat.
“Hope that’s okay,” Rafe’s voice rumbled through her.
She swallowed hard. “Yep. That’s great. What can I get you guys?”
“Just fries for me,” Lena said. “But like, a lot of them.”
“Sure.”
Ruby couldn’t help but look her sister over and she didn’t look good.
Dark smudges hung beneath her eyes, and the braid Ruby had put in her hair this afternoon was unraveling around her face.
She was dressed in her favorite sweatsuit, but it was rumpled, and a few spots stained the front of her shirt.
Somehow over the course of a day, she’d fallen apart again.
And Ruby couldn’t keep up with putting her back together.
It was like building a sandcastle on the shoreline.
Ruby glanced around, hating that other people were seeing Lena like this too, hating that they would think all kinds of horrible things about her and make up even more lies.
Rafe’s foot tapped against hers. When she looked down at him, he held her gaze, giving her a slight nod like he was telling her it was okay, that everything would be okay.
“The usual?” she asked, her voice shaky with emotion.
“Sounds good,” he said, still holding her with his eyes. “Me and Lena will be just fine until you get back.”
Ruby nodded, forcing herself to go back to the kitchen and put in their order when all she wanted to do was slouch down into the booth next to him, and weep her thanks into his chest.
By the time she made her way back to the table, she felt calmer, especially when she saw Lena wearing Rafe’s flannel shirt, as if he’d noticed the state of her clothes and wanted to protect Lena from unkind stares too.
Callie and Sawyer had joined them, which may have been the only thing that kept Ruby from flinging herself at Rafe in thanks.
“Ruby!” Callie said. “Lena was just introducing us to your new friend , Rafe.”
“Scootch,” Ruby said to Callie, piling in next to her on the bench. “Yes, this is Rafe, so glad you’ve met, but I think the real story here is this high school reunion we’re having! Hi, Sawyer,” Ruby said, leaning forward to wave to Sawyer down the table.
“Hey, Ruby,” he said with a grin. He hadn’t changed much in the decade since they’d graduated.
Same sandy blond hair, same teasing smile.
Sawyer had always been the cute boy next door, more Callie’s type than hers.
Ruby was glad he was back, especially since he was shacking up with her best friend and making her incredibly happy.
“So how long were you harboring secret feelings for my best friend?” Ruby asked.
“Ruby!” Callie sputtered but Sawyer just laughed.
“Probably since we were eleven,” he said, and Callie’s cheeks flushed pink.
“I knew it!” Ruby said triumphantly, grinning at Rafe across the table, but her excitement was short-lived. She glanced at Lena and instantly knew something was very wrong.