Page 2 of Nash
It's been five minutes since I checked the tree line.
She detaches from the group with a bottle in each hand. Her eyes scan the yard until they find my shadow against the wall. She crosses toward me with a stride that can't commit to walking, her boots bouncing off the ground with too much energy for the distance.
I keep my eyes on the tree line.
"You look like you're guarding the wall from existential despair." She stops just inside my space. Ruby smells the way she always does. Vanilla. Coconut. Something warmer underneath, sun-soaked and close.
I look at her. I don't say anything.
"Tough crowd." She holds out a beer.
I take the bottle. Keep my fingers clear of hers.
"Peace offering," she says. "I heard you almost smiled at the cookout last week. Rumor has it, it was at me."
"Wasn't."
"My sources are impeccable." She keeps the last beer for herself and takes a sip, studying me over the rim. Those eyescataloging me the same way I catalog a room. "Mostly Darla. She said you asked about my shift at the shop."
I didn't. Darla's a liar. Ruby knows it and repeated it anyway.
"She's mistaken."
"Uh-huh." Ruby shifts beside me and sets a shoulder against the wall. She mirrors my posture with a loose, restless energy that makes the mirror a joke. Her shoulder is four inches from my arm. I know because I measured it when she settled. "So, Sergeant-at-Arms. What's your verdict?"
"On what?"
"On me." Her grin opens fully. She turns her head just enough to look up at me, and the angle puts the line of her throat in the low sun. "Am I a security risk? Should I be patted down?"
My jaw sets. I let the silence hold for three seconds. Long enough for her grin to flicker. Long enough for her fingers to tighten on the bottle.
"Keep testing me," I say. Low. "See what happens."
Her eyes widen. A fraction. Her lips part, and for half a second she's got nothing. The pulse at the base of her throat jumps once. She breathes in. The grin rebuilds. Crooked at the left corner where it usually sits even.
I exhale through my nose.
"Promises, promises." She takes a sip. "That's actually the security risk. I've got too much personality in one body. Destabilizes the whole damn clubhouse."
"I've noticed."
Her mouth opens. Closes. She takes a sip of beer instead of answering, and her throat works on the swallow. The quiet stretches between us, and Ruby holding quiet is new.
"High praise." The laugh comes, bright and unchained. "I'll take it."
She pushes off the wall. Her shoulder drags across my arm on the way. Deliberately. The contact lasts a full second. Vanilla andwarm skin and the friction of bare shoulder against the sleeve of my shirt. My stomach tightens. I grip the bottle hard enough to hear the glass creak under my hand.
"Don't be a stranger, Nash." She's already moving. "Ghosts are allowed at the party too."
She starts to turn, then stops. Her eyes land on the untouched plate on the wall beside me.
Ruby reaches across and snatches a fry. Pops it into her mouth and holds my eyes while she chews. Slowly. Her red lips curl at the corners. Her tongue catches salt from the edge of her mouth.
I track the movement. My jaw sets until it hurts.
I've let her. Every time.
"You could stop me, you know." She tilts her chin. "Anytime."
