Chapter Fourteen Ben
“Welcome to Motel Monson,” says the older woman behind the front desk with a bland smile. She looks like she’d rather be literally anywhere else than working through a major storm.
“Hi, there,” I say in a smooth, personable tone despite the fact that I am exhausted, rattled, and have a headache coming on. “We need two rooms, if possible.”
The woman, whose name tag reads Martha, glances at the computer and frowns. “Unfortunately, we only have one room left.”
Dread pools in my gut. I turn to Ruby, knowing that there’s defeat in her gaze. The thought of getting back into the car and braving the storm for the sake of hunting down another possible place to spend the night is so daunting that I’m tempted to start crying. Maybe if a grown man bursts into tears in front of her, Martha might just let us sleep out here in the lobby.
However, Ruby turns to Martha and forces a smile. “That’ll be fine.”
I blink in surprise, certain that Ruby would rather camp outside than share a room with me, but she must be as tired and desperate as I am.
“Alright,” she replies, clicking away. “One non-smoking room with a king bed—”
“A king bed?” Ruby interrupts.
Martha glances over at her, then flicks her eyes between us. “Yes, ma’am.”
It occurs to me that she thinks we’re a couple. Of course she does. I try to ignore the slight heat rising to my cheeks.
“No. We’re not—we can’t—” Ruby stutters.
“Would it be possible to get a cot brought to the room?” I cut in.
“Yes, of course.”
Ruby meets my gaze. I offer her what feels like a slightly awkward smile. She struggles to return it, and instead focuses back on Martha.
That was close.
“Here you go,” Martha says to us, sliding a pair of keycards across the desk. “It’s the third door down the hall on your left: room 4-B. Give me just ten minutes and I’ll have the cot brought down to you.”
We thank her and then turn back toward the glass doors, staring out at the wild gale tearing through the world beyond.
“You stay dry,” I say. “I’ll go get our bags.”
“There’s no need to be chivalrous.”
“There’s also no need to be stubborn.”
She glares at me. I glare right back.
When I turn to exit without another word, she follows after me. I grumble a curse under my breath, but it’s not like I can force her to wait in the lobby.
It takes only a minute for us to collect our respective suitcases from the backseat of the car, but by the time we set foot back in the brightly lit lobby, we are both soaked to the bone. We do our best to wipe our feet on the mats, but they’re already thoroughly dampened by the other hotel guests who came in from the storm. Our shoes squeak loudly on the tile as we scurry toward our room.
Our room.
Ruby is beautiful and infuriating and fascinating—and, frankly, everything I could ask for in a potential partner with all her fierceness and ambition—but I never imagined I’d ever engage in something as intimate as sleeping in the same room as her. Not this soon… or at all.
Because, like she said, a relationship between us is an utter impossibility. It doesn’t matter that she’s painfully pretty or that I love the sound of her laughter. It doesn’t matter that I wish I could build a time machine to redo all my mistakes eleven months ago.
It simply doesn’t matter.
All I have left is one night with her, and then everything will go back to the way it was before the wedding. I’ll only see Ruby from afar when she’s pirouetting across the stage.
Ruby uses her keycard to unlock the door, then shoulders it open and marches across the threshold with an exhale of relief.
Inside, the room is shabby but clean enough. The decor hails from at least twenty years ago and the air conditioner is whining a little too loudly from the far wall, but it’s better than being in the car.
As promised, there is only one bed. I sink down on the edge of it and try to regain a sense of reality after so many long hours stuck in the car. I can’t believe we traveled for half a day and ended up right back in the state of Massachusetts.
The ancient digital clock on the bedside table informs me that it’s ten thirty.
We left Mermaid Shores at noon.
I kick off my shoes and stare at the dark television screen. Ruby is in the corner of the room, already digging through her suitcase. The rain hammers against the windows. There’s a disconcerting creaking noise whenever the wind blows particularly hard, but I try not to think too deeply about it.
A knock on the door signals Martha’s arrival with the cot. We exchange only the necessary pleasantries as she pushes it into the room and instructs me on how to unfold it and fold it back up. When she leaves again, I turn to face Ruby.
She’s sitting on the floor next to her suitcase—one leg propped on a foam roller. Of course. Always a ballerina first, and normal human being who admits to being too tired to move second. You wouldn’t know she traveled to attend a wedding if you took a look at all the ballet-specific items spilling out of her suitcase.
“You brought pointe shoes with you on vacation?” I ask.
Ruby frowns up at me from the floor, then switches to rolling out her left hip.
“It wasn’t a vacation.”
“You didn’t enjoy yourself?”
“That’s not what I said.”
I sink back down onto the edge of the bed. I’d sit on the cot, but it looks a little rickety, so I’d like to prolong putting all my weight on it for as long as possible.
“When’s the last time you went on a vacation?” I ask.
“I went to Paris recently.”
“How recently?”
Ruby purses her lips. “Last spring.”
Over a year ago. “And what did you do on this vacation to Paris?”
She’s silent. She goes so far as to put her back to me as she starts rolling out her other thigh, balancing carefully on one hand. She probably has more strength in one finger than I do in my entire arm. Not that I’d ever admit that out loud. I maintain a consistent workout regimen, but it doesn’t even come close to what Ruby does on an average day at work.
“Hmm?” I press. When she doesn’t answer, I smirk to myself. “That trip to Paris wouldn’t have been for the spring intensive program at the Paris Opera Ballet, hosted in collaboration with the New York City Ballet, would it?”
Ruby glares over her shoulder at me. “How did you know that? That was before we met. Before you joined the board.”
I shrug. “Because I was also in Paris during that time. The Hawthorne family sponsors their pre-professional academy.”
“Of course you do.”
I laugh at the playful sarcasm in her tone. If I’m not mistaken, she even cracks a smile before she turns away again.
“That’s not a vacation, though,” I continue. “If you went for work, it doesn’t count.”
“I had a few free days while I was there,” she counters.
“A few?”
“Okay, one.”
“So, you’re telling me that you’ve taken one vacation day in the past year?”
“I get days off at the company. Usually one or two a week, depending on what time of year it is. You know that.”
“That doesn’t count. A day off from work isn’t a vacation. Not when you probably have to spend it getting groceries and running errands and doing laundry… when was the last time you actually had fun, Ruby?”
“Well, I had so much fun today.”
She finishes her task—the foam roller gripped in both of her hands like a weapon. I wonder if she’s debating whether or not she wants to hit me with it.
“Taking time off is good for your mental health,” I tell her.
“Succeeding in my career is also good for my mental health,” she counters. “Anyway, why do you care if I take vacations or not? Not only can I simply not afford the sort of lavish trips that I’m sure you’re used to embarking on, but I also have no interest in wasting precious time lazing around on a beach somewhere. Or whatever. I’ll go on a vacation after I retire.”
“That’s, like, a decade from now.”
“Exactly.” She pauses for a moment, folding forward over her outstretched leggings and grabbing the arches of her feet with ease. “What about you?”
“What about me?” I’m vaguely aware that my clothes are still damp and that I should probably change them before I invite the potential for contracting a cold in the middle of the summer. Still, it’s hard to pull myself away from a reasonably amicable conversation with this girl. I’m like a moth to a flame.
“When’s the last time you went on a vacation?” she asks.
“Well, unlike you, I consider a charming little destination wedding with my dearest friends to be a real vacation, so… this past weekend.”
Ruby rolls her eyes, sitting upright and moving her legs into a perfect split before folding forward again with her elbows resting on the ground. She doesn’t seem at all bothered by the fact that it’s not exactly a normal position to be sitting in while having a conversation.
“I meant before that,” she corrects me.
“I went to St. Bart’s in February.”“Good for you.”
I chuckle. “You’re the one who asked.”
Ruby huffs out a laugh. “I was just trying to be polite.”
“Polite? To me? That’s something new for you.”
I manage to dodge out of the way at the last minute as a pointe shoe comes sailing at my head. It lands with a disturbingly loud thunk on the floor on the opposite side of the room.
Ruby grins innocently. “Oops. I needed to break that shoe in anyway.”
“What would you have done if that actually hit me in the head?”
“I would have laughed, probably.”
I can’t help chuckling at that. I like this mischievous side of her, even if it almost resulted in me taking a pointe shoe to the head. Admittedly, she didn’t have particularly good aim. It was very easy to dodge.
I fetch the shoe from the other side of the room and hand it back to her. She chucks it into her suitcase carelessly. The shoe will get more beat up during an average day of rehearsal than it did just now being used as weaponry.
Ruby rises to her feet just long enough to take three steps and sit down beside me on the end of the bed. There are still at least two feet between us, but the reality of our situation strikes me hard at this exact moment.
“This is weird,” Ruby murmurs. “I’m sharing a hotel room with a member of the board. You can quite literally decide my fate.”
“You decide your own fate, Ruby. I just get to sit and admire as it happens.”
She wrinkles her nose, but there’s a glimmer in her eyes. “Maybe you really should write poetry.”
“You think I could be good at it?”
“I didn’t say that.”
I bark out a laugh. She smirks.
“Maybe that’s my true calling. Maybe I’ll leave the board and go get a degree in poetry. My father would roll his eyes so hard that they’d probably get stuck backwards.”
“Gross.”
“I know.”“Do you not already have a college degree?”
“Yeah. In business.”
“Again, gross.”
“Again, I know.”
“Why’d you study business?”
I wish I wasn’t so thrilled to hear her asking real questions about me. The best part is that I’m certain she’s asking because she’s genuinely curious, not because she’s hunting down my weaknesses. We’ve really turned a corner after the chaos of today.
“Didn’t know what else to do,” I admit. “I almost failed out too. Mostly because I never went to class.”
“I’ve never skipped class in my life,” Ruby replies.
“I’m shocked.”
She smacks me in the arm.
“Thank you, by the way,” I say.
“For what?”
“For giving me a chance.”
She cocks her head to the side in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“I just mean… I’m glad we actually got the chance to talk about the reasons why you don’t like me. And I’m also glad to know that you now no longer dislike me. I know you said it’s not realistic, but it’s important to me. I enjoy being likable.”
“Well, thank you for putting up with the fact that I disliked you. You handled it very gracefully.”
“Did I?”
“Mhm.”
“For the record, I never disliked you,” I tell her.
“Not even a little bit?”
“Nope.”
“Maybe I didn’t try hard enough.”
I grin at her. She laughs. I want to bottle the sound and keep it in my pocket.
A long stretch of silence passes between us. I watch her smile fade slowly, and then she looks away from me. She stands from the bed and goes over to her suitcase, rummaging around in silence. I want to call her back to my side. I want to ask her if there is any version of the future where I might get to kiss her a second time.
She straightens up with a bundle of clothes in her hands.
“I’m going to shower.”
I nod. She floats past me to the bathroom.
With a hard swallow, I force my thoughts to remain perfectly pure and polite, then reach for the television remote.
We might have found shelter, but I have a feeling that we still have a very long journey ahead of us.