Chapter 5
Nash
Ruby sleeps in the spare room at the clubhouse. I take the chair by the door.
Getting her there took longer than it should have.
"I'm not leaving my apartment because some asshole rearranged my desk drawers." She stood in her hallway with her hand on her hip, bag at her feet, chin up. "This is my home. I'm staying."
"You're not staying here tonight."
"Watch me."
"Ruby."
"You can't just say my name in that voice and expect me to do what you want."
"Get your bag."
"No."
I stepped closer. Close enough that she had to tip her chin up to hold eye contact. Close enough that her breath caught and her hand slid off her hip.
"Get your bag," I said. Quieter. "Or I carry you out of here."
Her eyes widened. Her lips parted. She held for three seconds, jaw tight, chin up, daring me.
My pulse kicked. The defiance on her face hit somewhere low in my gut and stayed there. Her mouth, red and open, formed words she hadn't said yet. My hand flexed at my side. I wished to pick her up, put her over my shoulder, and feel her fight the whole way down the stairs.
"You wouldn't."
I reached past her and picked up the bag.
She grabbed her jacket off the hook and walked out the door ahead of me.
"For the record," she said over her shoulder, "I'm choosing to leave.
This is not compliance. This is strategic relocation.
" She hadn't changed. Sleep shorts under the jacket, bare legs, wet hair dripping down her back. I kept my eyes on the hallway.
"Whatever you need to call it."
"I need to call it what it is, which is me making an independent decision that happens to align with your caveman bullshit."
"Get on the bike, Ruby."
She got on the bike.
She didn't talk on the ride over. Her arms around my waist, her forehead between my shoulder blades, and the silence where her voice should be sat heavier than anything she's ever said out loud.
Candace met her at the door. Pulled her inside. I heard them through the wall for an hour, Ruby's voice running bright and fast, Candace's quiet underneath. Then the talking stopped, and the spare room went dark.
I don't sleep. Every time I close my eyes I see the sketchbook open on her bed, the drawing she made of me, and the fact that someone else found it first.
The drill bites wood at six a.m. I'm on my knees in Ruby's doorway across town, setting the new deadbolt into the frame I reinforced with steel after I pulled the damaged strike plate.
The original lock gave on a single strike.
Whoever came through this door knew exactly how much force the frame could take and used exactly that much.
I test the bolt. Retract it. Test it again. A third time.
They went through her drawers. Her shelves.
Her closet. Moved things, touched things, opened things that belonged to her.
Took nothing. The laptop is on the desk.
The cash is in the jar. Everything in this apartment is exactly where she left it except the sketchbook they pulled from the bottom of a stack and opened on her bed to a drawing of me.
My molars grind until my jaw aches.
By seven, I've secured every window with secondary latches and mounted a motion-sensor camera above the door. I lock up with the new deadbolt and ride to the clubhouse.
Malachi's briefing is short. His jaw sets when I tell him about the sketchbook.
"They're personalizing it," he says.
"They want her scared."
"Is she?"
Last night. Her hand shook at her side. It stopped when I said her name.
The heat of her skin was an inch from my palm, close enough that I could feel the tremor before I could see it.
Two weeks someone had eyes on her, and I missed it.
Two weeks she walked to her car, unlocked her door, sat in the window at Amaranth, and I was three blocks away staring at sealed records instead of watching the street.
"She's handling it."
"Detail stays tight. She doesn't go anywhere alone."
"Copy."
Ruby comes down the stairs as I'm leaving the briefing.
Copper hair loose, curling at the ends where it dried overnight.
Red lips. Candace's flannel hanging off one shoulder over a tank top that stops above her navel.
Denim shorts that end where her thighs start. Coffee in one hand. Bag in the other.
My feet stop before my brain catches up.
"Morning, Sergeant-at-Arms." The grin hits full wattage. "Ready to be my shadow again? I was thinking we could coordinate outfits. You'd look great in glitter. Maybe a little shimmer on the cheekbones. Really lean into the whole brooding-bodyguard thing."
"Let's go."
"You know, most people say good morning first. It's a whole social convention. There are studies."
I hold out the helmet at the door.
"Fine. But we're revisiting the glitter conversation.
" She takes the helmet, clips it on, and swings onto the Harley behind me.
Ruby's arms wrap around my waist, and her thighs press against mine.
Her chest settles against my back, warm through the leather of my cut, and the vanilla hits me before I can brace for it.
Her chin settles against my shoulder blade. The pressure of it is light and specific, and my grip tightens on the handlebars.
"You're tense," she says against my back. "Is this a security thing or a me thing?"
Both. The word sits in my mouth. I swallow it and kick the engine to life.
The ride to Amaranth is three blocks of her body heat bleeding through my shirt, her breath on the back of my neck when she shifts, her fingers linked at my stomach where every muscle has pulled tight.
Her thumb absently traces a small circle against my abdomen that drops straight through my ribs.
My jaw locks, and I take the turn harder than I should.
Amaranth doesn't open until noon, but Ruby's been coming in early since Frankie claimed her. I've watched the pattern long enough to know it matters to her.
I go through the door first. Corners, windows, back hall, bathroom. Frankie is at her station, record player already going. She lifts her coffee in acknowledgment when I pass.
Clear. I take the wall by the door.
Ruby ties on her apron, settles at her station, and starts the ritual. Inks lined up along the edge. Pencils arranged by weight. Lightbox positioned. She reaches for her coffee mug, finds it empty, glances at the back counter, and goes back to prepping without it.
I cross to the back counter. Pour coffee from Frankie's pot. Two sugars. Splash of cream. Set it at her station on my way back to the wall.
She picks up the mug. Looks at it. Looks at me.
"Did you just—"
"You were out."
"I know I was out. I was going to get more." She takes a sip. Her eyebrows lift. "How do you know how I take my coffee?" I look at the window. "Nash."
"You order the same thing every time."
"From the gas station. Not from Frankie's pot. Nobody's ever—" She stops and takes another sip. Sets the mug down carefully, as if it weighs more than it did a minute ago. "Thank you."
She goes back to her prep. The shop fills with the sounds of her morning. Pencil on paper. The clink of ink bottles. The low hum of the record player.
The coffee sits at her station where I put it. She reaches for it without looking, the way she reaches for her ink bottles. Already muscle memory. Something warm and unfamiliar settles in my chest at that, and I shift my weight against the wall.
The morning passes in the rhythm of the shop. Clients in and out. The bell jingles. The tattoo machine buzzes. I watch the door and the windows. I watch her hands move over the stencil at her station.
The light on Ruby's station shifts when her first client moves in the chair, casting shadow across the stencil. Ruby squints, adjusts her grip, keeps working. I cross the room and reach past her shoulder to tilt the lamp head. The light corrects.
Her hand pauses on the client's arm. She looks up at me. I'm still close enough to smell green soap on her gloves and vanilla underneath.
"Thanks," she says. I'm back at the wall before she adds a joke.
Her second client walks through the door, clutching a tissue in one hand and a photograph in the other. A woman in her fifties, eyes already red. She sits in Ruby's chair, and her chin trembles before Ruby even pulls out the sketch.
"Okay," Ruby says, rolling her stool close. "Tell me about her."
"She loved wildflowers." The woman's voice cracks. "She used to pick them on the side of the road and put them in jars all over the house. My husband hated it. Said it looked like a greenhouse exploded." A wet laugh. "She didn't care."
"That's because she had taste and your husband doesn't." Ruby grins. The woman laughs again, real this time, and wipes her eyes. "What kind of wildflowers? Because if you say sunflowers, those are technically not wild, and I will fight about this."
"Black-eyed Susans. And those little purple ones. Verbena?"
"Verbena is gorgeous." Ruby pulls the sketch from her folder and lays it on the woman's lap.
"I did the lettering around a cluster of wildflowers.
Black-eyed Susans here, Verbena winding through here.
" Her finger traces the design. "The way it wraps means the flowers follow the natural curve of your forearm. So when you move, they move."
The woman stares at the sketch. Her hand presses flat over her mouth. Ruby waits. Doesn't fill the silence.
"That's her," the woman whispers. "That's exactly her."
"Good." Ruby squeezes her hand once. "Now. I'm going to walk you through every step before I start, and if at any point you need to stop, you tell me. There's no rush. We've got all afternoon and Frankie's got a bottomless coffee pot."
"Does it hurt?"
"Honestly? Yeah. But you already know what that feels like." Ruby's voice is soft. "This one's going to be worth it."
The woman nods. Ruby snaps on fresh gloves, adjusts the machine, and starts.