by Vivian Lux
"Listen, you can scoff all you want." I was freezing, but under my jacket collar I was burning up. This chick had some kind of nerve. "You stand here and pretend like you already know what I'm going to say because what? You hung out in my house when you were a kid? You read an article about me in the tabloids? You saw something on the internet that made you hate me?" I rolled my eyes. "Oh, I know. Maybe some asshole blogger made you believe I kick puppies for a living, right?" My shoulders sagged. "Or maybe you listened to Claire one too many times."
Ruby pressed her lips together. When she spoke again, the skepticism had drained out of her voice, which I was grateful for, but it had been replaced by resigned disappointment, which only made me more mad. "She wanted to be part of it, you know. Claire did." She shook her head. "You guys never gave her a chance."
I felt my mouth fall open and closed it with a pop. "You think I didn't fight for that?" I demanded. I was shouting on a street corner like a lunatic. And here I'd been so fucking worried about some errant Twitter user being inside the bar. I was putting on quite a show for any local who wanted a lot of retweets.
Deliberately I lowered my voice. "Listen. Claire's the best singer out of all of us. I know this, but they wanted the King Brothers. We were more marketable to little teeny-boppers that way."
She blinked. "Say that again."
"What? Teeny-boppers?"
"No. That Claire is the best singer out of all of you."
I swallowed. "Well she is."
"You ever tell her that?"
"Plenty of times."
She leaned in closer, just a little bit, but enough for me to inhale the sweet smell of her. She smelled like sugar. "I think she could stand to hear it again," Ruby said. "I think you should tell her."
"What's the point of it now, though?" I wondered. "She's not trying to break into the business any more. Hell, I'll be honest with you. I'm not even sure I'm going to be for very much longer. It feels like I'm getting blacklisted and I don't even understand why."
It was the first time I'd said those words aloud. First time I'd even allowed myself to think them. It felt like I was making some kind of priestly confession on a windswept sweet corner to this dark-eyed girl. I looked down at her, feeling like I'd given her some kind of weapon to use against me. I looked down at her, fully expecting her to use it.
A flicker danced across her face, tiny expressions I could barely catch before they were gone and replaced with another one. She seemed to be having some kind of internal debate with herself. Silence stretched out between us for one breath, then two, while I waited for her to stab me with the knife I'd handed her.
But she was still silent.
Unable to stand it any longer I shifted back from her and looked away. I rolled my eyes. "Well whatever. You asked and I answered. I didn't leave and I'm going to be around a while until I find another manager."
The play of expressions on her face slowed and then settled. The debate was over and she'd made a decision. It was written so clearly across her face I felt like I should be able to read her mind and know what she had decided.
"What are you going to do with yourself?" she suddenly asked, all of the hostility gone from her voice.
"No fucking clue." I glanced at her again. "What do you think I should do? Since you know everything about what I am doing with my life?"
"I'm not in charge of you."
"Well I need a manager," I reminded her. It felt imperative that I be able to joke about this. "What do you do with your time? Teach night classes?"
She blinked at me, amused. "I have a life outside of my job, you know."
There was that brand-new feeling again. Suddenly I was burning up to know all about that life. "Yeah? What do you do?"
Was that a blush? She tossed her head, and I got the feeling she was still getting used to the short haircut and how it didn't fall over her shoulders any more. "Very important things," she deadpanned.
I could feel a smile tugging at the corners of my mouth. "Oh, I don't doubt it."
"Important things that I'm actually very late getting to."
"Oh no, I do apologize," I said, bowing a little. I was starting to enjoy this. "Please enlighten me as to the important activities I have so callously kept you from."
She nodded, looking impressed. "Nice vocabulary!"
"I read a lot on the road. But seriously, where are you headed?"
She licked her lips. "My Stitch and Bitch."
I blinked. "Your what now?
"That's my important activity," she declared loftily. "I knit."
I couldn't hide my laugh. "Knitting? What are you, an old lady?"
She lifted her chin again. "It's something I like and I don't need judgment from a man who actually sang the words 'Party crazy don't be lazy."
This time it was my turn to blush. "Fine," I said. And made a decision of my own. "Then I'll come with you."
She blinked. "What?"
I didn't want this to end. I didn't want to go home. I didn't want to watch her drive away and take all this brand-newness with her. "I need a manager," I said. "You seem to think you know everything about what I have done and what I should be doing, right" I teased, liking the way she ducked her head away from me. I nodded. "So I'll come with you and you tell me what to do, sound good?"
Chapter Ten
Jonah
The Stitch and Bitch, as she called it, was held in a coffee shop that I vaguely remembered as being a bank back when I was a kid. Ruby went to the door and then paused and looked at me with her mittened hand on the handle.
"What?" I asked.
She gave me a half-smile, like she wasn't fully able to commit to a whole one. "You're really coming in? To a knitting circle?"
I shrugged. "Appears that way."
Her voice had this soft quality when she asked, "Why are you doing this again?"
I looked down at her. That feeling was still hovering in the air, an intangible excitement. Ruby was the only thing that had made me feel that way in months. Ruby with her heart shaped face and big dark eyes. Ruby with lips so red they made her name a cliche. She was a hardass but being with her felt like discovering a new country.
"Not sure," I finally said, realizing I was taking way too long to reply to her question. "Maybe I need a new hobby."
Her lopsided, reluctant smile twitched a little. Something passed over her face, making me wonder if I had said the wrong thing. Maybe I should have mentioned how pretty she looked in that bright red hat of hers. "Did you knit that?" I asked, gesturing to the beret on her head.
She nodded.
I leaned in for a closer look. I didn't know shit about knitting, but I could see the care that went into it. It was the same idea as writing a song. No one knows the amount of work that goes in to three minutes of music. "Did it take a long time?"
"About a week."
I pressed my lips together. She was wearing some kind of light scent, maybe her shampoo. It was oddly springlike in this frigid weather. "That's a long time."
"Not really. It's just something to keep my hands busy. When I'm knitting, my mind is a million miles away."
"What do you think about?"
That guarded look returned to her face. "Mostly about how nice it is to be left alone."
I stepped back and grinned. "Point taken."
"Jonah?"
"Yeah Ruby?"
"I'm fucking freezing."
I hadn't noticed. For some reason I was really warm.
I walked into the coffee shop and instinctually started looking for the knitting circle. It was ingrained in me to interact with my fans, and some level of instinct put me on the lookout for the gray and white heads and arthritic hands. The amount of fan mail the King Brothers got from nursing homes was always surprising, and also slightly disturbing. But I was certain that even if Ruby didn't like me, these grandmas sure would.
I was looking for the grandmas. And looking. And looking. Until Ruby tugged on my coat sleeve. "Are you coming?
Did you change your mind or something?"
I looked around, feeling strangely frustrated. "Where are they?"
She gestured to a clump of girls in the far left corner, gathered around a clump of shoved together tables.
Did I say girls? Excuse me. They weren't girls, they were women.
Young women. Hot women.
I looked at Ruby wide-eyed. She was giving me a look that told me everything I needed to know about what an idiot she thought I was. She let her eyes roll slightly before gesturing for me to go ahead. "Sit down. I'll introduce you."
Feeling something very close to stage fright, I went over and pulled up a chair. There were seven Stitch and Bitch members already seated, and they all watched us - watched me - with expressions ranging from eagerness to pity.
I sat down. "Hi ladies."
"Hi Jonah," said a perky blonde with a slight giggle.
"Sorry about your Uncle," said one I'd never met.
"Thanks." I looked at the complicated looking swatch of fabric on her lap. "That looks good."
"You know how to knit?"
"No."
"Then why are you here?"
I glanced at Ruby. "She has the same question. Just looking for something new, I guess."
At that, Ruby glanced up from her knitting bag with that reluctant smile. "Then you'd better get out of Crown Creek. It's always the same thing here."
Yesterday I would have agreed with her. But today that brand-new feeling wouldn't let me go. I mean, I was sitting in a coffee shop surrounded by very hot women who all seemed to want a piece of me, and I had no interest in getting names or numbers.
That was something new for sure.
I settled back to watch, oddly fascinated as Ruby rolled out a very organized looking assortment on knitting needles. "That looks like some kind of homemade ninja assassin kit," I mused, taking in the gleaming, sharp points.
"Oh I didn't tell you? I moonlight as a ninja assassin," she deadpanned, not even looking my way as she hefted a mass of yarn from her bag. "Kindergarten teacher by day, deadly spy by night."
"I believe it." I kind of did.
Suddenly she was moving her hands lightning quick. Perfect little stitches cascaded from her needles as they flashed and clicked. I looked around at the other women. They were all doing the same thing, but only Ruby's project interested me. The way her fingers darted in practiced, controlled motions reminded me of the complicated finger-picking on an intricate guitar solo. "You're a knitting rockstar," I informed her.
She grinned and looked down. "Hardly," she disagreed. "You should see Moira's stuff. She's not here today, but she knits these lace shawls that I swear look like spiderwebs."
"Sounds pretty," I said. It did. I'd never had any interest in knitting before, but I kind of wanted to see these shawls for myself now.
The perky blonde suddenly gasped. "Oh Ruby!" she cried, diving for her own well organized bag. "I forgot! I brought that handspun!"
I looked at Ruby, confused. Apparently, bringing 'handspun' was a good thing, because Ruby practically swooned. "Oh my god, the angora?"
The blonde was nodding as she pulled out a hunk of something that looked like rope made out of clouds. "From Dandelion, yup?"
Ruby took the cloud-rope reverently and set it in her lap. She petted it for a moment and I swear she licked her lips. "What is that?" I asked. I could see it was yarn, but it was wound in loops, with sections of colors bleeding into each other. The effect was like some kind of circular rainbow.
Ruby looked up, still petting her treasure. "Cora's father keeps angora bunnies" she explained to me. "She spins their fur into yarn."
I blinked. "For real?" I looked at perky Cora. "Spin as in like Rumplestiltskin or something? People still do that?"
Cora laughed. "Yes people still do." She turned to Ruby. "You need to wind it into a ball, of course."
Ruby grimaced into her bag. "I forgot my niddy-noddy."
The two of them were speaking a completely foreign language. "Your what now?"
"Helps wind yarn." She glanced at me. "You know how you were looking for something to do?"
I sat up straighter. "Yes?"
"Hold your arms out."
I smiled and reached for her.
She slid the circle of yarn around my wrists. It felt like she'd clapped me into handcuffs. "Now. Hold still."
Chapter Eleven
Ruby
He held still.
There was no reason for me to make him hold the yarn. I could easily have wound it using the back of one of the cafe chairs.
But there was something satisfying about making Jonah King sit perfectly still with his arms out, as I ignored him and wound my precious yarn
Or tried to ignore him, anyway.
It was kind of hard to do. First, because my hand brushed his every time I passed the ever growing ball of angora around it. Second because he was watching me like I was some kind of alien life form. And I supposed I was, to him anyway.
"I bet you never thought you'd grow up to be a yarn holder," I said, suddenly challenging him. I felt this strong need to tear him down. I wanted him down here with me. On my level.
But it seemed like no matter how hard I tugged, he stayed up there, lofty, on his pedestal. Above me. Above Crown Creek. "I always knew that if I worked hard and stuck to my plan, I'd be a yarn holder sooner or later," he said with a disarming grin.
Goddamn that dimple. All the Kings had it. Claire had it, right in the center of her cheek. But while on her face, it made her look cute, on Jonah it looked...
Sexy?
I ducked my head and wound the ball double time. I was winding too tight, straining the fibers, but I didn't care any more. I needed to stop touching Jonah. "Why are you here?" I asked again. He'd almost answered me before, his long pause by the doorway betraying how much thought he'd given to coming here today. This time I was going to find out for real.
Dimple. "To be your yarn holder. Clearly."
"Jonah?"
"Yes?"
"Cut the shit." His face fell for a moment before the mask slid back into place and the dimple showed again. "You have no idea how to cut the shit, do you?" I mocked him.
"They're cleaning out Gid's house today," he blurted.
He looked away, his arm jerking the yarn. "Hey," I said automatically, moving him back into place.
"Sorry," he said.
Then his words hit me, seconds later. Like thunder booming after a faraway lightning strike. "What? They are?" I bleated.
The first thing I felt was panic, a running racing, desperate feeling. I felt like I could sprint right down the road to the King house and snatch the garbage bag out of Izzy's hand. It was too soon, too fucking soon.
"Izzy wants to move out as soon as she can." He blinked and looked back at me. "I guess it's too hard." His gaze caught mine and I knew he was feeling the exact same way I was. Panicked. Restless. Helpless.
I ducked away from his gaze. I didn't want to see all the hurt that showed there. Gid used to go on and on about his favorite nephew, and for the first time I was seeing that the adoration was mutual. Taking a deep breath, I tested my voice to make sure it was steady, "Well - ?" My voice was a lot higher than I meant it to be. "I guess I can see that."
I passed the ball around one last time. Jonah let his arms fall with a sort of resigned sigh. "I mean, yeah. I can too of course. But all of his things. His music. His instruments. They're all going to be gone. What's going to be left of him?"
Something inside of me fluttered with guilt, like a bird caught in a snare. That box was still right there in the center of my living room. That was what was left of him. I wondered if Jonah could hear my heart racing, because I sure could. "Did you look and see what was in there?" I hedged, hoping for one second that Gid had made duplicates. Maybe all my guilt was unnecessary.
He shrugged and looked away, a reddish tinge forming at the top of his cheek. "I couldn't look." He looked back at me in a challenge. "I gues
s I was too chickenshit."
That guilt fluttered again, then turned into a knife that stabbed me just under my ribcage. Right near the heart. "You should be nicer to yourself," I said and maybe I was talking to myself too.
He rolled his eyes. "Oh, like how you're nice to me?"
Another stab and then the fluttering of the trapped, guilty bird. "I'm Claire's friend," I reminded him. "I'm Gid's friend. I was there at the funeral. I helped with the wake. I'd say I've been pretty nice overall."
His eyes darted away from mine. "Yeah, I guess you've done all you should."
Stab. Flutter.
The guilt bubbled up. "Jonah," I started to say before I caught the words and bit them back into my mouth. I'd almost told him, but the anger in his eyes made me stop. Before I was convinced Jonah didn't deserve the box. Now I wasn't convinced that I did. But by the grief in Jonah's eyes, I could only imagine how much it'd hurt him that Gid gave me the box and not him. And I didn't want to hurt him anymore than he was already hurting.
Jonah looked at me like I had two heads. I needed to finish my sentence. Hastily I pulled something from my ass. "You want to learn to knit?" I babbled, holding out my needles. "It is soothing."
"I could use some soothing."
"I mean you play a guitar," I said, talking faster, trying to convince us both. "You obviously have skilled fingers."
He looked at me. The way my words hung in the air, laced with double meaning, made me wonder if I should blush. I certainly felt like I should.
Then he leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. I was acutely aware of the rest of the knitting club watching us, but I couldn't seem to tear myself away from his eyes. He tilted his chin up a little and I inadvertently licked my lips.
He smiled.
And the he kissed me.
I gasped when his lips brushed mine, making my mouth fall open which only made it easier for him to tease the tip of his tongue lightly across my lower lip. Like he was testing my reaction and when I didn't move, he slid his hand up to cup my neck. I shivered under his touch. "Jonah," I breathed.
