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FORTY-THREE

ruby

I’m weak. I’d planned to tell Lorenzo the news as soon as I saw him, but when I walked into his apartment, he was just out of the shower, and the way his wet, glossy hair stuck to the back of his neck set off a bone-deep ache for him.

Now we’re on his couch and fresh off orgasms, and now that the timing is the worst possible, it spills out of me.

“I need to tell you something.”

His eyebrows quickly draw together. “It’s never good when you have a preamble.”

“Just listen.”

His face pales as his eyes drop to my belly. “Are you?—”

“No!” Reflexively, I touch my stomach.

“’Cause I swear the last time you said you needed to tell me something ...”

“It’s not that.” Damn it . That’s the last thing I want to be thinking about right now. Me and Lorenzo. A baby. Gee, Universe, rip my fucking heart out right now, why don’t you. I plow forward. “I told my parents I’m taking the job they offered me.”

I brace myself, but Lorenzo looks blank. “Like ... to fuck with them?” He smiles uncertainly, and that makes me irrationally angry—at myself. Because I’m about to hurt him and he has no idea.

I stand and grab my underwear off the floor. “No.” I yank the panties up my hips. “Because I’m taking the job.”

Miraculously, he’s still wearing a smile, though it’s gone sour on his face. “Wait, what?” He lets out a weird little laugh. “What do you mean you’re taking it?”

“I had to get realistic about my future.”

“You’ve been realistic. You were figuring things out. You had a plan coming together, everything.”

“I had a plan, and it wasn’t working out. I need some time to step away and figure out where I’m going.”

“It wasn’t working out?” He blinks. “So you run to your parents and their insulting so-called job? How are you going to let them treat you like that?”

“It’s a real job!” I snatch my clothes from the floor.

“It’s a trap. They want to control you, which is all they’ve ever wanted. Come on, you know this better than I do.”

“Because they’re helping me? That means they want control?”

“When it’s Richard and Catherine? Yes.”

“You don’t know that.”

He stands. “Yes, I do. You’ve been telling it to me since we were little kids.

And what you didn’t tell me, I saw myself.

You’ve done nothing but embarrass your parents by never doing one goddamn thing they expected of you.

And now they get to tell all their fuckhead friends how you’ve grown up and found your place in the family business, and they can put a bow on it.

Then they’re back to having as much power over you as they did when you were ten years old. ”

“My aunt and uncle run the business, not my parents.” I keep my eyes trained on my shorts as I step into them. “And I won’t even be in the same country as them. They’ll have no say over me.”

“Oh, okay, Ruby. Now you’ve convinced me.”

“Hey, I don’t have to convince you of anything. This is my life we’re talking about, not yours.”

He swallows. “And what about ours? Together? The NFL could send me to a lot of different places, but it’s a pretty sure thing they won’t send me to Canada.”

“I don’t know what to say about us.”

His nostrils flare. “What the fuck, Ruby?” His voice is so quiet it’s almost a whisper.

“Look, I’m not saying anything about our future. I’m only saying this is what I’m doing. This job could be good, give me some stability and some room to make mistakes.”

“Yeah, you’ll definitely have room for mistakes, your parents are fucking banking on that.

And when you do, they’ll be sure to remind you how lucky your incompetent ass is to have them taking care of you.

Maybe they’ll pull out that old speech Richard loves about how with an attitude like yours, you’ll never make it in the real world. You think?”

“Maybe I owe them the benefit of the doubt for once.”

His eyes widen with disbelief. “You owe them nothing.” He rakes a hand through his hair in frustration. “Ruby, don’t do this! Don’t get yourself in deeper with people who insult who you are and then call it love. They have no idea what you’re capable of.”

I don’t want to hear this. “Let me make my own choices! Please? Without you in my ear?”

“Fine. You do you. So where does that leave us?”

I look off to the side. “It doesn’t have to change anything,” I say, wishing I believed my own words.

“What a crock of fucking shit. It changes everything. I can’t even get you to tell me you love me, and you’re going to act like we can make long distance work in two different countries?”

“Then what do you suggest?”

“What do I suggest?” He raises his eyebrows, drawing my attention to the scar and reminding me of everything I stand to lose. “I suggest you’re out of your fucking mind to walk away from what we have.”

“I’m not. But if you’re going to put an ultimatum on me, maybe the best thing we can ever be is friends.” I hear myself make this ludicrous suggestion, and I know he’s right—I am out of my mind.

“Bullshit!” he explodes with an angry laugh. “Are you fucking serious? Friends?”

“Lorenzo,” I say, and I know by the way he pauses that he catches the warning in my voice. Please , I think. Don’t finish that dangerous thought.

He searches my face. “You actually think we can do that? You think I can?”

“Well, what are we going to do if we can’t make this work? Never see each other again?”

His eyes dance, then drop to my body, and I remember I’m half naked.

“Yeah, what are we going to do?” He closes the space between us.

“Are we going to sit next to each other on the couch and pretend I haven’t spent hours inside you?

” His voice has dropped so low I can feel it thrum under my skin.

He curls one hand around my waist and pulls me into his body, pressing his hips to mine.

“Pretend I haven’t listened a hundred times to that cry you make when you come and I haven’t licked your throat, wanting to suck that sound straight out of you and swallow it? ”

My eyes close without my consent. I want him to suck that sound out of me right now. “Stop it.” I mean to say it loud and snap myself out of his spell, but it comes out as only a whisper.

His strong hand closes around the back of my neck, fingers snagging unforgivingly in my hair. “Are we never going to touch each other again?” The heady, post-sex smell of exertion wafting off his body threatens to pull me under.

I could shove him away, but I don’t want to. He’s right. I’m so turned on right now, maybe more than I’ve ever been. It’s wild the way the heat of fear and anger burn with the very same heat as desire when his skin is against mine and his breath is in my ear.

“We can try, can’t we?” More words I don’t mean.

His eyes look black as they rest heavy on me. Then he pulls away, and my body goes cold. “I don’t know what to say to you, Ruby. You just turned everything on its head for no fucking reason.”

He bends down to pick his jeans up off the floor, his back to me.

I stare at his tattooed skin stretching over his spine, the way his sculpted muscles re-form themselves into perfect order when he stands up.

I read the number printed under his shoulder blade—his cousin’s jersey number—and imprint the colors and shapes of his tattoos onto my memory, the crow and the skeletons on the moon, the sinking ship that I know he regrets.

It probably won’t be the last time I see them, but when I do, what if they’re not mine to touch?

“But are we okay?” I ask, feeling like a fool.

He stands there in nothing but his thin boxer briefs, and awareness hits me: I have all of him.

His lips, his body, the sweet words he whispers in my ear, and that voice he uses to whisper it—the one I never heard until I told him what was in my heart.

All the things other girls got from him that I didn’t, all the things he never gave to any girl but me.

All the things I longed for, they’re mine.

And now I’m giving them up. I stare at him, entranced, and there’s only this moment, and all I know is what I see before me.

And I can’t for the life of me remember why I’m doing this to myself.

“I don’t know what we are, Ruby.”