It did look a little suspiciously shiny, but not really any different than if she’d only sweated in it. Still, she grabbed a handful of rough brown paper towels from a window washing station and wiped the leather clean and dry.
She didn’t dare try to get back on without Sasha there to balance the bike, so Ruby just paced around until her friend emerged from the convenience store with a bottle of red Gatorade in one hand and a Diet Coke in the other. She was smiling, clearly happy with how their ride had gone, and Ruby could only keep blushing furiously under her helmet. To her great relief, however, she found herself able to meet Sasha’s gaze—albeit still guarded by the shelter of her helmet visor.
“Hey, you didn’t have to get off the bike, I told you to stay on there,” Sasha chided as she handed the cold soda over.
“I couldn’t, I was too excited after the ride,” Ruby said. It wasn’t exactly a lie. She tucked the soda under her arm and unbuckled her helmet once her face didn’t feel like a hot tomato anymore.
Sasha beamed. “I’m so happy you enjoyed it. I was surprised when you said to go on the freeway.”
Somehow, Ruby didn’t choke on her first sip of Diet Coke.Enjoyed it? Putting it mildly…“I was feeling brave.”
“I guess so! I’m proud of you, Rubes.” Sasha looked a little bashful, and she was fidgeting with the cap of her Gatorade bottle. “Thank you for coming along with me.”
“I’ll definitely be able to talk about our rides together, it’ll be a nice touch.”If I leave out some details…!
Sasha perked up. “Yeah, it will.” She took a long swig of her Gatorade and recapped it. “You ready?”
“Ready?” Ruby blinked. “Ready for what?”
“I’ve got to take you home, don’t I?” Opening up the cargo box, she put her drink inside and reached for Ruby’s. With suddenly limp fingers, Ruby relinquished the bottle. “Come on, I’ll get on, you hop on behind me. It’ll be even better this time.”
“I bet,” Ruby squeaked, jamming the helmet back onto her head before Sasha could see her face go scarlet. She’d forgotten entirely about getting home! As she waited for Sasha to get back onto the Kawasaki, Ruby rubbed her sweaty palms down along her thighs. Things were already starting to heat up again under her panties as she thought about their journey back down Highway 5…
“Well, I think we have to talk about the last topic. The one we’ve been avoiding,” Sasha said, a week before they were due to fly to New York.
Ruby looked up from her laptop, her face creased in adorable confusion. “Eh?”
She was tucked away in one of the Lounge’s more secluded booths, still working her way through her Highlander romance. Sasha had heard her swearing at someone named Declan every time she’d come over with a snack or drink refill, and she finally decided that it was time she interrupt her friend and force her to take a break.
She’d come armed with a grilled mushroom and onion flatbread—on the Lounge menu as the ‘Fierelli Special’—and a mango passionfruit milkshake heaped with whipped cream and a pile of extra maraschino cherries. Carefully, she placed them on the table and slid into the bench seat opposite Ruby. Then she pushed the laptop lid down and shoved it aside. “We need to talk about…” She paused, and her face got warm. “Our histories.”
“Our… oh.” And at that, Ruby’s cheeks went even redder than Sasha knew her face was going. But why? Though they’d never specifically discussed sex and dating before, Sasha knew that Ruby was no more a vestal virgin than she was herself. And she was a romance writer! What the hell could be making Ruby go redder than the cherries leaking their sugary juice into her milkshake?
Ruby’s answer didn’t provide so much as a kilowatt of enlightenment, at least not at first. She tugged at the collar of her snug white t-shirt and swallowed, her cheeks still a becoming rosy hue as she began to speak. “I don’t have much of a history, even at my age. I mean, I made out with plenty of girls in high school. But when I got to college…” Her blush extended up to her hairline. “Well. Everyone said that was when I should experiment. Find out what I liked…” She trailed off.
Sasha leaned forward and touched Ruby’s hand. “You don’t have to spill all the gory details.”
“I’m not, I mean…” Ruby looked down and shook her head. “Therearen’tany details. I’m not a virgin, you know that. But college is when I found out that I’m just not built for casual sex. I tried, I tried alot. But it was always so awkward and sometimes I’d just get up and leave in the middle of it all.”
“Oh.” Sasha sat back and blinked. “Oh, okay.”
She’d never heard of anyone doing such a thing. Her heart ached for college Ruby. She couldn’t imagine having such a hard time doing the one thing everyone thought college kids were supposed to do. She certainly had.
“I wanted to find the right person.” Ruby took off her glasses and played with them as she spoke. So, I kept trying and trying and trying and…”
“Rubes, stop.” Sasha gently tugged Ruby’s glasses out of her hands and set them aside. Then she wrapped those hands in her own. “I don’t think anyone’s going to ask us about all the nitty gritty bits. Just tell me about the ones you dated that your family is likely to ask me about.”
Ruby inhaled and closed her eyes before letting her deep breath slowly out. “Not many. No one I’ve ever taken home. Um, I think I only talked to Mom about a couple of them. That one Irish gal, Michelle, you remember her from a few summers ago? She was only in LA for a few months to do a music residency here. She liked my books, I liked her music. It ended well.”
Michelle had been a willowy Celtic siren with pale skin and a waist-length tumble of jet-black curls. Sasha did remember her well, remembered how Ruby had been immediately enamored with her the first time she’d unleashed her soulful Irish folk-rock on the Lounge, her guitar and voice like a silver flute weaving a spell that had captured everyone who heard it. How they’d beeninseparable for weeks, heads bent over Ruby’s laptop as they wrote songs together.
Sasha had never hated another human being more in her entire life. And Michelle hadn’t deserved that; she’d always seemed lovely and her talent was undeniable. It was just that she clearly reached Ruby on a level Sasha couldn’t comprehend. What a relief it had been to see her sail back off to Galway.
No need to tell Ruby any of that, though. “I remember Michelle,” she said simply.
Ruby wiped her eye with the heel of her hand. “And then the other one I think I talked to mom and dad about was Antonia.”
Antonia. Now that woman barely deserved to be called a human being, and Sasha didn’t feel even a little bad about despising her. She’d been hired to wait tables at Indigo while she was pursuing a PhD in some kind of weird obscure subject, Oriental Pottery or something. Again, she and Ruby had connected deeply. But Antonia was not the sweet soul Michelle had been. She was a narcissistic emotional vampire who had jerked Ruby around for the better part of a year.