Page 81 of Nash
"I was waiting."
The words land. Her face shifts. She looks down at her mug, and when she looks up again her eyes are bright.
"How old are you?" she asks.
"Thirty-two."
"I'm twenty-two."
"I know."
"That's ten years, Nash."
"I know how math works, Ruby."
"I'm just saying. You have a decade of experience on me. That's a lot of..." She waves her hand. "That's a lot."
"Does it bother you?"
"It doesn't bother me. It makes me nervous."
"Why?"
She sets her mug down. Pulls her knees up, wrapping her arms around them, making herself small in the way Ruby rarely makes herself small.
"I've been with one person," she says. "One. My on-again off-again boyfriend in high school. And it was fine. It was very fine. It was aggressively mediocre. He was sweet, and we fumbled through it. Then we broke up, got back together, and broke up again. Eventually I went to college but he didn't, and that was that."
"The guy from the prom picture."
Her eyes snap to mine. "You remember the prom picture?"
"Your mom showed it to me at the cookout. Green dress. His hand on your waist. He looked terrified."
"He WAS terrified. My dad cleaned his shotgun at the kitchen table while Tyler waited in the living room. My mom had to physically remove the gun. Tyler almost didn't come inside." She laughs, then goes quiet. "But that's it. That's my whole history. One fumbling high school boyfriend who was scared of my father and had no idea what he was doing." She looks at me. "Then there's you."
"Then there's me."
"You who has a membership at a sex club, a decade of experience, and the ability to make me come so hard I can't feel my legs." She's blushing. Deeply. "The gap is significant, Nash."
I reach over and take her hand. Pull it into my lap. Her fingers curl around mine.
"The gap doesn't matter."
"Easy for you to say. You're on the side with all the experience."
"Ruby." I wait until she looks at me. "What happened upstairs was the best sex I've ever had. And it wasn't because of technique or experience. It was because it was you."
She stares at me. Her mouth opens, and I watch her reaching for something clever, something sharp. Something that will turn the moment sideways before it can land.
"Don't," I say.
Her mouth closes. She swallows hard.
"You mean that," she says.
"I mean that."
I lean forward and press my mouth to hers. Soft. Slow. Her hand comes up to my jaw, holding me there, and when I pull back her eyes are wet. She leans into me, her head finding my shoulder, her hand still in mine. We sit there while the morning light shifts across the floor.
