Chapter Eleven Ruby
“It’s two thirty,” I grumble.
“Yes, I can read clocks too.”
“Call them again.”
“He’s on the way, Ruby. They said the ETA was thirty minutes. It’s only been twenty.”
I fold my arms against my chest. I’m really trying not to panic.
Except, in my defense, this is definitely a panic-worthy situation. I’m stuck on the side of the highway in the middle of nowhere with a man I barely know. There’s an incoming storm that could slow down our progress to the city even more, and if I don’t make it back by tonight, my entire schedule is going to be messed up.
It doesn’t matter that I don’t technically need to be in the studio until Wednesday morning. I have an early morning class tomorrow that I desperately need to attend if I want to make up for the fact that I haven’t danced in four entire days. That might not sound like a lot to someone who doesn’t know anything about ballet, but even just one day without some kind of physical maintenance to our bodies can ruin months of hard work.
Not to mention the fact that I have to unpack, sew another new pair of pointe shoes, talk with the company costume designer about my fitting, make sure I’m eating well, keep my muscles stretched and warm, and try not to get myself a first-degree murder charge against Ben Hawthorne in the meantime.
I clench my hands into fists. I need to be back in New York now.
“Are you okay?” Ben asks. He sounds nervous.
I don’t even bother looking at him. I’m too busy glaring out through the windshield and trying not to scream with frustration. “I’m fine.”
At least Ben has AAA. It’s kind of funny, actually. For some reason, I would have thought rich people had their own special version of roadside assistance to reach out to. Also, considering how remote our current location is, I have to admit that it’s lucky they were only thirty minutes away. Everyone has heard horror stories of people who have been stuck waiting on roadsides for hours at a time.
I take a deep breath. Everything is going to be okay. I play with the ruby ring on my finger, twisting it around in circles. It’s my nervous habit; a somewhat helpful balm when my anxiety is spiking to dangerous levels. Gram gave me the ring for my sixteenth birthday. Amy has one too—an amethyst ring to symbolize her name. Our mom, Emerald, has an emerald ring.
Ben taps his fingers on the steering wheel. It’s dead silent inside the car with the tension so thick that I’m starting to feel like I can’t breathe. Every few seconds, a car rushes by on the highway.
“I’m, uh, going to get the spare tire out of the back.”
I don’t say anything. Ben gets out of the car.
Still, I can’t resist watching in the rearview mirror as he opens the trunk and frowns down at the base. I highly doubt he’s ever had to deal with a flat tire by himself. I bet he has a chauffeur or something ridiculous like that when he’s in the city.
There’s some loud shuffling as Ben removes our suitcases. He grunts and mumbles to himself, and I can no longer mind my business. I twist around in the seat, watching as he clumsily yanks open the base of the trunk and stares down at what I’m assuming is a spare tire.
“It’s in there, right?” I ask.
“Yep. That’s a tire.”
“Shouldn’t you know how to change it yourself?”
Ben glares at me from the opening of the trunk door. “Why would I know how to do that?”
“I just thought it was, like, a manly thing that men inherently know how to do.”
“Are you saying I’m not manly?”
“No.”
“I had no idea you had such outdated views on gender roles,” he quips.
I roll my eyes. “Whatever.”
The truth is, Ben is adequately manly. More than adequately. At least, in terms of his physical appearance. Maybe he doesn’t have a beard or lumberjack muscles, but his broad shoulders and casual confidence lend him an admittedly alluring vibe of refined masculinity. Unfortunately, he’s exactly the type of guy I would find myself drawn to.
Which is really annoying, because I’d like to pretend that the day at the Strand was a total fluke.
“Why don’t you know how to change a tire?” he snaps at me.
“Professional dancers don’t change tires.”
He snorts quietly. I turn back around in the passenger seat to face front.
I check the time on my phone again. The roadside assistance truck should be here literally any minute. Ben busies himself with moving our suitcases to the back seats so that they’re not sitting on the side of the road while we continue to wait. I know I should say thanks for that, but I’m fidgeting so much that I can barely remember how to inhale and exhale at a normal speed.
Maybe Eva was right that one time she told me I should consider getting a prescription for Xanax.
Ben makes his way back to the driver’s seat. He slumps down in it, staring out the window at the paltry flashes of traffic on the other side of the highway. I keep my eye on the lanes stretching behind us, hoping to catch sight of the AAA truck within the next couple of minutes.
Except, five minutes pass. Then three more.
A soft pat-pat sound reaches my ears. I whip my head around and stare in horror as a scattering of fat raindrops plop lazily onto the windshield.
“No,” I whisper in horror. No. Absolutely not. The second storm isn’t supposed to start until later tonight. Until after we’ve arrived in Manhattan.
“It’s just a sprinkle,” Ben says.
I glare at him. He weathers it with impressive grace.
Then, at last, I spy a large gray van with its emergency flashers on, slowing to a crawl in the breakdown lane a few hundred yards behind us.
Finally.
I glance at the time. “It’s been forty minutes. Not thirty.”
“It’s not the end of the world.”
“I’m just saying. I don’t know why they would lie. It’s better to manage customers’ expectations realistically rather than leave them disappointed.”
“I think you’re the only one willing to throw a fit over a difference of ten minutes.”
“I’m not throwing a fit,” I snap, even though the malice in my tone definitely suggests otherwise. “I’m just making an observation.”
“You expect a lot from people,” he replies as the van pulls up behind the Porsche.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Ben cracks open the door as if he’s about to get out without explaining himself, but then speaks over his shoulder to me. “Just because you expect perfection from yourself doesn’t mean that you can force it out of others. You told me it’s not realistic to want everyone to like you, and now I’m telling you that it’s not realistic to want everything to be perfect all the time.”
“That’s not what I—”
But I don’t have the chance to deliver my retort because Ben is already out of the car and walking to greet our savior.
I stay where I am, not trusting myself to be personable to anyone at the moment. I turn sideways in the seat to watch, though. Maybe seeing Ben make a fool of himself in front of an honest, hardworking person will brighten my spirits.
“You got a flat?” the older man calls out in a thick Massachusetts accent.
“Yes, sir. Thank you for coming.”
“It’s my job, boy,” he growls. The man doesn’t sound particularly friendly, but anyone from New England knows that he’s actually being super nice.
Ben takes it in stride. “I’ve got the spare back here. I’m Ben, by the way.”
The man grunts. “Greg.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“Took me longer than expected to get over to you,” says Greg, ignoring the niceties. “Back roads are a mess.”
“No worries at all, sir. It’s really no problem.”
I scoff under my breath. I expect Ben’s city-boy politeness to bother Greg, but it doesn’t seem like the man minds at all.
“By the way,” Ben adds, “would you mind if I watched you at work? I admit I’m a little embarrassed that I don’t know how to change a tire myself.”
I’m openly scowling at this point, but neither Greg nor Ben is even glancing in my direction.
“Hey, no problem, kid.”
Greg hauls the spare tire out of the floor of the trunk. He mutters something about how it’s a good thing that it’s a proper spare tire and not a donut—whatever that means—and then even goes so far as to gruffly compliment Ben on his nice cah, or rather, car, if you understand the accent.
To my utter horror, I think Greg actually likes Ben.
My sour mood worsens. It would’ve been nice if I actually had some evidence to back up the claim that Ben can’t expect everyone to like him.
Greg fetches a metal contraption on wheels from his van that I think is called a jack. Before Ben can close the trunk door, Greg pops his head through the opening and makes direct eye contact with me. I jump slightly, having not realized that he even noticed I was there.
“Ma’am, I’m afraid you’ll need to step out of the car while I lift it. It’s a liability thing.”
I frown. The pitter-patter of raindrops has grown a little more insistent in the past few minutes.
“You’re welcome to sit in my van to stay out of the rain,” he offers.
I shake my head. “I’ll be fine. Thanks.”
With a quiet sigh, I climb out of the car and the boys get to work.
I don’t really know what to do with myself except stand there and watch. I hold a hoodie I grabbed from my tote bag over my head to protect my hair and face from the rain, but it’s not cold enough to actually put it on. In fact, it’s dreadfully warm and muggy. As if this day couldn’t get more miserable.
While Greg works, Ben lowers to one knee beside him to watch. I’m surprised when Greg even offers verbal instructions and explains that he can get a more compact version of his car jack to keep in the trunk at all times. He suggests a few brands, and Ben takes out his phone to dutifully note them down. Neither one of them pay much attention to me, which is probably a good thing, because I think I’ve got a bad case of stink-eye that no amount of fake smiling and forced politeness will cure.
The rain falls in plump droplets. I’m relieved that the pace remains steady. It’s not fully raining yet, at least, not enough to soak through the thin cotton I’m holding over my head. I desperately hope the real storm is still hours away from us.
I’m pleasantly surprised to discover that it actually doesn’t take that long to change a tire. Greg manages to do his job and gives Ben a thorough explanation in about ten minutes. When he lowers the car back down, I say a quick thank you and get back into the car. We need to get back on the road.
I watch as Ben shakes hands with Greg and helps him carry his tools back to the van. I can hardly hate him for being kind and helpful to the man who just rescued us, but I have plenty of other things to hate him for.
Another seven minutes pass before Ben slides back into the driver’s seat. If another minute had gone by, I might have considered driving away without him, if not for the fact that he has the keys in his pocket.
It’s now three thirty. Both of us glance at the time on the digital screen set into the dashboard as he starts the engine. We’ve lost an entire hour.
Ben glances at me and cringes. “It’s okay. I’ll drive fast.”
“You’ll drive the speed limit,” I correct him. “Because if you get pulled over for speeding, that’ll take even more time.”
“Good point.”
Greg is the first to pull away from the edge of the road. Ben waves cheerfully at him as he goes, then checks to make sure the lane is clear before finally navigating the car back onto the highway.
“Maybe I was wrong,” I mumble.
“What?”
“Maybe everyone does like you.”
“Everyone but you.” He says it lightly, almost nonchalantly, but there’s a note of frustration in his tone that I’m becoming familiar with.
At that, I feel a little guilty. If I’m being honest, I know that I’m acting like a brat, and now that the confusion between us about the first time we met is cleared, it feels childish to still despise him for that. Also, he apologized for the Giselle situation, and I can hardly hate him for a mistake he didn’t realize he was making.
So, really, why do I dislike this man? He’s presumptuous, overconfident, and annoyingly self-assured in a way that grates on my nerves.
But, if I dig deeper, I know the real reason that I don’t want to like him is because I know exactly how easy it would be to like him. I’ve liked him before. That day at the Strand, I liked him a little too much, a little too quickly.
I can’t have him. He’s on the Board of Directors and I won’t risk jeopardizing my reputation. That’s where my stubbornness is coming from. If I can convince myself that I dislike this man, then it’s easier to swallow the truth that there is no possible future for us.
I’m lying to myself. Lying to him.
Still, it’s probably for the best.
“I don’t dislike you,” I murmur. Part of me hopes that I said it too softly for him to hear, but that’s just wishful thinking.
Ben is quiet for a moment.
“I’ll take that as a huge compliment,” he replies.