by Neal, Toby
Sam was my roommate Shellie’s brother, and in the dating misadventures of Ruby Day Michaels, he was, along with Rafe, one of two guys I still cared about. I was single now and not dating anyone, but Sam had reappeared in my life after classes at Cornell let out and had been putting the moves on me all week since.
And meanwhile, I couldn’t stop looking for Rafe, and I’d hoped he’d somehow make it to see my play.
How unrealistic is that? I berated myself. He didn’t even know I was in a play. I hadn’t communicated with him since our breakup after spring break, and even though I still had the gorgeous ruby ring he’d given me stashed in the metal leg of my bed, I hadn’t communicated one word that might cause him to come all this way.
Sailing his ship.
None of that had stopped me from hoping wildly, crazy conflicted fool that I was, that somehow he’d make it to see me before Northeastern shut down for the summer.
I reached the doors of our dorm and waited for Sam to catch up. “Sam, would you mind meeting me at the cast party in half an hour? I need to shower, change, and decompress for a few minutes.”
Sam stood breathing hard. He looked hunky and adorable in the amber security light near the door, his arms piled high with my flowers, six feet of rock-hard football player with a neatly trimmed tawny beard and golden eyes that never failed to move me in some way.
He handed me the flowers.
I could see the disappointment in his face. It felt like kicking a Labrador puppy. But Sam had been crowding me a bit much this week after we’d supposedly set some rules for our relationship—i.e., that we weren’t having one. We were simply spending time as friends when it worked out for either of us.
But the friendship I had with Sam had always been a sexy one, and he was having trouble keeping his hands to himself. Now that my arms were full of flowers, he took my face in his hands and I saw my green eyes reflected in his for just a second before his mouth came down on mine, all hungry, manly deliciousness.
I sighed out a breath into his mouth, leaning into him, the flowers crushing between us and releasing their scent in a heady wave. When he’d thoroughly plundered my mouth, he stepped back.
“Now I’ll go,” he said, and turned to lope off.
That was Sam. Steely will, physical presence, humor and friendship all in one complicated package.
But nowhere near as complicated as Rafe.
Surfer, sailor, drifter. Renaissance man. Someone who knew how to use his hands. And his mouth, too, and everything everywhere in between.
I pushed into the building, deserted tonight with all the parties and half the students gone home already. I clumped wearily up the stairs to the fourth floor, where our dorm suite was, feeling ninety rather than nineteen, the adrenaline buzz worn off.
I’d told myself I wasn’t going to worry about anything until after finals and the play. Then I’d worry about this summer. Though my parents had saved all year to pay my way back to Saint Thomas, I wasn’t at all sure home was where I wanted to go right now.
I didn’t know where I wanted to go.
I pushed open the exit from the stairwell and stopped in my tracks. My jaw dropped at the sight of pure male magnificence on my doorstep. Rafe McCallum was leaning against the battered entry of our dorm room.
Chapter 14
“Rafe!” I cried, and ran forward, dropping the flowers at his feet and flinging myself into his arms, leaping up onto him. He staggered back, laughing, having no choice but to heft me up against him as my legs crossed around his waist and my arms tugged his mouth down to mine in ecstatic greeting.
He shifted me higher, so our crotches were in alignment, and settled his hands over my ass to hold me up, as my arms clung to his neck and I kissed him in a clumsy frenzy.
“I’m happy to see you, too,” he muttered between kisses.
“I thought you might be coming here,” I gasped. “I hoped. From the route the Maid was taking. I told myself I shouldn’t be hoping. I hadn’t done anything but break up with you…But your letters…”
He wrenched his mouth from mine for a second. “They worked?”
“Oh, they worked all right, you pirate.” I felt his hands, those clever, agile, hardworking hands, sliding along my ass crack to hold me up against him, and I loved the dark tension of the slightly painful grip he had on me. “And that jewelry box on my birthday. Oh God.”
We kissed some more, and I thanked whatever impulse had told me to send Sam away. This would have been a very different greeting if I’d met Rafe with Sam in tow.
“Your performance was amazing.” Rafe gazed into my eyes. “You’re so full of passion, Ruby. Everything you do shines with it. You literally light up a room.”
“Oh, you saw it, then.” I felt the blush roar up my chest and across my fair skin to make my cheeks burn. Being a redhead had its downsides, and blushes were one of the many.
“Wouldn’t have missed it.”
“How did you even know?”
“I asked your resident assistant. He knew where you were, that it was your last performance. Can we go inside now?”
“Oh, jeez. I’m sorry.” I dropped my legs, but he didn’t seem in any hurry to let me down, still holding my ass tightly so that I was plastered against him.
“I couldn’t forget how great you felt in my arms, but this is even better than I remembered,” he murmured, and kissed me for a long while. I felt my whole body going soft, pliable and molded to his tall, chiseled frame. My hands stroked through his bronzy hair, even longer than usual and past his shoulders, wandered over the planes of his lightly stubbled face, around the tender curve of his ear.
Finally, he released me. I staggered and we laughed, and I got my key out and unlocked the outer door as Rafe picked up the flowers and followed me in when I unlocked the door of my room.
“Looks like a dorm room.” He peered over the battered flowers at my humble surroundings.
“Looks like a bomb went off in here,” I apologized. “I’ve had a crazy schedule with full-time rehearsal, work, and finals.”
Rafe cleared off the one chair and sat on it. “What were you going to do before I waylaid you in the hall? I’m sure there’s something you should be going to.”
“Yes. A cast party. But I’d rather catch up with you,” I said. “I just need a quick shower first.”
My face flamed again, remembering the last time we’d showered together, and I saw in his unwavering cobalt gaze that he remembered, too.
“I could use a shower as well,” he murmured. “Okay if I join you?”
“Oh God,” I muttered, and it was a prayer. Was I really going to just jump on him, with Sam’s kisses still on my mouth? I was right back in my terrible dilemma about who to be with—and the stakes felt even higher now.
“Much as I’d like that, we’d better not,” I said. “I couldn’t help how I said hi to you, but I’m still technically on a man time-out.”
“So that’s Sam. The big guy with the beard. I saw you together outside the building.”
Rafe knew about Sam, but the last time we’d talked, I’d told him we’d broken up. Unfortunately, it had been a little harder to maintain than I’d anticipated, and if Rafe’d seen us outside the building, he’d seen Sam kiss me.
“Yeah, that’s Sam,” I said miserably. “Can you maybe find something to put the flowers in while I shower? We’ll talk after.”
He just nodded, and I went into the bathroom, locked the door, and leaned on it, shutting my eyes for a long, breathless moment.
“I’m really in the pickle jar now,” I muttered. One of my mom’s sayings. I longed for her with a sudden fierceness, her warm hugs, her strong arms, her certainty about right and wrong. What would Mom do?
“Rafe,” I whispered. Mom had already told me who had her vote. But she’d never been practical like I was. She was a dreamer, and that dream had led her to marry my dad and spend her life as an impoverished missionary in the Virgin Islands.
I was goin
g to do different things and have different things. Like a career, and money, and security. I stripped off my clothes as I thought of how many things I wanted different from what my mother had. Things I could have with Sam but probably not with Rafe.
And Rafe had made things all or nothing by refusing to sleep with me until we were married and by giving me a ring that was totally over-the-top—an antique star ruby that was nearly irresistible.
It actually made me mad now, thinking of it, as I turned on the water of the shower. He shouldn’t be able to hold out on me, tell me what kind of sex we could have and when, and use my lust for him to get me to marry him.
Emotional blackmail. That’s what it was!
On a wave of that anger, I opened the door and stuck my head around it. “Your ring is in the hollow metal leg of my bed. Left side. You can take it out of there and take it with you.”
Rafe hadn’t moved from the chair directly across from the door, and his deep-sea eyes seemed to burn as he stared at me. “Did you know there’s a mirror behind you?”
I turned my head to look. Rafe had a clear view over my shoulder of my bent-over, creamy-white ass, dangling breasts, even the tuft of bright hair between my legs. It looked like some porn-star fantasy pose. No wonder he hadn’t appeared to register what I was saying about the ring while getting such an eyeful.
“Emotional blackmailer!” I exclaimed, and slammed the door and locked it.
I planned to fully explain that comment to Rafe in detail when I got out of the shower.
I washed my hair, fuming, shaved everything that could be shaved, and even blow-dried my hair, thinking sulkily about Rafe waiting outside and hoping to make him half as irritated as I was.
It was totally deflating to find the room empty when I finally came out. The flowers had been trimmed and arranged in a water bottle whose plastic top had been cut off. I wondered how he’d done it—probably with that Buck knife he carried around.
I spotted a note on my cluttered student desk, written with the plume-quilled pen I’d affected in my persona of Juliette, a French-speaking character I’d made up and pretended to be for a while, to help adjust to life in Boston.
Dear Ruby,
I know you have more to say to me on the subject of emotional blackmail, but you need not bother to explain further because I know exactly what you’re referring to.
I’m not ashamed to say I’ll use any means, fair or foul, to bind you to me. And if that means a long, slow seduction, so much the better.
I was hasty with the proposal and the ring, but I didn’t want you to leave San Francisco without knowing how very deeply I feel and how serious I am about making you mine. I found the ring and removed it, but I hope you’ll wear it someday, and someday I’ll tell you why it’s special.
There will be a “First Night,” and a hundred thousand more.
I love you, Ruby, my creamy maid.
—Rafe
“Damn his poetic soul,” I muttered, my hand against my throat, completely undone by the words in his elegant penmanship with the old-fashioned plume. My anger was completely gone, leaving nothing but sweet longing for him. I looked frantically for some way to contact him—a phone number? An address?
Nothing. Just the note.
The towel fell off, and I paid no heed, frantically picking up the bed by its leg to check the hollow leg of the bed—and sure enough, the little black velvet box holding the amazing ruby ring was gone.
He was gone.
I felt devastated. Hollowed out, furious, abandoned, and lustful, too, a volcano of sexual frustration. My body must have thought it was going to get some release soon, because my itch was back, worse than ever and compounded by the lack of outlet.
I wanted to scream and have a tantrum like a two-year-old.
I had no way to contact Rafe. I had to wait for him to contact me. More of his mind games. Now I saw it how Sam had seen it. I was being played by a master with an A game. I’m not ashamed to say I’ll use any means, fair or foul, to bind you to me.
What would drive Rafe wild? Make him share my frustration? Make him as miserable as I was?
If I could find a way to be sexually satisfied without him. I could choose Sam, and not Rafe, and sleep with Sam. But I cared about Sam too much to hurt him by using him that way when I wasn’t at all sure if we should be together.
I hated the situation I was in, and I had no idea how to get out of it, and right this minute I was no closer to knowing who I really wanted. At least I’d shucked off Henry and didn’t have one more complication. I promptly felt ashamed of thinking of poor Henry that way. And now I had a party to go to.
I really was a terrible person.
The buzzing of these unpleasant thoughts preoccupied me as I dressed all in black: black turtleneck, black jeans, black zip-up heeled boots. My freshly washed and blow-dried hair floated around me like an iridescent red cape.
I put the platinum heart Sam had given me at winter break on over the turtleneck. It glowed on its sparkling chain like a starry promise.
Maybe it was too much of a promise. I didn’t want Sam getting the wrong idea.
I took it off and grabbed my purse and my old pea coat and hurried out the door.
* * *
The party was in full swing when I finally arrived. I did hugs and kisses and congratulations with my castmates, and we took photos, and finally Sam spotted me and joined me, looping a hand proprietarily around my waist. I removed it, still talking with the director.
“No, I’m not sure what I’m doing this summer,” I said. “Either staying here in Boston and getting a summer job, or going home to Saint Thomas.”
“I know which one I’d choose,” the director’s wife said. “But if you do decide to stay, I need someone to help me with child care now that the kids are out of school.”
“Thanks for the offer,” I said, smiling. “I’ll let you know.”
“Or you could come to New York and spend the summer with Shellie and me,” Sam said as he tugged me away and bracketed me into a corner. “What took you so long?”
“I had to blow-dry my hair.” I held up a drifting handful of the shiny red tresses. “It takes forever.”
Sam was frowning, but his face softened as he ran a hand though it, thrusting his face into my neck and inhaling. “Mmm. I love that watermelon shampoo you use.”
“It’s cheap.” I was still feeling agitated and not sure what to do with those feelings.
“Shellie said she saw a guy in the lobby at the play that looked a lot like what you said Rafe looks like.”
Now I knew why there was a deep dent between Sam’s brows and his eyes were narrowed.
“Yeah. We said hi.” I was done with lies. “I gave him back his ring.”
“You saw him?” Sam’s voice climbed into a higher register, and he grabbed my shoulders. “He gave you a ring?”
“Let go of me.”
He did.
“I have some unfinished business with him. But don’t forget, I’m not with either of you right now. So stop acting all jealous. It’s a turnoff.” I could feel my mouth compressing into a tight line. “In fact, I’m going to enjoy my cast party with my theater friends. I’d appreciate it if you went to your frat house and tortured some freshmen or something.”
Sam drew back. “You’re being a real bitch right now,” he said in astonishment.
“Yeah, well.” I folded my arms. “Deal with it.”
“I’ll be in touch.” Sam shouldered away through the crowd.
I needed alcohol and lots of it. I headed for the bowl of spiked punch.
My friend Colin, who’d performed as Oliver in the play, helped me back to the dorm on one side and Elise, one of the street vendors, held up my other side. I thought drunkenly, as they poured me into bed, that I’d probably lost my chance to get hired as the drama director’s nanny after my drinking at the party.
And then I had no further thoughts on any subject.
Chapter 15
The next morning came way too soon, and with it, Shellie pounding on the door. After I let her in, she handed me coffee. “Sam says you saw Rafe yesterday.”
“I’m getting sick of the two of you spying on me and passing news back and forth.” I sipped the coffee, feeling surly and bedraggled. “Sam’s getting to be a real pain in my ass.”
“He’d like to be a lot more of a pain, if you get my meaning,” Shellie said, obviously making an effort not to be offended by my grumpy words.
“Like he’d let me forget that for two minutes,” I grumbled. “I am trying to navigate this situation, and it’s not easy, let me tell you.”
“Well, I get it now that I clapped eyes on Rafe. Talk about a long, tall drink of Take Me Now.”
I laughed, then clutched my head. “Yeah. And Sam’s pretty delicious, too—not that I expect you to want to hear that about your brother. So I’m in a real situation here.”
“Well, Sam is sincere in inviting you to New York with us, but I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Shellie said.
I flapped a hand. “I agree. I need to either go home and spend time with my family on Saint Thomas, or find gainful employment.”
“Well, I’m almost done packing. I feel bad just leaving you here with no plan.”
“It’s time I got one,” I said. “Gimme a heads-up when you’re leaving, will you? So I can come say goodbye to you.”
“And Sam, too. He’s coming back with Mom and Dad and me.”
“And Sam. Double good reason for me to get out of bed and brush my teeth.” I hauled my hungover carcass into the bathroom.
I could have used another cup of coffee or four, but at least I was dressed with my hair braided and a little mascara and lip gloss on when Shellie knocked on the door. “We’re heading out.”
“Okay.” I helped carry some of Shellie’s many boxes down to the U-Haul the Williamses had rented to transport her things back to New York. Sam was there, working hard and looking amazing in a skimpy black tank top and basketball shorts, but he barely looked at me and grunted in response to comments from his family.
