Chapter Nineteen

Six days, twenty two hours and sixteen minutes later...

Jaxon

I can’t help but smile as I hear the car slow down to a crawl behind me, the whirr of the engine cooling absolutely distinct.

She pulls up alongside, window wound down, dark glasses covering what’s left of the bruising, as she chews her lip and looks me up and down.

“Don’t stop on my account”, she says, car crawling alongside me now, matching my pace.

I stop after a while and Ruby stops with me. “Give me a ride?” I ask.

Ruby fakes a second to think. She looks around at the empty seats and then back up at me. Finally she tips her glasses and looks out over the rims and up at me. “I don’t know if I’ve got enough space.”

I look away and then back at her, my smile as wide as ever. “You know you’re cutting it fine”, I say.

Ruby shrugs. “I told you you weren’t going to win me over like that.”

A handful of seconds pass, nothing but my breathing regulating itself again, the chirp of the birds calling at the sway of a breeze rushing through the treetops. “It’s good to see you”, I say.

Ruby smiles. “Get in”, she says. “You might as well show me where you live.”

***

The swelling has eased into bruising which seems to have already worked its way through the initial cycle. There is a cut on her cheek I hadn’t noticed before and darkness under one of her eyes, but apart from that, she looks like a completely different woman. Calm, rested, content.

“Coffee or something stronger?” I ask.

“Coffee”, Ruby says with a smile. “Let’s start with that.”

I go to the kitchen to make it, while Ruby makes herself at home. “So this is where you’ve holed yourself up”, she says. “I never saw you as a country boy.”

“I like the peace and quiet”, I say.

“Don’t get bored?” Ruby asks.

“You get used to it.”

The smell of freshly brewed coffee filters through the house. “Still black?” I ask her.

“Some things don’t change.”

We sit on the sofa together, side by side, turned into each other. “So, how’s it going?” I ask her.

Ruby cradles her coffee, bringing it close to her mouth but not drinking it. She shrugs. “Dad and Jessica are getting on”, she says. “He’s happier than I’ve ever seen him.”

“That’s good”, I say. “And how about you?”

“It’s going to take some time”, she says, “to adjust to everything. I’m fine for now. Dad and I are-”, she pauses, perhaps to change the word, perhaps to prepare herself for saying it, “coping”, she decides upon.

“You look good”, I say. “Less war refugee more MMA.”

Ruby puts down her coffee without taking a sip. “I wanted to apologize”, she says.

“Oh?”

“For being a dick.”

“O-kay.”

“Seriously, Jaxon”, she says. “I’ve been thinking, you know, about us, about what happened, about the last four years and the last week and Jessica.”

“Be straight with me”, I say, my face stern. “It’s the lifestyle, right? You just can’t resist a bad boy.”

Ruby gives me a disapproving look. “I thought you were retired”, she says.

“I am retired”, I say. “You think people who have to work forty hours a week know how to make coffee this good?”

“It is good coffee”, Ruby admits.

“You should try some of my cooking”, I say. “I make a pretty mean curry for one, I could adjust for two of you were interested.”

“You’re unbelievable”, Ruby says. “I think you’ve got even cockier than when we were together.”

I shake my head. “You wait until you try the curry.”

“Anyway”, Ruby says. “I was in the middle of an apology.”

“Go on.”

Ruby takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Jaxon, I shouldn’t have left you without saying goodbye, or at least trying to talk to you about it. I’m sorry that I let my fear about losing you control my actions and result in me losing you for real.”

I’m about to speak but Ruby cuts me off. “Please”, she says, and I let her continue. “I should have told you about Jessica, that was wrong of me and I hope you can find a way to forgive me for losing out on the first four years of her life.”

“The dirty diapers, the sleepless nights, the potty training, the endless screaming”, I say.

“Her first smile, her first word, the day she worked out how to crawl and then the day she spent an entire morning trying to stand up. You’ll never get that back, and I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay”, I tell her, “I forgive you. I’m not really one of these people that hold grudges, I’m just happy I get to see you again, and I can’t tell you how happy I am to know I have a daughter. Sure, I would have loved to have experienced all of those things with both of you, but I understand what you must have been going through, even if I don’t necessarily agree with you.”

Ruby smiles. “Thank you”, she says. “Seriously, Jaxon, thank you for being so understanding. I’m not sure I could do the same if the situation were reversed.”

“What good would it do for me to blame you or hate you, or resent you? You made a choice, which made the last four years the way they were, but you’ve got another chance now to make a different choice now.”

“How did you get so wise?”

“Daytime TV”, I say. “Seriously. Some of these chat shows they put on are really insightful.”

I’m bullshitting and she knows it, but it doesn’t matter.

“I told Jessica”, she says. “You know what she said to me?”

“Go on.”

“She said, ‘does that mean he’s going to come and live with us now?’”

I can’t help but smile. “Clever kid”, I say.

“She’s excited about seeing you again, she asks about you every day.”

“Well, now that you know where I live”, I say.

Ruby sips at her coffee thoughtfully. “I also wanted to say thank you for what you did for Rosa and Emilio.”

“It was the best thing to do with the money”, I say. “We destroyed their house.”

“I destroyed their house”, Ruby points out. “If it wasn’t for me, none of any of this would have happened.”

“You were just doing your job”, I say. “You can’t blame yourself.”

Ruby doesn’t look all that convinced. “We could have died.”

“And thankfully we didn’t”, I say. “We get another chance. Rosa and Emilio can rebuild their lives in a brand new house, Jessica gets to grow up in the tranquil safety of the Boston suburbs and you and I get to catch up where we left off.”

I’m trying my luck and she knows it. “And where’s that, hotshot?”

“Did I tell you how comfortable the new bed I’ve got is?”

Ruby laughs “Is that your new line? Now I know why you’re single.”

I can’t help but laugh too. “I knew you’d come and look for me”, I say.

“You did, did you?”

I nod. “Didn’t even doubt it for a minute.”

“You were just waiting for me to turn up?”

“Something like that”, I say.

“What else did you have planned for us?” Ruby asks.

“Nothing serious”, I say. “Just taking it slow, going back to where we left off.”

“And where was that exactly?”

Ruby shifts in her seat, subconsciously opening her body up to me. Already pretty damn high, the sexual tension in here has just gone up another notch.

“I’m not sure if we’ve got enough time for me to show you”, I say.

“Try me”, Ruby says confidently.

I shift along the sofa towards her. I dance my hand along her arm to the nape of her neck and pull her slowly towards me, my lips gunning for hers. Ruby feels relaxed to my touch, supple and compliant. She lets herself be moved, content to have me in control. With a whisper between our lips, our bodies so close I can taste her, I want to do nothing but steal that kiss I’ve been waiting what feels like an eternity for. Instead I say, “Ten”, and pull away from her.

Ruby cocks her head like an inquisitive dog and chews her lip. I slide away from the sofa. “Nine”, I say.

Now Ruby’s shaking her head. I take off my T-shirt, drape it over my shoulder and turn my back. “Eight.”

“I’ll get in the car”, she says.

She won’t and both of us know it. “Seven”, I say, already at the foot of the stairs.

“I’m not going to follow you.”

I can hear the attempt at defiance in her voice, the inability to hide desire. There’s only one reason she’s driven over here, only one reason I’m going to make her beg me for it.

“Six”, I say, half way up the stairs now.

I hear Ruby peel herself off the sofa and come to watch me ascend. “This isn’t going to work.”

“Five”, I say, and disappear around the corner. “Four.”

I’m lying on the bed when Ruby makes her way up the stairs and stands in the door frame watching me.

“Three”, I say.

“What happens if you get to zero and I’m not in there with you?”

“Two”, I say.

Ruby laughs. She looks away and then back again as though searching for advice from a divine source.

“One”, I say challengingly.

“You’re an asshole”, Ruby says, kicking her shoes off. “An absolute asshole.”

I shrug, my mouth wrapped around the word.

“Don’t say it”, Ruby says, her hand in the air, her jeans already unbuttoned enough I can see the color of her panties. “I admit it.”

“Go on”, I say.

Ruby shakes her head. “You better make this worth it, four years is a long time to catch up on.”

She slips out of her jeans and crawls onto the bed, even sexier than I remember her. “That depends on how long you’ve got”, I say, pulling her towards me.

“Zero”, Ruby says, straddling me and locking my hands into the mattress. She leans forward and steals that kiss, her lips moist with desire. After nowhere near enough time, she pulls away, her pupils dilating quickly, my heart skipping a beat.

“I hope no one’s expecting you”, I say, fighting to pull her back into me.

Ruby giggles as she holds me off. “Why, are you going to show me what I’ve been missing out on?”

“I’m going to show you what the rest of your life is going to be like”, I say, finally wrestling my way out from under her and turning her over against the bed.

Ruby holds her knees up playfully, pressing them into my chest. After a while she relaxes and lets me fold myself inside her. I practically rip her T-shirt off, to line her belly with kisses.

“You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to do this for”, I say.

“Four years”, Ruby says, “Eleven months, twelve days, fourteen hours, six minutes and twenty nine seconds, give or take. Not that I’ve been counting.”

I smile and kiss along the line of her panties, desperate to pull them off her. Four years, eleven months ago was when she left. I’m just about to slip my fingers inside the fabric when Ruby stops me. “You”, she says, her breathing already heavy. “There.” She points to the end of the bed. “I want to see you strip for me. I want to enjoy every single moment of you.”

“Okay”, I say, drawing away from her slowly. “But promise me one thing first.”

“Shoot”, Ruby says.

“When this is over, whatever this is, a catch-up, a reunion, a replay, or the start of something special, promise me that if you want to run away, or you never want it to happen again, that you tell me first. I may be big and strong on the outside, but this is a big fucking deal for me, and I want you to bear that in mind before we go into this.”

Ruby chews her lip and takes me in, her eyes roaming all over my body. “You’re cute when you’re vulnerable”, she says. “Almost as cute as when you’re pretending not to be.”

“Is that a yes?” I ask.

“Yes”, Ruby says. “Now take off those clothes and show me your body properly, I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed it.”