7. Ruby
Iwonder who Sam was talking to when I knocked on his door. As if I can’t tell the difference between the YouTube Shorts he watches on his phone and his pissed voice.
A few things about him are fishy so far. Hiding away in his room to talk on the phone, the scattered documents on the living room table, not to mention the stupid ski mask.
Even though I begin to see the appeal of his mask. Either that or I really need to get out more because my sanity is slowly but surely slipping.
When I walk downstairsto the kitchen the next morning at 10 am, almost unnaturally early for me, James is already there. He leans against the kitchen island, his balaclava shoved up while he sips on a glass of whiskey.
As much as I want to keep myself from staring, I can’t. I saw slivers of his skin and his face in the past four days, but that doesn’t make it less exciting. At least I snap myself out of it before I drool over seeing an inch of skin.
“Interesting choice of breakfast,” I say, looking at the glass in his hand. The air is thick with tension, even more than usual and I have a suspicion why.
He grips his glass so hard that his knuckles turn white, his eyes tired and slightly bloodshot, and I wonder when I started having a thing for men who look like they are on the verge of a mental breakdown.
I walk over to him and have to shove him aside, because he’s obstructing my way to the fridge. I swear he growled when I touched him, like a misbehaving dog.
With a pre-made sandwich on a plate in my hand, I stroll back towards the other end of the kitchen island, climbing on one of the bar stools. I would rather eat on the couch, but it’s easier to watch James from here. He’s still standing there, sipping on his whiskey, unmoving. Not speaking a word, so, like the nice person I am, I try to jumpstart a conversation.
“I’m missing a thong. It’s black, lacy. Did you see it?”
His eyes get wide for a second and this time he’s the one who chokes on his drink. He gets himself back under control way quicker than I expected and stares at me as if he wants to shoot daggers right through my skull. I still look at him all innocently, munching away on my sandwich.
Cheddar and cucumber, my favorite, closely followed by something that requires goat cheese, fig jam, dried tomatoes, and too much time to assemble for a quick breakfast. I should make one of those for James. I’m pretty sure he’d like it. On the other hand, I’ve seen him eating a whole loaf of bread with nothing on top.
“No. But I saw the garbage dump that you call your room. Maybe you’d find your shit if you cleaned up for once,” he says.
“I need to buy new stuff anyway. And since I’m not allowed to go anywhere alone and you’re my bodyguard—”
“No.”
“But you didn’t even let me finish?”
“I don’t need to. You’re not allowed to go out.”
“Please.” I put on the biggest puppy eyes I can manage. I need to go to the mall, not because of a dumb thong, but I can’t tell James the real reason. “Come on, don’t be like that. I didn’t sneak out in the past few days. Don’t you think I deserve a reward?”
“You deserve a hard slap on the back of your head, maybe that would help.”
“You’re not allowed to hit me.”
“Didn’t see anything about not hitting you in the contract.”
I roll my eyes at him, doubting that he’d hit me. I’d like to see him try.
“Please, I’d do anything.”
“Anything?” My ears perk up. Somehow, I expect something dirty as I nod.
“You’ll clean up. Your room, and the rest of the house, especially the kitchen.” Not the dirty request I expected. He points at the plates in the sink and I glare at him with a sour expression.
“And you’ll wash and fold my laundry for the next two weeks.”
“One week.”
“Two.”
“Fine,” I groan as I put my plate on top of the others in the sink. James just shakes his head as I excuse myself and rush upstairs to get dressed before he changes his mind again.
“If you’re not down here in 30 seconds, you can forget your little trip,” he yells as I put on my pants. I almost trip on the stairs as I run down while pulling my sweater over my head.
James grabs his jacket while I look through the car keys on the sideboards in the hallway. Taking the car is usually reserved for important things, like a doctor”s visit or if my father wants me to appear somewhere, not for trips to the mall.
He’s already halfway to the front door as I clear my throat.
“The mask…”
“What about it?”
“Do you have to wear it? People are going to think you want to rob the mall.”
He takes a deep breath before he stomps back upstairs to his room. Only a minute later, he comes back down; the balaclava switched for a black surgical mask, and I can’t hide my surprise.
“You have hair.”
“One more word and we’ll stay here.”
I raise my hands in defeat as I follow him out to the driveway, still staring at his slightly messy, dark brown hair.
The headlights of the black S-Class flash as I unlock the car, and I contemplate asking James if I can drive, but he yanks the keys out of my hand.
I have my license and I would call myself an excellent driver, but I also enjoy being the passenger princess. Dom taught me how to drive when we moved here. I’m pretty sure that even a kid could drive the S-Class without trouble.
I’m not so sure about that anymore as James leaves the driveway. We’re just out of the gate and I hold on to the grab bar as if my life depends on it.
“You know how to drive a car, right?”
“What kind of dumb question is that?” He slams his fist on the steering wheel, honking as the driver he just cut off while turning lanes gives him the finger. He either won his driving license or intimidated his driving instructor so much that he handed it to him with sweaty fingers.
It’s almost impressive to drive this car so horribly because it has all the driving assistance one could think of. It could drive on his own and yet here I am, feeling like I’m part of an illegal car race where the driver wears a blindfold. And steers with his feet.
“That traffic light was red.”
“I didn’t see a traffic light,” he says, and I keep myself from pressing the matter further. It’s probably better not to distract him even more because it seems like he needs every bit of focus not to kill the both of us in this car.
Thankfully, the mall isn’t far away from my house and soon, James turns into the parking lot. He brings the car to a halt, using at least two designated parking spaces, but again, I decide to keep my mouth shut.
It’s the middle of the week, there’s more than enough space here and I have a feeling that I should be thankful that we made it here with no casualties. Maybe he will let me drive us home later.
He gets out of the car and usually, the men in my life, no matter how big of an asshole they are, open the door for me, but this is James. It’s a success that he even agreed to go out with me. Even though I know for a fact that he wouldn’t have agreed to this if he knew half of the things I want to do today.
“James?”
“What now?” he groans as we walk towards the entrance.
“You’ll help me pick some clothes out, right?”
He shakes his head again, huffing in annoyance while I have a hard time keeping my excitement at bay. It’s the first time that I’m out of the house this month and the first time in a long while that I’m at the mall and not just at the park. Maybe that’s the reason for the strange feeling in my stomach.
I walk through the mall with a plan, saving a certain store for last. At the fourth store, James finally stopped rushing me and retreated back to carrying my bags and glaring at me from time to time.
It also doesn’t escape me how he yanks his hand away whenever it grazes mine. As if he’s afraid I want to hold it or something.
“Can you wait here for a second?” I ask as we walk past a small jewelry store. “I ordered something, I just need to pick it up.”
The store is tiny and the thought of being cramped in there with me must be enough for him to agree to wait outside. It’s not like I don’t enjoy feeling him pressed against me, but I don’t want James to see what I bought.
At least not yet.
“Hey, Rich,” I greet the older gentleman behind the counter. He’s my trusted jeweler, but he’s also so much more than that. A few years ago, he had his own store in the city. It had been in the hands of his family for the past seventy years, but then this mall opened up.
When Richard sold his store and rented out a smaller one in the mall, he told me he wanted to size down either way. He said his old store was too big, too much of a hassle to take care of for an old man like him.
I still feel bad about it whenever I visit him, even though it was my father who bribed the mayor to build the mall, not me. I even tried to keep him from doing it, but he didn’t listen to my arguments. Better logistics and more potential money were more important. His, his, his, because to him, it doesn’t matter that he ruins other people”s lives with his decisions.
“Ruby, sweetheart, it’s wonderful to see you again,” Richard says, his tone as warm and friendly as ever. Back when he still had his store in the city, and things were still at least okay at home, I often stuck around for hours. In the beginning, it was mostly for him to show me his newest pieces, but soon, Richard himself was the reason I put up with driving to town at least once a week.
He’s like the father, or more like the grandfather, I never had. Maybe I have a grandfather I don’t know of, somewhere. But I know that I have Richard.
He is always there to listen, to give good advice for whatever problem I am having, or just to keep me company when I can’t stand being around my father any longer.
“Wait here for a second, I’ll get your bracelets from the back,” he says before he turns to walk into the small storage room that doubles as his workshop in the back of the store. “I got so excited when you called me yesterday, I haven’t heard your voice for so long.”
He sounds somber, and it breaks my heart. To see him in this tiny store, to know that I probably hurt him by not staying in contact. He deserves better.
I start to feel tears well up in my eyes and try to distract myself because this isn’t the right moment to get all sappy. So I turn to look at James, which immediately causes me to smile.
He looks like the human version of a tank, holding my shopping bags in his hands while he stares off into space. No one dares to walk past him, not surprisingly, because even without his ski mask, he doesn’t look like someone you would want to start a fight with. With a chuckle, I catch myself thinking that he would make a wonderful husband.
“Who’s the gentleman that’s waiting for you? New boyfriend? What happened to Brian?” Richards asks with a huge smile on his face as he comes back from the storage room.
“Let’s not talk about Brian,” I answer with a sigh. Hearing his name is enough to cause me a headache. “And God, no,” I add quickly. “He‘s just my bodyguard.”
“I see,” Richard says with a smile as he pats my hand. As if he knows something I don’t. Carefully, I pick up the delicate bracelets that lie between us on the wooden counter.
His work is immaculate, as always. I’ve seen pieces from jewelers that weren’t seventy-three and their best work was worse than something Richard would produce with a cough on a really shitty day. The engraving on the bracelets is fine and accurate, done with the precision of someone who knows his craft in and out.
“They are perfect.”
The bracelets are almost too pretty, given the fact that I only ordered them to torment James.
“You mind telling me who they are for?” Richard asks, his tone that of a much younger man. As if he has a hard time to keep himself from chuckling.
“It’s a surprise.”
“For your boyfriend? I mean, for your bodyguard,” he corrects himself. “I’m not getting younger, you know, sweetheart.”
I hand him the bracelets again so that he can pack them up for me.
“Yes, for my bodyguard,” I emphasize, fetching one of my credit cards out of my purse in the meantime. I hope Richard doesn’t notice the slight flush on my cheeks, but who am I kidding? Well, I just hope he doesn’t point it out.
Thankfully, he doesn’t and just shakes his head with a laugh as I pay for the bracelets.
“I hope you visit me again soon, Ruby, I really miss having you around.”
It’s not like I don’t miss having his company. It is kind of weird to admit that my inner circle consists of two ducks and a 73-year-old man, but he’s really one of very few, if not the only person, who sincerely cares for me. I hug him, long, because I know I won’t see him again as soon as I’d like to.
At least not until I can leave the house on my own accord again, because I doubt James would like to accompany me to the mall every week. It makes my hatred for my father and his rules, which are nothing more than a thinly veiled punishment, grow even more, and I’m impressed by how he manages to piss me off when he isn’t even around. Probably not even in the same country.
“I’ll try,” I lie with a sad smile as I walk out of the store.
“Darling, you forgot something,” Richard yells after me while I’m already halfway out of the door. He’s holding a small stack of hundred-dollar bills, and I just shrug my shoulders as I hold the door open.
“Must have been someone else.”
He shakes his head in disbelief as I say my goodbyes again and walk out the door.
“Please tell me we”re almost done,” James says as I come out of Richard’s store.
“Mhm, just one more stop.”
I look the other way to keep him from seeing the grin on my face as I walk towards the nearest lingerie store.