Chapter Two

Ruby

Staring into my coffee cup, I tried to put thoughts about Luke Sinclair out of my mind. I had bigger problems to worry about.

But no matter what I thought of, nothing worked. There wasn’t a person in this town I could turn to. The longer I sat there, the more alone I felt.

“Hey, you want a refill,” Luke asked as he held up the coffee pot.

I hadn’t heard him step out of the kitchen. One more thing to add to the Luke Sinclair list, - as quiet as a ninja.

“I guess,” I said as I pushed the cup towards him.

He silently filled my cup, then turned and poured himself one. Once he had put the pot away, he grabbed his cup, leaned back against the station and took a long sip.

Okay, we had one thing in common, we both liked our coffee black. The boy had one redeeming quality after all.

“So, how was your Christmas?” he asked as if my earlier remarks hadn’t ever happened.

“Fine,” I said with a serious shoulder shrug.

He laughed slightly and took another sip.

“I didn’t know you worked here,” I said, proud of myself that I didn’t sound like an idiot. There was no need to ask him about his Christmas, he lived a typical middle-class life. Two loving parents, college on the way, a nice neighborhood, solid friends. I don’t know a lot of things, but I knew his Christmas had been perfect.

Now it was his turn to shrug his shoulders. “Yep, dishwasher, busboy, and janitor. A guy’s dream job. But someday, if I work really hard and keep my nose clean, I might make line cook.”

His sarcastic tone was sort of cute.

I smiled to myself, it sounded like a bit of a let down for one of the Lakeland boys. The four of them ruled at school, the top of the pecking order, yet here he was, cleaning up after other people. Not exactly the heroic role I had always imagined him playing.

Glancing up at him, I caught him looking back at me with a serious frown. As if he was trying to figure something out.

I quickly looked back down at my coffee cup. The last thing I needed was Luke Sinclair knowing about my problems. It was bad enough that we came from opposite sides of different worlds. But he would never have understood my life. Let’s just say, our social structures didn’t intermingle very often.

An awkward silence grew between us, as I desperately tried to figure out what to say. Have I told you that I don’t do awkward silences? Not my thing. Normally, my mouth runs away with itself and decimates awkward silences into oblivion.

But then, at that moment, my mouth had decided to take a break.

Gripping the cup tight enough to make my knuckles go white, I took another sip as I silently wished he would go back into the kitchen and leave me alone.

I took a breath, preparing to tell him exactly that, when a deep rumble from the parking lot made my stomach curl up into a tight knot.

Jake’s truck.

Spinning on the counter stool, I glanced out the big window and cursed under my breath,

“Crap,” I said as I frantically looked for a way out. Not now, not here, especially not in front of Luke Sinclair. My mind raced as I judged the back door and then the front door. Nope, I couldn’t make it in time.

Luke glanced from me to the parking lot then back at me. My heart was racing and I swear I had forgotten how to breathe.

Luke, being Luke, simply pushed himself up off the station and reached over to open one of the bat-wing doors as he nodded for me to get into the kitchen.

My brow narrowed, was he serious?

“Hurry,” he said. “Step to the right, they’ll never see you.”

How did he know?

The slamming of two truck doors dropped my butt into gear as I scurried past him and into the kitchen.

A sharp aroma of dish soap and fried bacon greeted me.

Jimmy the cook, frowned from behind the grill and shot Luke a questioning scowl.

Luke simply shook his head with the international sign for ‘Later’ and closed the swinging door behind me.

I scooted to the right like he suggested, hugging the wall like a long lost friend. How embarrassing, I thought, as an anger began to build inside of me. It was bad enough having scum like Jake in my life. But having Luke Sinclair being aware of the fact that I had scum like Jake in my life made it a dozen times worse.

Swallowing hard, I waited. Luke stood outside the swinging doors, gripping his coffee cup with both hands. Standing there like a presidential guard.

My heart raced so fast I thought for sure it was going to punch its way out of my chest. Please, I pleaded with anyone in this universe who might listen. Make them go away without making a scene.

Of course, no one heard me.

“Where is she,” Jake barked from the middle of the diner.

“Who?” Luke answered with the innocence of a lamb.

“Ruby Miller,” Frank, Jake’s buddy answered. “Purple hair, enough metal to sink a boat and a body made for …”

“You go to school with her, don’t act dumb,” Jake interrupted with an angrily growl.

Luke shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know where she went,” he said as he gave a quick glance towards the back exit.

“Listen jerk…” Frank began.

“Hey, I just work here,” Luke said, as he shrugged his shoulders and again glanced at the back door.

His voice was calm and mellow but I could tell that the hidden volcano inside of him was starting to build. Frank had better be careful or he was going to end up flat on his back.

“Come on,” Jake snapped, as he marched towards the back exit. I caught a brief glimpse of them, two mean men who were bent on a mission.

My heart stopped for a moment when they opened the back door and didn’t immediately leave. But thankfully, finally, someone in the universe answered my request and they both stepped outside, the door slamming behind them.

I slumped against the wall and tried to regain some semblance of control. That had been close. To close. Then I thought of Luke witnessing it all. Suddenly, nothing was more important than getting out of there.

Reaching for the door, I started to pull it toward me when Luke hissed, “Not yet.”

I gulped and snuck back to my corner to wait.

How had I gotten myself into this situation? It was ridiculous.

For several minutes I stood there, back to the kitchen wall, my eyes closed, waiting.

At last, Luke said, “Okay, they’re gone.”

I peeked through the door and out into the parking lot. The big black truck was gone. For the first time, I was able to catch a full breath.

Luke didn’t say a word, he simply grabbed the coffee pot and refilled my cup.

I glanced up at him, expecting that judgmental look I had seen my entire life. The look that said I wasn’t good enough. That I had failed his expectations.

But it wasn’t there. Not an iota of disapproval. Simply a boy pouring me a cup of coffee.

My stomach turned over. For some reason, I was nervous again.

“Hey, Luke, the dishes are piling up, and we’re closing soon,” Jimmy called from the kitchen.

Luke laughed and shook his head as he nodded a farewell and stepped back into the kitchen.

Not a word. No questions. He had to be dying of curiosity. Nope, just a hot head-nod and a soft smile that let me know that things would be fine.

I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

.o0o.

Luke

I pushed the full tray into the dishwasher and slammed the door shut.

Ruby Miller, of all the diners in all the world and she stepped into mine, I thought as I laughed at my ‘Casablanca’ reference, but it seemed sort of apt for the moment.

I had absolutely no idea what was going on, but it must have been bad. I had seen the look in Ruby’s eyes. And that girl didn’t scare easy. What ever it was, this wasn’t going to be fixed easily.

She’d changed so much since the first time I saw her in second grade. Sometime around eighth grade, she stopped being the shy little girl who shoed bumble bees out of the classroom before Mrs. Ring could kill them. In ninth grade biology, she’d gutted that frog like she was a serial killer with a quota.

It was around that time that the ever changing hair color had started. Some of the girls had taken to calling her Tonks until she put the fear of eternal pain and misery into their hearts.

Then came the piercings. First the multiple ear rings, then the nose ring. I had to admit to myself. The girl looked hot despite all that stuff. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t hide the fact that she was earth stopping pretty.

I could only shake my head, Ruby Miller, in trouble. Who would ever have thought it? The girl was a walking advertisement for wild independence.

“Hey, get a move on,” Jimmy said, shaking his head at my daydreaming.

Quickly loading up the next tray, I tried to put her out of my mind. Ruby Miller’s problems were not my problems. Besides, she’d probably bite my head off and spit it out if I even suggested giving her a hand.

Nope, I wasn’t going down that path.

But, something inside of me pushed me to glance out at the counter to check how she was doing.

My heart dropped when I saw the empty counter stool. The girl was gone, like a wisp of smoke in a snow storm. She’d left a five dollar bill tucked under her coffee cup and disappeared.

Great, now I’d never know how she was doing. And knowing Ruby, it probably wasn’t good.

Sighing to myself, I returned to finishing up for the night. Jimmy was in a foul mood. Meagan in a hurry to get out of there, and the place was empty.

“I’m calling it,” Meagan said from the front door as she turned the open sign over to closed.

“Yep,” Jimmy said as he turned off the burners to the grill and deep fryers.

I finished up the last of the dishes and started working on the pots and pans Jimmy started dumping into my sink.

Once he’d finished cleaning up the grill, Jimmy tossed his apron into the hamper pulled the rubber bands that had held his hair back. Shaking it out, he said, “You close up tonight, Meagan’s ready to go, I’ll walk her to her car and see you tomorrow.”

I nodded, this was pretty normal. I was almost done, just needed to mop the front room then I could lock up and head home to finish that project for AP English Lit I needed to get done.

Once I’d put the mop and bucket away, I grabbed my jacket and the last bag of trash and headed out the back.

The cold wind slapped me in the face, sending a cold shiver down my back. January in western Washington. It was either gray, wet, and miserable. Or it was cold, wet and miserable.

Raising the dumpster lid, I got ready to swing up the bag of trash when a quick movement made me jump. It wouldn’t be the first time a rat had scurried past me out there.

But no, it wasn’t a rat. Nope, instead, it was a vision in purple. Ruby Miller standing off to the side, staring at me like she wanted to shove a sword in my belly and spill my guts all over the ground.

“What are you doing here?” I asked. A simple question to most people.

Ruby sneered and shook her head. “I’m having a tea party. What does it look like I am doing?”

Now it was my turn to shake my head. “It looks like you’re freezing your pretty little butt off. But hey, I could be wrong, that was why I asked.”

Ignoring her, I threw the bag of trash into the dumpster and let the lid slam with a loud clang that echoed through the alley.

Still ignoring her, I locked the back door then turned and stared at her.

“Come on,” I said, “You can crash at my place. My parents are out of town and won’t be back until Monday.”

Her eyes grew big and for the first time in my life, I saw Ruby Miller shocked.

She stared at me for a long moment as her eyes slowly narrowed.

“If you think I’m sleeping with you just for a roof over my head, you’re crazy. I could have made that arrangement at home.”

Wow, where did that come from, I thought as I wrestled to get my mind around this girl’s attitude. Girls were hard enough to figure out. But Ruby took it to a whole new level.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said as I pointed to my car. “You’re not my type. Not what I look for in a companion.”

“What, female?” she asked with a sneer.

I could only shake my head.

“No, sweet, with a touch of class,” I said over my shoulder as I unlocked the passenger side door and held it open for her.

She stopped for a moment. I could see the doubt and hesitation dancing behind her eyes. That last comment of mine hadn’t phased her one bit, but the idea of being helped by someone terrified her.

So I waited, letting her come to the realization that she didn’t really have a choice.

At last, a strong gust of northerly wind blew through the parking lot. She shivered one last time before brushing past me and sliding in.

All I could do was shake my head at myself. This was not smart. I knew it on every level. For a guy who prided himself on making smart decisions. This was going to ruin my record, I just knew it.