Chapter 18
Sebastian
CABIN FOUR WAS MY OFFICE now. I hauled in an unused whiteboard from Ruby’s office, plugged in a second monitor I’d borrowed, and held a full staff video-meeting with my team in Houston. I wasn’t the only one to take video calls from various locations, so no one noted the difference.
I even ran a similar meeting with Dave and his foreman—same setup, different topics—right from the cabin’s living room.
Dave gave me a knowing look when he walked in. “Feeling at home, huh? You the boyfriend or what?”
It was almost like when two of his workers had gawked when Ruby walked past to hand Dave some papers.
“Man,” one of them murmured, shaking his head with a grin, “she makes even paperwork look good.”
Dave shot him a look and hinted toward me. “Careful. That’s the engineer who helps her.”
The guy glanced at me, eyebrows up. “You’re tapping that?”
I looked him dead in the eye. “Say that when she’s around. She’d have you sanding decks until your arms fell off and you’d still thank her for it.”
“That’s a yes,” the guy mumbled, looking like he had a new appreciation for both of us.
This time, I didn’t dignify Dave’s question with a reply. Not just because we kept our conversations about the project he was executing and I had no intention of changing that, but because his question landed different and it lingered.
It lingered because the truth was, it was starting to feel that way. Like something had shifted. Like this wasn’t temporary.
Though it had only been a few days, we fell into a rhythm.
Domesticity.
We ate breakfast together. Went to work together.
Walked down to the beach together, the sand cool beneath our feet and the sea breeze tugging at our hair.
Slept together. Shared post-midnight snacks together.
Ruby even agreed to give Attack Of The Clones a second chance if I tried Superstore because “it’s a hidden gem, and you have to admit Jonah is better off with Kelly, even though he doesn’t deserve her. ”
“So you’re into ‘ships’ in shows now?” I asked, laughing. “You didn’t even ship Buffy and Angel back when all the girls did.” Even then, she’d claimed she didn’t believe in fate or true love. Back in high school, I hadn’t thought she meant it. Experience proved otherwise.
“It’s a harmless diversion. Sometimes.” And then, probably catching another meaning behind my question, she added, “It’s not different than getting excited over ... I don’t know, the Millennium Falcon, even if I don’t know or care how to fly one.”
“In my case, I do want to try it.”
“Try what?”
A serious relationship, I wanted to say, but didn’t. “To fly a spaceship. I have a lot of experience with everything to do with it, and I would love to try it for real.” Like with relationships.
“I hope you will,” she said with a soft smile, bumping her knee against mine. I knew she was talking about spaceships again, but I couldn’t deny that the more time we spent together, the more I felt it and wanted it—this closeness.
Another evening, in bed, Ruby leaned her chin on my chest and looked at me. “So ... if I end up doing a reopening party once the inn’s ready, do you even have clothes for that?”
I knew she wasn’t asking me on a date—God forbid—but the question felt more personal than logistical, like she was picturing me there beside her.
“I have clothes. You just keep taking them off me.”
She laughed. “No, I mean something fancy.”
“How fancy?”
She got up, stark naked, and crossed to her open walk-in closet. Digging through my shelf, she pulled out a white button-down shirt and dark gray chinos—the ones I kept for office emergencies or Zoom meetings. She studied them with a little hum. “Hmm. I think we could make these work.”
“Show me,” I said, already on my feet, just as naked. The clothes ended up forgotten on the floor while we went for another round against the nearest wall.
It didn’t seem to occur to her that I might fly back to Houston before then and return just for the party. In her head, I was here to stay.
I’d never stayed with Ruby for more than one night before.
And instead of getting on each other’s nerves, dulling things between us, or the sex becoming a routine, everything sharpened.
We grew closer. The sex became even more intense.
Consuming. Raw. It wasn’t about anything acrobatic or new, it was about the intimacy.
There was something in the way she touched me, the way her eyes held mine—like we weren’t just in each other’s bodies, but in each other’s bloodstream, too.
“HOLD STILL.” RUBY SET the cake on the dining table, candles flickering like a tiny bonfire. “Twenty-nine ... plus one for luck.”
“You’re not supposed to add one.”
“Says who?” She grinned. “It’s my rule.”
I leaned forward. “Fine. But if I pass out from lack of oxygen, you’re explaining that to my mother.”
“Shut up and make a wish.”
I blew them out in one go, the flames vanishing in a puff of smoke.
“Happy birthday week,” Ruby said with another grin. “You get to pick the movie we watch and the position later.”
We’d already had round one pretty much as soon as I’d walked through the door, and while she was teasing, I felt a quiet warmth at the fact that even though my birthday had been five days earlier, she still wanted to celebrate with me when I arrived in California.
“I have one more thing, actually,” Ruby said after we finished the cake. She handed me a rolled-up tube.
“I thought we weren’t doing presents,” I reminded her, keeping with the rules.
She shrugged. “It was too good to leave at the vintage market.”
“Oh, wow,” I exclaimed as I unrolled it—a rare Superman poster, an iconic image from the Golden Age comics. The colors were rich, and the vintage was a collector’s dream. “It’s amazing. Thank you.”
“Did I get it right? I’m not that into it like you are,” she said, watching me with an expectant smile.
“You got it perfect.” I couldn’t quite put words to how much this gift meant. A smirk spread on my face. “You get to choose the position, though.”
Ruby chuckled. “Aww, thanks, birthday boy. I’ll think of something.”
Later, digging through a wicker box on her TV console for the spare remote, I spotted our yearbook. Instead of watching a movie, we opened it on the couch and immediately burst out laughing when we found our pictures.
“God, no wonder no one wanted to go out with me,” Ruby said.
“I would’ve.”
“Really?” Her eyes brightened.
“Don’t be too flattered. Back then, I’d have dated any girl who’d give me a chance.”
“Did you ever try?” she asked, still watching me closely.
“No. I could read the room.”
“I’m sorry.” We both laughed.
“Oh my God! Remember this?” Ruby pointed to her name under Girl Most Likely to Get in Trouble with the Police. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, dickheads.”
“Your mouth did get you into trouble.”
“And today?” She gave me a knowing grin.
“Today you use it only for good causes.” I smirked and guided her hand to the hardness forming in my jeans.
“God, you’re so easy,” she said, laughing and pulling her hand back. “Let’s see what they said about you.”
She flipped through the pages and found it. “Boy Most Likely to Geek It Through Life. Dickheads.”
“Basically, Boy Most Likely to Stay a Virgin,” I said.
“Ugh. They knew nothing. You know Heather—the one who was in charge of this crap? Divorced already.”
“Not surprised.”
“Come here, geek it for me, virgin.” With her hand on my nape, she pulled me into a kiss.
“Ever think about it?” I asked when we broke to breathe. “Us, back then, losing our virginities to each other?”
“Of course I have,” she said, like it was the silliest question ever.
“I mean ... how do you think about it?”
“In the sense that I made the right choice. I wouldn’t have wanted it to be anyone else.”
“Why?”
“Because I can read the room.” She smiled. “And by room, I mean people.”
“So not even one of those guys you had a crush on?” I teased.
“Nope. All the hot ones are full of themselves.”
“You’re a hot one,” I reminded her. I suspected that deep down, Ruby still thought of herself as ordinary. She wasn’t. Not even back when her looks fit the part.
“Maybe now,” she said softly. “I think the way you grow up shapes you. I might’ve been full of myself if things had been different. But you wouldn’t have been. You’re too good for all that crap, Sebastian. You’re too good for—” She cut herself off.
“For what?”
“Nothing. Come here.”
She kissed me again, hungry and fierce this time, and I was a goner.
To my surprise, her position of choice was missionary.