24. Samuel
“What is wrong with you?” I hiss as I grab Ruby’s arm and pull her towards the car with me.
I know Ruby is trouble, but that right there was a first. I’m just glad she doesn’t make a fuss while I drag her to the car. It’s not like I can’t physically overpower her, but I’m still happy when I don’t have to do it.
I should get her a straitjacket after that performance.
She flops down in the passenger seat while I wait in front of her door for a few more seconds, just to make sure that she doesn’t bolt off to make ground beef out of that girl.
I should tell her she doesn’t need to attack people for saying stupid shit about me, but it was kind of sweet. In an absolutely psychotic way.
When I get into the car, she looks at me as if she’s innocence in person, her hands clasped together on her lap. As if she wasn’t close to bashing someone’s head in just a few seconds ago.
The most concerning thing about this entire situation is probably that I found it fucking hot. She’s deranged and it’s rubbing off on me. Through all those years, I withstood Logan”s craziness, but hers must be infectious.
“What a pity that they didn’t have a table,” she says with a smile, cleaning a few glass shards off of her shoe. “Their polpette al sugo are fantastic.”
That’s it. She finally lost it.
“Do they serve them with fava beans and a nice Chianti?”
She hisses at me and I fear I’ve accidentally found my soulmate.
“Speaking of meatballs, did I ever tell you we lived in Italy for a while? My mom—” Her voice suddenly trails off and out of the corner of my eye, I see how her jaw clenches.
“Well, we had a few horses back then. Mine was pitch black, huge, and the nicest horse that ever walked this earth. I was a horrible horseback rider, but he was always so gentle with me. I named him Polpetto, crafted a small sign for his box together with the stable master. Okay, I think it was just some old guy my father paid to look after the horses, but he was really nice. Anyway, my father was furious when he saw the sign. Told me I couldn’t name a prized horse meatball and then he threw away my sign and renamed him to Lord Shithead the Second or something appropriate like that. God forbid letting a six-year-old choose a name for a goddamn horse.”
I don’t dare to interrupt her monologue. Not only because I don’t want to be the next one to end up with a heel right next to his head, but also because it’s calming to listen to her babbling.
Never would I have thought that I’d call her babbling nice someday.
Ruby’s voice carries some kind of hurt when she talks about her childhood and at first, I thought that this was because she’s just overly dramatic, but I think there’s more behind it. Over the time I spent at her house, and haven’t seen a single family picture. And I sincerely doubt that the cause for this is lack of wall space.
Her dad seems to want to erase every trace of having a family, which isn’t that surprising for men in his line of work. Family, or anyone dear to your heart, is an added risk. People you love can, and will, be used against you, sooner or later. Or they turn against you.
Been there, done that.
I’m sure that this isn’t the right moment to ask her uncomfortable questions, so I just nod from time to time and listen to her while I drive back home. After we’re halfway there, Ruby suddenly yells at me to stop the car.
“Wait here for a second,” she says before she slams the car door shut. I don’t have the chance to ask her where she’s going, or to keep her from doing exactly that.
My parking spot isn’t a parking spot and more of an I’m standing in the middle of the road situation, so I decide to wait here instead of going after her. Explaining to Mr. Barron why his car got towed doesn’t seem like a talk I want to have.
As I wait for Ruby to return, I scan my surroundings. This isn’t like the rich neighborhood where Ruby lives. It also doesn’t seem like a dangerous corner of Bogota, but I’m still not happy about her running around alone.
Just when I want to get out of the car to go looking for her, she comes out of a residential house, carrying two large brown paper bags in her hands and a damn beautiful smile on her face.
Doesn’t even look like an almost-killer right now.
“What’s that?” I ask as she climbs back into the passenger seat, but before she answers me, the smell of burgers and fries reaches my nose. So much for our healthy week. But I’ve never been one to turn down a good burger and those smell delicious.
“Dinner,” she says, rummaging through one of the bags.
“Stop—” I protest, but she silences me by holding a fry in front of my face. That little brat is really controlling me through my dick and my stomach.
An intersection comes up and I don’t even have to look at Ruby to know how she’s looking at me.
“There’s a park only ten minutes from here,” she purrs, feeding me more fries. “It’s usually empty, and it’s really nice. There’s even a lake,” she adds, as if I’m a dog that’s going to freak out at the prospect of a lake.
I grip the steering wheel just a bit tighter and this time I know why the people behind us honk as I cross two lanes so I can turn in the direction Ruby wants me to go.
She didn’t lie. It takes us exactly eight minutes to reach the park. As I park the car, I hear a screeching sound. I act as if I hadn’t heard it, silently hoping for Ruby to do the same.
She doesn’t.
“Sam, I could give you driving lessons. I’m a really patient teacher.”
“Shut it, you psycho.”
“I’m not—”
“Yes, you are. Who taught you to fight like that?” I switch the topic to distract her. “Gore videos from the dark web? Maybe I should teach you something, for example, how to de-escalate a situation like a normal person.”
“I think I de-escalated this situation really well.”
“You’re really not seeing the issue?”
“I got my point across, haven’t I?” She gets out of the car, examining the scratched rims with a shake of her head. “But I’ll accept your offer if you’re so sure that you can teach me something.”
I have to admit that she was right. The park is really nice and deserted, not a single person in sight.
“I know you only offer to train me because it’s a good excuse to touch me,” she says with a grin as she interlocks her fingers with mine. I want to pull my hand away, but she used her injured hand, and I didn’t want to risk ripping her stitches open.
“You know what? I revoke that offer right now.”
“If you’re afraid that I’ll annihilate you when we’re sparring, you can just say so.”
“I’m only afraid that you’ll bite. I’m overdue for my tetanus shot.”
She glares at me for a moment before she starts laughing, dragging me towards a bench in front of a small lake. Maybe I’ll get five minutes of silence while she’s eating.
Ducks swim around on the lake and the soft breeze combined with the tall trees makes it pleasantly chilly.
It’s been a horribly hot May so far, and I enjoy not feeling like I’m melting for once. The sun slowly starts setting, reflecting on the water, and a weird feeling spreads in my stomach.
Maybe this non-date is even more dangerous than eating at the restaurant would have been.
“Did you order for an entire football team?” I ask as we get comfortable on the bench and Ruby unpacks our dinner. She pulls out burger after burger and at least four servings of fries.
“I wasn’t sure what you’d like, so I ordered everything they had on the menu,” she replies while I’m already busy devouring the first burger.
Thank God she ordered so much, because those burgers are fucking delicious. We share, not really evenly though, and soon, I ate half of my body weight in fast food.
Absent-mindedly, I search for a few remaining fries in the bag.
“Why are those ducks looking at us?” I ask as I feel two pairs of duck’s eyes boring into me.
“Those are my ducks.”
I look over at Ruby, confusion plastered over my face.
“Not all of them, just these two.” She points at the two that have been stalking me for the past few minutes.
“Technically, they aren’t my ducks. They belong to the city, but emotionally, they are mine.”
As if she invited them by talking about them, they waddle over to us. They eye me cautiously and stay close to Ruby, who starts petting them instantly.
“That’s Harry, and the smaller one right here is Sally.”
Sally, or Harry, rubs their head against Ruby’s leg. I can’t keep them apart, all of them look the same to me.
“They smell,” I say, still unsure if it’s a good idea to pet wild ducks. Or semi-wild ducks, whatever.
“You smell.”
Ruby scoffs while Harry, who is apparently good at sneaking up on people, tries to snap at my finger.
“That’s right, show him who’s boss, Harry,” she says with a laugh, and then she gives Harry a look and he comes trotting back to her.
“And I thought you couldn’t get any weirder,” I mumble. “Fucking pet ducks.”
She just rolls her eyes, snuggling against me as she lays down on the bench, her head resting in my lap while she continues to pet Harry. The other duck slowly walks over to me, softly knocking her head against my hand. I think I prefer Sally over Harry.
“Crazy duck lady,” I whisper as I subtly pet Sally”s head. It feels a bit weird. I’ve never petted a duck before. To be honest, I keep my distance from most wild animals. One idiot that would run after an apex predator to pet it is enough for one task force.
The sun is almost down and I don’t know if it’s the obscene amount of food I had or the fact that I unfortunately like Ruby a bit more than I should, but I can’t stop thinking about how well she would fit into our forced little family.
I have to flick my fingers against her shoulder every now and then, because she moves too much and smashes her head against my stomach. She’s talking about something, I think about one of her TV shows, but I’m not really listening.
My thoughts travel back to how sad she had looked and sounded when she mentioned her mom earlier today, even if it was just for a split second.
It’s unusual for her. Ruby is always bubbly, always a - mostly mischievous - smile on her face, always cracking a joke. And even if she’s upset about something, she doesn’t show it like that.
“What happened to your mom?”
The words slip out of my mouth before I can think about the possible severity of my question. Actions have consequences, words have consequences. I should know this better than anyone else, and still, I just opened this can of worms.
Not a single sound comes from Ruby, and I feel how her body tenses up. Just when I want to apologize—God, what is this woman doing to me, apologizing for asking a simple question—she speaks up.
“She left when I was ten. My father told me she ran away with some other guy, that she started a new family.”
“Did you ever try to find her?”
She nods, turning onto her side, looking off into the distance. “I hired a private investigator two years ago, but he couldn’t find her. I don’t know if he was just incompetent, or if she didn’t want to be found. Can’t blame her, my father is a piece of shit. If I had the chance, I’d disappear too.” She breathes in deeply, petting Harry”s head.
“What about you? Do you have a good relationship with your parents?”
Now I’m the one staring off into the distance. I don’t enjoy talking about my childhood, or about my private life, not to mention that I shouldn’t talk about it with Ruby, of all people.
“My mom died a few days before my eighteenth birthday. And I don’t know my dad. He left us shortly after I was born.” A ton of untreated health issues caused my mom to suffer from a heart attack at just 38. Probably because she worked two jobs to make ends meet while my dad was never in the picture and my older brother spent his time causing her even more trouble.
“I’m sorry,” Ruby says quietly. “I bet your mom was a wonderful person.”
“She was.”
She snuggles closer to me and I’m grateful for her invading my personal space. I should tell Max to find out more about the disappearance of her mom, because something about her father’s running-off explanation seems fishy to me.
Maybe it’s the bit of compassion I feel for her right now because I know how it feels to miss your mom, or the light of the setting sun is playing tricks on my eyes. Because right in this second, Ruby is the most beautiful being I’ve ever seen.
As if I finally got a glimpse of the real Ruby, the one behind the carefully crafted facade of beauty queen smiles and dirty jokes.
Deep down, I wish for her to say something annoying, to ruin whatever I start to see in her, but once again, the Gods have abandoned me. She’s just lying there, quietly, her eyes fixed on the lake, whispering nonsense towards her damned ducks.
My body operates without my command as I stroke over her head for what feels like hours. It’s only when the sun is down and I feel Ruby shivering on my lap that I snap myself out of my food-induced trance, searching the pockets of my pants for a lighter.
The glowing ember of my cigarette looks a bit like the dollar store version of a firefly as it gets dark around us. I let my arm flop down and suddenly Ruby gets a hold of my wrist, pulling my hand over to her head to take a drag from my cigarette.
“Hey,” I grumble, my voice way too soft to be intimidating.
“I paid for dinner. Be nice and share,” she says with a smirk, and I can’t argue with that. Especially not when she’s looking up at me like that.
It seems like she’s done with being sad and I don’t know if I should be happy or concerned about that, but like every time, she decides for me. She climbs into my lap, blowing smoke in my face.
“You’re getting cocky again.” I try hard to speak sternly, but it’s impossible to hide the small smile on my face.
She’s like a snake, always too quick. Slipping right through my fingers, and maybe that’s why I don’t catch her until her lips are pressed against mine.
Or maybe I just didn’t want to catch her in time.
It’s nothing like the kiss in the pool, nothing like what we did at the country club. There’s not the faintest trace of roughness. It’s a sweet, soft kiss, and somehow, that’s way more dangerous.