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Chapter One

Ruby

Despite the fact that worst-case-scenario thinking was my default state of mind, I never could have guessed that my friend’s gift of a monster sex toy would kick off the most dramatic series of relationship events I’d ever experienced.

It wasn’t the sex toy, per se. How could it be? Not that it wasn’t dramatic, of course. That thing had more bells and whistles than most of the electronics in my possession.

It was more what it represented.

Because the first thing I felt when I laid eyes on it—buried underneath tasteful wrapping paper and a beautiful shiny bow—was pure, unadulterated terror.

How was anyone supposed to slip under their sheets—mine, in this instance, were high thread count, with a cute little-blue-flower print—spread their legs for a giant rotating, vibrating thing with appendages, and feel even the slightest bit relaxed?

In truth, this was a me problem. Lauren was great, as was her gift-giving ability. There was an element of thoughtfulness to this terrifying gift that I wasn’t quite ready to see. It stemmed, of course, from our repeated conversations about my lone sexual experience and how I was seemingly incapable of creating more experiences— better experiences—to wipe that one out.

The longer I went without those more frequent and better experiences, the harder it became to put forth the slightest effort. Now I had the strongest notion that when my gynecologist asked me to spread my legs for my next exam, a stray moth might fly out.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to try. Not really. But letting someone in—to me—was as scary as jumping out of a plane with no parachute.

I know, I know ... control freak was right above worst-case-scenario thinking on my list of personality traits.

The hardest part about being a control freak was admitting it, and it took me until my thirtieth year to be able to do so. And here’s what makes it so hard to admit—when you struggle with control issues, especially as a younger person, most people look at you in such a positive light.

My parents were constantly told things like, Oh, she’s such an old soul.

Ruby never causes any trouble, does she?

You’re so lucky. She’s such a serious little thing. You must never have to worry about her.

But you know what that really meant? It meant I took on about a hundred times more responsibility than I should have at a young age. It meant that I was juggling mental weight that was far too heavy for someone in my age bracket.

Old soul was just another way of saying can’t relax enough to express their emotions .

And as I got older, that positive reinforcement just kept on coming in.

I was responsible. Organized. Motivated. High-achieving.

That list showed up in so many places in my life: In my grades. My extracurricular activities. The complete and utter lack of a social life. While most kids in high school were going to football games and getting asked on dates, experimenting with their sexuality and hooking up with harmlessly inappropriate peers, I was locked away in my room, doing homework and reading and making sure that every single domino was lined up to get all the things I wanted out of life.

Valedictorian? Check.

Student body president? Check.

Debate team, yearbook staff, event planning–committee chair—the list went on and on.

To no one’s surprise, my parents ate all this up. It was the clear benefit of being the only child of two high-achieving people. They were the ones who wanted to keep every test marked with an A, the ones who loved hearing about any project I was working on; who happily encouraged me to take on more responsibility, to volunteer for more committees because it would look great on a college application. Achievements were the way we related most.

Was I doing all the right things at the right time? Check, check, check.

Ours wasn’t a relationship based on deep, emotional talks, but more of a “Look at this bright, shiny thing I’m bringing home!” declaration. They loved those little trophies, real and unseen. And oh, it was how I’d always felt the most loved. The discussions about books and the deeper themes found in the text; the pulling apart of the things we all read, the things they taught in their respective college courses—my mom was a statistics professor, my dad a lit professor, both tenured at Colorado State University in Fort Collins.

Because of that, college wasn’t as heavy on the extracurricular, and instead of living in the dorms to get the messy experience there—I could do without the great social experiment, thank you very much—I chose the safer, much more practical option of commuting. They supported the choice because it was responsible. It was financially smart. It was prudent.

Just what every twenty-year-old girl likes to be called. Prudent.

Believe me, I still got the college experience. The number of hungover frat boys who tried to cheat off my papers in class was truly staggering.

But I was consistent. I always got good grades. There was no stumbling in late at night or tripping into class with bleary eyes and two-day-old mascara. It never bothered me back then because I was admired by my peers, my professors, and my parents.

It wasn’t until later that there was a creeping sense that maybe something wasn’t quite right.

There were always reasons, of course. Valid, believable, sympathetic reasons why I held the reins of my life with an iron grip, keeping every day scheduled and structured in a way that eased my mind. Because it was safe, and I could predict each outcome with surgical precision.

And it was on my thirtieth birthday, when my coworker Lauren surprised me with a present, that I knew I couldn’t avoid the truth any longer. We’d gone out to dinner at her insistence, and after a shared bottle of wine at my house (I never drank in public, because, honestly, someone could spike your drink when you least expected it), she said, “Ruby, I got you the most perfect gift in the world. Something you need desperately.”

“A new planner?” I asked, perking up instantly.

She rolled her eyes. “Thank you for proving my point.”

The box was immaculately wrapped—tiny pink and white flowers on a silver background, tied up with a rose-gold bow—but when I opened it, the thing staring back up at me had my jaw falling open, heat crawling up my neck at an unstoppable rate.

“What is that ?” I gasped.

She laughed, reaching forward to pull it from the box, where it was nestled in brightly colored shreds of paper. It was big. Light blue, with a small arm that hooked out of the front and buttons along the bottom.

“You know what this is,” she said slyly. Then she hit one of those buttons, and it started vibrating. A lot. And the little arm on the front moved.

“That’s supposed to go inside?”

She patted my arm. “Trust me. It’ll do you a world of good, honey.”

My eyes widened, and I snatched it from her grip, dropping it immediately when the feel of it had heat billowing from the surface of my skin. “I am not using that, Lo,” I hissed. “It’s obscene.”

She merely smiled. “It sure is.”

I slammed the top back on the box and shoved it away from me, watching while it slid across the wood floor.

Bzzzzzzz. Bzzzzzzz. Bzzzzzzz.

Now the box was vibrating, and it was moving from the force of those vibrations, the sound echoing through my living room like it was plugged into a massive speaker. I pinched my eyes shut while she laughed.

“Ruby,” she said gently. “Look at me.”

“No.” I buried my face in my hands. Something about the gift made me want to burst into tears. I knew why she was doing it. I knew why she was trying, even if I was not the right audience for that sort of ... apparatus.

Gently, she wrapped a hand around my wrist and pulled. “Take a deep breath, all right? I’ll take it home with me so you never have to see it again.” She sighed. “Probably should’ve started smaller. Maybe a nice little vibrator instead.”

I gave her a look. “You think?”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Would you have used that?”

“No.” My hand fluttered to my chest, my heartbeat hammering away. My eyes slammed shut as I counted the beats to center myself. “I don’t think so.”

Lauren was one of my only friends. Don’t get me wrong, I was friendly with everyone in town. There wasn’t much of a choice with how small our town was, but when I moved to Welling Springs as the new head librarian, she’d basically forced me into being friends with her.

She was funny and irreverent, with a loud laugh and the kind of irrepressible warmth that seeped into every corner of the room when she was around.

And if there was anyone who knew the corners well, it was me. In a group of people, that was often where I found myself—out of sight, where no one would notice me and I could observe from a place of relative safety.

People like Lauren, the ones who did so well as the centerpiece of whatever conversation they were in, fascinated me. A puzzle I didn’t quite understand and could never really figure out. But as a friend, I was grateful for her.

Usually.

Except when she gave me a monster-size penis replica and expected me to be excited about it. If I tried introducing that to my poor lady parts—which had only ever been viewed in detail by my doctor—I was quite sure I’d hear panicked screams coming from the general vicinity of my vagina.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. She never did anything quietly, so I peeled my eyelids open to study her. “I just know you’ve been”—with a tilt of her head, she searched for the right words—“struggling to let people in.”

I’d spent my whole life in white-knuckled control of the things within my power, so it was terrifying to have someone challenge one of the things that wasn’t. It felt like a rush of icy frost racing up the surface of my skin, eclipsing all the heat her gift had generated.

“That’s a very kind way of saying it, Lauren.”

The facial expression she made was half smile, half grimace, because she knew it was true. I didn’t just have walls up—I was wrapped in barbed wire, encased in a ten-foot block of concrete, surrounded by a deep moat teeming with rabid sharks.

And it was lonely.

I didn’t want to be there anymore, but the longer I sat, the scarier all those barriers got. Bigger and bigger in my mind.

Lauren started cautiously. “Sometimes we need to be alone in order to loosen up a little. Maybe that would help you, even if you don’t use that.”

That being the box, still doing pulsing vibrations on my living room floor.

“I don’t know,” I said skeptically. “I don’t even know what I’d be able to think about to distract me from all the ... moving parts.”

God, I sounded pathetic, didn’t I?

What thirty-year-old woman was afraid of a sex toy?

Lauren’s eyes sparkled as she laughed. “What about when you were younger?” she asked. “Did you ever have any harmless crushes or teenage sweethearts?”

My answering laugh was wry, and I rubbed at my forehead. Two faces instantly popped into my head. Two versions of the same face, really.

“There was this family who lived behind us for years.” I twisted my fingers into the fringe of the throw pillow resting against my thigh. “They had twin boys. We didn’t go to the same school, and they were a couple years older than me, but I always climbed this big tree in our backyard and watched them. They were constantly practicing football or soccer or baseball. They were good at everything .”

She smiled. “Did they know you were there?”

“Oh yeah. The younger one, Griffin—or younger by a couple minutes, I guess—he was always teasing me. He’d climb up into the tree and snatch my book away, trying to coax me down. He was such a pest.” I shook my head. “The other one—he was more serious. Never teased me the way his brother did. But when he smiled ...” I laid a hand on my stomach. “I felt it right here.”

“You didn’t feel it when the younger brother smiled?”

“I was too busy being annoyed,” I answered dryly. “But yeah, I felt it watching him too. They were just ... everything I wasn’t. Strong and fast and outgoing, and everyone loved them. We moved away when I was fifteen, so it’s not like anything happened, but sometimes I think about how I felt sitting in that tree, and I get sad that I didn’t just do something about it.”

“You can do something about it now.”

“Can I? I just want ...” My eyes burned, and ruthlessly, I willed the buildup of tears away. That was within my power, within my control. “I’m sick of not knowing what any of it feels like, Lauren. When I’ve tried ...” The way my voice trailed off really pissed me off.

Wary and unsure. Quiet.

It was timid.

Ugh. Screw that. I was so sick of feeling that way.

And yet, despite the tumultuous reaction, I couldn’t stop it, no matter how badly I wanted to.

But her face was soft with sympathy, as was her voice when she spoke. “I know, sweetie.”

The difference in our ages was just shy of a decade, but that nickname, only brought out when she was feeling particularly motherly, tested my ability to hold back those tears.

My dog, Bruiser, wandered down the hallway—after he’d likely slept sprawled on top of my bed—drawn by the noise from the box.

Bzzz. Bzzzzzzz.

His head tilted as he approached, his butt sticking up in the air as he crouched down in a playful pose to inspect the package.

“I swear, if he pulls that out and asks me to play fetch with it ...,” I said in a warning tone.

Lauren reached over to grab the box, deftly pressing a button to stop the vibrating, and I exhaled a short laugh. “Thank you.”

Determination blazed in her eyes. “You need a professional. You need someone who can help you build your confidence and show you that you have the ability to let someone in again.” This time, she was the one who tapped a hand to my chest, but she did it gently. “You have it all right here.”

Maybe it was because I’d been an avid reader my entire life, but trying to get a mental picture of what a word meant helped conceptualize the way it was affecting me—for good or for bad.

What did desire look like?

Was it the flexing muscles of a tanned, strong boy with a big smile and knife-sharp jaw? Was it dancing in a dark corner and not worrying that anyone was watching? Was it kisses that stole your breath and greedy hands tearing at clothes?

And love. What did that look like?

Parents hanging your test on the fridge or hugging you when you got the acceptance letter for your master’s program. Friends giving gifts to help you push past your self-inflicted boundaries. A neighbor bringing soup because she knew you were sick.

I couldn’t picture love in other forms. Not in my own day-to-day.

Control, though ... I could picture that so very clearly as I sat cross-legged on the floor.

A miniature version of myself, held in a tight, giant fist of my own making. No matter how I squirmed or fought to get free, every movement was futile. Like King Kong about to ascend a giant spire with the screaming maiden in his hand.

Except I was the maiden and I was King Kong. Wasn’t that a head trip?

For years and years, I’d slowly increased the strength of the grip on my own life until there was no breathing around it. No ignoring its presence. It was a stifling jail of my own making, and I sat in the cell, key in hand.

I was entering my thirtieth year, and I’d never really let myself live. There were no crazy stories, no good memories that I wanted to play in my mind over and over. And I wanted them. Just a few.

“What do you mean, a professional ?” I asked warily. Bruiser flopped his big body onto the floor next to me, and I smoothed my hand over the sleek muscles on his side, smiling faintly as he turned onto his back and exposed his belly for scratches.

“Think of it like any problem that needs solving,” Lauren said carefully. “When there’s something wrong in our house, we call an expert to fix it, right? I wouldn’t try to update the wiring or put in new plumbing by myself. I’d need someone who knows what they’re doing.”

I sighed, rubbing a hand over my forehead. “I should know better than to drink around you. I feel like I’m going to regret this entire conversation.”

Lauren smacked my thigh with a laugh. “You had one drink, calm down. Plus, you know I’m right.”

I cut her a look, pairing it with a haughty sniff. “I know no such thing. You’ve yet to arrive to your point for me to make that kind of judgment.”

She inched closer, angling her legs toward me. “Everyone who knows you knows that you are funny and smart and beautiful.” When I rolled my eyes, she merely raised an eyebrow like I’d proven something. “But you need help believing those things. You hide, Ruby, and I don’t want to hear a single argument, because you know it’s true. Your confidence took a hit, and I understand why—that guy was a giant fucking douchebag. He was the absolute worst choice for your first, and I hate that for you.”

I kept my eyes down. “He seemed nice enough at first.”

“They always do.” Lauren covered my hand with hers. “But you were never comfortable around him, were you?”

I bit down on my bottom lip and eventually managed a quick shake of my head.

“You need someone who knows how to make you comfortable and understands how to build your confidence.”

“And where, pray tell, will you find such a man among our nonexistent dating pool in town?” The glint in her eye made me nervous. Then again, every idea Lauren had made me a little nervous. “Oh gosh, what?”

She pulled out my laptop and opened a private browser. “I have an idea that you will probably hate at first, but if you fire up that gorgeous logical brain of yours, you’ll see it’s the very best possible solution.”

Her serious tone had me sitting up straighter, eyeing her doubtfully. “Okay.”

Before Lauren started typing, she gave me a quick, searching look. “How badly do you want to do something about this? Because if you’re genuinely content right now, I’ll back off.”

I laughed quietly. “It’s not that easy, Lauren.”

“It is that easy.” Something in her gaze made it impossible for me to look away. “It is, Ruby.”

“How?” I heard myself whisper.

Then her smile spread, something so devious that I probably should’ve ran scared right then just to avoid the knowledge of whatever her brain was plotting. “I need you to trust me.”

“I really, really don’t.”

Lauren grinned, then turned the laptop screen around. Leaning in, I had to squint to read the print. When I did, I looked back at her with wide, horrified eyes.

“You cannot be serious.”

“It’s either this, or I leave you alone with the giant dildo, Ruby. Which is it gonna be?”

For a moment, I actually considered both options, envisioning that giant fist around my own life, squeezing to the point of danger.

Wasn’t I already in danger, though? I’d lived thirty years, sure. But what had I really experienced?

I’d lost the ability to allow myself anything spontaneous in life, because I was afraid of what might happen. It was so easy to imagine standing up in front of a group of people and making my own small admission: Hi, my name is Ruby Tate, and I’m a control freak.

Blowing out a slow breath, I looked at the pink-and-white-wrapped box, then back at Lauren’s face.

“Fine. Tell me what to do next.”