"Comeback tour?" Jaccob asked.
Ruby nodded. It was a scheme she’d come up with on the plane, and she was getting set to move forward with whether or not Hunter made it through this ordeal. Getting the text message saying that the fan favorite Young Dude was likely to make a full recovery already had her planning and scheming. "I’m sure I sound completely heartless," she allowed, taking another sip from her glass. "But I have a lot of people’s livelihoods riding on my ability to keep this company in the black. It’s better for everyone if I don’t get all caught up having feelings about all this and just do my damned job."
Jaccob took a sip from his glass and reached out a hand. "You could have died today, Ruby," he reminded her. "From where I sit, you’re allowed to cope however you see fit."
"Thanks," she offered. "I appreciate that."
"Hey, it’s the truth. And if running your business and staying focused on the things you do best is the way you’re going to get through this, then I’m sure not going to judge you for it."
Ruby smiled at him over her glass. "That’s because you’re a better person than most," she replied.
Jaccob shook his head. "I’m such a great guy that I have serious regrets over saving the President’s life, remember?" he said.
Ruby frowned. "Don’t be too hard on yourself," she said. "I’m sure you’re not the only one who’s disappointed he survived this afternoon’s attacks--the bombers themselves notwithstanding. The man’s got plenty of enemies."
"And now who knows how many are my enemies, too?" he asked, half rhetorically.
"Listen," she consoled. "You did what you do and saved my life and your son’s. Prather just happened to be standing right there. Someday, when the FBI releases the video, we’ll leak the story to any sympathetic media we can find that you weren’t there to save Prather at all. Because I know for a fact there were cameras backstage. I can’t imagine we don’t have footage of the moment you activated those force fields. Everyone will see you’re grabbing hold of Mike and me and you don’t even see that Prather is there. In fact," she added "won’t it be grand if one of the camera men got a shot of Prather diving for the deck like the spineless coward he is? They’ll see him throw himself at the ground behind Stardust and maybe even start to question the man’s whole stance on superheroes. Prather’s been calling out your whole ilk for how many years, but the minute he’s in danger himself, he falls at Stardust’s feet and practically begs to be rescued."
Ruby squeezed Jaccob’s hand and took another sip from her glass. "They can only keep the footage out of the public eye for so long," she assured him. "And if they try to say there’s something vital to national security or some such, then I happen to know a sympathetic judge or two who will grant me an injunction so I can at least view my own footage. I know we had a camera on Prather when he walked out on stage--we probably had half a dozen. Sooner or later we’ll be able to prove you saved his life purely by accident."
Ruby smiled at Jaccob over her glass. The bit about a sympathetic judge was at best a half-truth, but she wasn’t going to go into detail with Jaccob. The fact of the matter was that she’d done a little magic on the man years ago while he was still in private practice, and the effects had remained over the years he’d been climbing the judicial ladder. Having a member of the Circuit Court of Appeals in her thrall had been a nice card to have up her sleeve over the years; it was one she’d rarely had to play, but it was always nice to know it was there.
"But you said on the plane you thought it might never come out?"
"And that remains a possibility, especially now that we have the cover of claiming the FBI won’t release the footage. But if it does come out, I’m telling you, you have a leg to stand on. Any footage we caught will just prove our point that you were in no way trying to help the President."
"I guess that’s what I’ve come to," he said, sounding suddenly the most deflated he’d seemed all day. "I guess this is what I get for refusing to take a side when this all got started."
"It’s not so bad," she said. "You saved a citizen. Because you’re a hero. Nobody’s going to hold the lives you save against you."
Jaccob shook his head and looked back at her over his glass. "I’m not a hero, Ruby," he said softly.
"Well, you sure look like one from over here," she said.
He shook his head more intently. "I’m not," he insisted. "I’m just a nerd in a hero suit. The heroes are my old teammates. They’re banding together again--did you know that? They’re mobilizing against this monster in the White House and his horrifying, xenophobic, wrong-headed agenda. And what did I do? Huh? The man who was once their leader? I went to a goddamn concert on his lawn. I’m not a hero. Maybe the suit’s the hero. But me, I’m just--"
"A good man," Ruby finished his sentence before he had a chance to. "A human man who has questions and who hesitates. A man who keeps those he loves from danger, who’s shown himself to be just as fallible and indecisive as the rest of us. That’s certainly more heroic than most."
Jaccob looked up at her and tried to smile, but the expression didn’t quite manifest.
"And you know it doesn’t matter to me. I could not care less whether you decide to join this big anti-Prather super team, keep fighting crime just the way you always have, or, hell, dismantle the suit and sell it for scrap. That super stuff--the suit included--isn’t the part of you that interests me. In fact," she added, quirking her lip as she made a point to catch his gaze. "I like you just fine wearing nothing at all. If you’d care to come downstairs with me, I can do my best to prove it."
That time, Jaccob’s smile went all the way to his eyes. "I wish I could, but I can’t," he replied. "I have to go; the kids are over. Chuck’s really taking this hard, and Mike’s more shaken than I think I’ve ever seen him."
"Can you blame them?" Ruby finished her scotch and then smiled over at Jaccob. "It’s been a pretty terrible day," she reminded him, as though there were some way he might have forgotten.
"They want me to take them away for a while," he told her, averting his eyes as though he was ashamed of what he’d said. "They asked if we could take the boat out--just weigh anchor in the middle of the ocean and do nothing for a week or two."
Refilling her glass, Ruby said, "Well, this is surely the time of year to do that. The seas should be calm and the weather’s likely to cooperate."
"You don’t mind?" he asked, sounding more than a little surprised.
"Mind?" she repeated. "Why would I mind?"
"Because you were standing right there today," he answered. "Because you could have been killed. And because we’re--" He hesitated a moment before coming out with the word, "together." Jaccob shrugged as he drank the last of the scotch from his glass. "I was worried you’d be upset--that you’d feel like I’m abandoning you when you need me."
Ruby cut him off with a stern shake of her head. "First off," she began, "I’ve never needed anyone and I’m not about to start. So if you’re under any delusions that that’s the basis of this relationship, then I will beg you to reevaluate. Because I like you, a lot. And I like having you around. I want to keep you around. But I was perfectly capable of taking care of myself before we got together, and I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself now. Plus, these are your kids, Jaccob. If anyone ever said you shouldn’t put them first, then that person is an ass. The fact that something horrible happened and the first response from your adult children is to ask you to take them someplace where they can feel safe, well, I can’t imagine a lot of parents have that kind of relationship with their twenty-somethings. It’s damned remarkable, and there’s no way I’d try to stop you from nurturing that."
"You’re sure you’ll be okay?" he asked, setting his glass down on the coffee table and scooting closer to her on the sofa.
Ruby couldn’t tell whether he seemed more relieved or disappointed to hear she didn’t mind him running off with his kids for a week or two. Truly, the idea that she could seem supportive of his
relationship with his kids was a fantastic bonus, but the fact was his timing couldn’t have been better.
She was very nearly ready to undertake the Ritual of the Scrolls. The instructions were that she should begin atop the highest hill, and she figured the five-hundred-fifty or so feet above the city where her helipad lay would more than satisfy that requirement. But there was every chance the ritual would create some sort of spectacle up there--the kind that was sure to draw the attention of the romantically interested, perpetually concerned superhero across the way. Having him in the middle of the ocean with his kids for a week or two would give her just the window she needed to get through the ritual without his being at all the wiser.
"I promise." She put her glass on the end table, turned back to Jaccob then, and smiled. "The fact that your kids want to spend time with you is a good thing. I’ll miss you," she offered, wondering if that would be enough to assuage his apparent disappointment in her assertion that she’d be fine without him. "But I’ll be all right. And if I’m not, then I just have to pull this hinge apart." She shook the diamond bangle around her wrist before moving her hand to stroke his beard.
"And I’ll come running," he replied. "Or flying, as it were."
"Then I’ll be fine," she assured him, leaning in and kissing him sweetly. She didn’t mind his leaving for a week or two. In fact, she was more than a little bit excited by the development. But she knew better than to let him go away without leaving him wanting more.
"You’ll let me hear from you?" he asked, taking her hands in his as he moved to stand.
"You call me," she replied, standing with him and gesturing him toward the terrace door. "Interrupt my work day, please. I’m going to be underneath all this death and pain and whatever for the entire foreseeable future, and I would like nothing more than to have a bright spot every now and again."
Jaccob squeezed her hand and nodded. "I can do that," he agreed.
"Good," she said. "And can you do one more thing for me?"
"Anything," he replied, stopping his progress and pulling her closer.
Ruby grinned wickedly. If he was about to reconsider her earlier invitation to go downstairs to the bedroom, she’d make sure he knew it still stood. "Oh, that would be lovely." But it wasn’t what she was about to ask. "But I thought you said the kids were waiting," she reminded him.
Jaccob made the most adorably pitiful face Ruby had ever seen a grown man wearing as he nodded in reply. "The kids are waiting," he affirmed.
"It’ll be all right," she assured him. "I’ll say very dirty things over the phone if you want me to."
Jaccob flushed a bright shade of pink and Ruby couldn’t help but giggle. The precious naiveté of this man was downright entertaining at times. How anyone could have been married for over twenty years, fathered two children, raised them to adulthood, and yet still blush at the thought of a little phone sex just baffled her.
"What did you want me to do, exactly?"
Ruby’s eyes went wide and her mouth fell slightly agape. This was the closest to double entendre she’d heard out of him, and she had to admit she liked it. "Now, now, Jaccob," she chided playfully. "Don’t start teasing me when you know full and well you’re not going to be able to stay and play."
Jaccob shrugged. "It’s going to be a long two weeks," he sighed, stepping back and moving his hands to her shoulders.
Ruby nodded. "We’ll get through it," she promised. "You’re going to call and make my day every afternoon, remember?"
"That I’ll do," he agreed again. "And I mean it, what was the other thing?"
"Make sure Mike takes his guitar with him," she said, her tone suddenly all business. Ruby knew from experience there was a chance not enough blood was in Jaccob’s brain for his memory to be all it should. Speaking so firmly was a long-trusted tactic to get his frontal lobe engaged so he’d be more likely to remember what she was saying. "He seems the type to work his feelings out in music. And if he’s got something passionate in him, something he needs to get out about what went on today, I want him to be able to do that. I like the idea of him getting away with just his family. I think I’m going to suggest that to all my artists who were there this afternoon. Self-care is critical. And for most musicians, I find that includes the ability to make music out of whatever is ailing them. Let him know that if he has anything ready to share at the end of the trip, then I’ll let him have whatever time in the studio he wants, and I’ll put whichever producer in there with him he feels he works best with, and I’ll give them whatever support they need to get that art out in the world."
Jaccob leaned in and kissed her again. It was a chaste kiss, as chaste as the first one he’d ever given her, but it was sincere. "Thank you," he said softly. "I’ll tell him."
"Have a lovely trip, Jaccob," she said, starting again in the direction of the terrace. "Let me know when you’re heading back toward port. I’ll set up something special for when you get home."
"All right." They walked hand-in-hand to the terrace door where Jaccob stopped and shook his head. "I’m going to leave the StarBoard here," he said, turning to look back at Ruby. "I’ll feel better with you having a way out of here if you need it."
Ruby frowned and shook her head. "Fifty stories up?" It was a conflict they’d had since the burgeoning beginning of their relationship. Jaccob always seemed to think she was in danger, and Ruby had met with variable degrees of success in convincing him she was perfectly safe. "With all the security I had put in when we built the place and all the extra security I let you put in, and the elevators and the stairs and the helipad?" she reminded him of the levels of mundane protection she had access to in the penthouse. If she’d thought he’d take at all kindly to the news that the place also had multiple levels of magical protection, she’d have told him that, too. And, not for the first time, she wished she thought he would.
The deeper she got into the use and the exploration of the Eye of Africa, and the closer she and Jaccob got, the more ardently she wished she could share her magical predilections with him. But she knew how he felt about all things arcane, and the last thing she wanted was to let him in on that part of her life before she was sure she had magic enough within her easy grasp to make him not care so much.
"Please," he implored, "Just keep it where you can get to it. Just to make me feel better?"
Ruby rolled her eyes. She shook her head as she relented, pulling Jaccob by the hand away from the glass-walled terrace and toward the door to the elevator lobby. If he couldn’t fly the StarBoard back to his own building, he’d have to travel the old-fashioned way. "If it will make you feel better to know I have it, then I’ll keep it."
"Good," Jaccob affirmed. "I know you don’t have a lot of practice, but you’ve flown it before and I trust you could get across to my building. If anything comes around with intent to do you harm, then you yank open the switch on your bracelet and get the hell out of here, okay?"
Ruby heaved a patient sigh. Jaccob’s habit of being protective ran the gamut between adorable and annoyingly paternalistic. This was one of the times it was skewing to the latter, but Ruby knew it also wasn’t the time to pick a fight about it. "I can take care of myself," she assured him as they crossed the vestibule into the elevator lobby. "I’ve done it for my whole life and I can do it now." Jaccob opened his mouth to challenge her, but she cut him off before he had the chance. "But in case there’s something new coming my way, in case this afternoon’s attackers now have a target on me or on us, I will keep these tools at the ready. And I promise to call you if anything looks even remotely out of hand. But I doubt it will be necessary. So go. Have a good time. Enjoy your children. Let yourself relax. Call me when you can. And I’ll see you when I get back."
"All right," Jaccob said, pressing the elevator button before leaning in to kiss Ruby again. "And thank you for humoring me."
Ruby laughed. She didn’t mind that he knew what she’d been doing, as long as he didn’t seem too bothered by it. It appeared he d
idn’t mind. "You’re just lucky you’re cute," she said.
It was Jaccob’s turn to laugh. "I’ll call you tomorrow," he said, stepping onto the elevator.
Ruby winked. As the gilt doors began to slide shut, she called, "You’d better." Ruby waited in the elevator lobby until she saw by the indicator light it had reached the ground floor. She’d miss Jaccob while he was away, she was sure--particularly in those hours of the night when she’d begun to count on being able to roll over and find a man in her bed or send a text and have one at her door within moments. But lacking sex for a week or two would be worth it for the magic she would possess once she’d completed the Ritual of the Scrolls.
She’d even be able to tell him about her magic. Once she had the power to bend his will--to convince him her magic was nothing to be feared or bothered by--she’d be able to be honest with him.
Well, maybe not completely honest. There were plenty of things she was sure she wouldn’t be sharing with him no matter how long their relationship lasted nor how powerful her control over him ever became. But it would be nice to be able to be more fully and unapologetically herself around him. She didn’t enjoy having to keep so many secrets and having to censor herself around Jaccob.
She was pretty sure he was in love with her, or at least trending heavily in that direction. And she liked that. And she didn’t like having all of this deception looming between them. She was also pretty sure he’d be hurt and disappointed to learn the depth and the breadth of what she’d been keeping from him, and that just wouldn’t do.
That in and of itself was bizarre. She’d never cared about anybody else’s feelings before. And had it not been for Jaccob’s sweetness and devotion, she’d have probably found it altogether distasteful she cared about his. But there it was. She did care about Jaccob’s feelings, and she didn’t want to hurt him. It was more than just not wanting to damage this thing between them, too. At first, she’d been sure that was what was compelling her to keep her magical past as well as her supernatural ambitions from him. After all, she’d had an agenda where he was concerned and she hadn’t wanted to do anything that might damage that.
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