Page 59 of Holding You
I pick up Susie and take her down the stairs, then I return to help Ruby clean up their spa day.
Max has gone to bed as well, and Ruby is scrubbing something on the chair.
“Everything okay?”
She looks over her shoulder.
“I knocked over Max’s chocolate milk,” she says. The entire seat of the cloth recliner is soaked.
“Looks like you got it,” I tell her as she gathers the cleaning supplies and passes me on her way into the kitchen.
“I think so, too, but you’ll have to sit on the couch.”
“For?” Did we need to add something to the rules?
“A movie.”
“Oh, are we watching one?”
Her eyes go wide. “No, no, I mean, I am, and I thought you came back up because maybe you’d want to watch something that wasn’t a kid movie, but it’s fine. I mean, you do have a TV downstairs. I shouldn’t have?—”
“A movie sounds good.”
She disposes of the cleaning supplies and returns to the couch where we sit together and agree to watchHappy Gilmore.
About ten minutes into the movie, Ruby finally shifts fromplacing her feet flat on the ground to tucking her bent legs to the side.
I’m suddenly aware of how close she is and how, in a short amount of time, I have become less of an enemy in her eyes.
It’s exactly what I wanted and is in no way a reason for my mind to wonder how I want to touch her right now, even if it’s just shoulder-to-shoulder contact.
I clear my throat.
“Need anything to drink?” I ask her.
“Oh, maybe just water.”
“You got it.”
I make two glasses of ice water and return.
Only this time I sit down closer to her.
So fucking close that our arms touch.
And get this.
She doesn’t even flinch.
Fuck.
Why am I suddenly nervous?
This is Ruby.
I know her.
Happy is doing his thing on the screen and Ruby is cool as a cucumber and I’m not. I’m sitting here trying to talk myself out of hitting on her.
