Page 22 of Spark

RUBY

W e’re in my room now.

Kendrick’s in bed in his pajamas, with his teeth brushed and his face washed, while I finish up in the bathroom.

In truth, I finished up my nighttime routine a few minutes ago, but I’m stalling, hoping to drag this out long enough to find Kendrick already fast asleep by the time I slide into bed next to him.

It’s not that I don’t want to be in a bed next to an awake Kendrick Cook. It’s that I do. Too much. Thanks to that damned kiss.

It was all for show, when I pulled his lips to mine.

But when he joined in on my performance so convincingly, my body reacted in a way that felt extremely real.

And now, I can’t deny I’m feeling curious.

Tempted to do it again. Except for the fact that I’m not willing to make a move on a drunk man.

Or to get rejected by said drunk man. Or to not get rejected, only to wind up ruining my closest friendship because we’re both regretful in the morning.

Looking at myself in the mirror, I point emphatically at my reflection and mouth “ No, Ruby ,” before shuffling out of the bathroom. When I get into the bedroom, Kendrick’s on his back in bed. One languid, muscular arm is bent and slid under his head. One muscular leg is peeking out of the covers.

“Hey, cutie,” he says with a grin.

“Hey, hot stuff,” I reply. But this time, calling him that feels loaded somehow. Like I’m flirting with him. So, I quickly whisper, “Happy birthday.”

I flip off the overhead light, since the lamp next to Kendrick is on, and slide underneath the covers on my side.

“That was the best birthday party ever,” he says. “Thanks for making it so fun.”

“I didn’t do anything. Savage and Laila planned the whole thing.” Are his eyes flickering from my eyes to my lips, or am I imagining that?

“You were the life of the party, though,” he says. “You got everybody going.”

Okay, Kendrick’s gaze definitely flickered to my lips that time. “I needed to let loose.”

“How are you feeling now?”

“So much better. Drunk, though.”

“Yeah, me, too.” Kendrick drags his teeth over his lips, drawing my gaze.

Would he return my kiss the same way he pretended to do back then, if I leaned in and kissed him now?

Or this time, with no camera pointed at us and no reason to pretend, would he jerk back and say, “I’m sorry, I don’t feel that way about you, Ruby. ” God, that would be mortifying.

“Sorry if I made you leave earlier than you wanted to,” I say softly. We’re both lying on our sides now, face to face.

“I was looking for an excuse to leave, anyway.”

I chuckle. “Liar. You were just getting started. Like Titus said, you didn’t even get to play Birthday Truth or Dare .”

“Like you said, I’m all out of good ideas for dares, anyway.” His Adam’s apple bobs. “But I guess, I mean, if you insist on me getting to play, we could do it now. ”

My heart rate increases. The boy wrote lyrics for a song called “Spank,” and now he wants to play one-on-one Truth or Dare ? Color me intrigued.

“Okay, sure,” I say, trying to sound unbothered and nonchalant.

He licks his lips. “Tell me the truth, Ruby. Am I the guy in Cooper’s song?”

Well, fuck. That’s not what I expected.

Unfortunately, the honest answer to that question is yes.

In fact, I can’t even count the number of times Cooper brought up Kendrick throughout our short relationship, in exactly the same ways he brought up the guy in the song.

Indeed, our final fight was mostly to do with his jealousy about Kendrick.

“Come on, Ruby Duby,” Kendrick coos, cutting the thick silence. “It’s my birthday. You have to answer truthfully.”

I exhale. “I think it’s possible, considering how jealous he’s always been of you.”

“Did he ever tell you why he was so jealous of me, in particular?”

“He couldn’t understand our close friendship.

But I’m not inside Cooper’s head. Who knows what he was thinking?

” I do. I know exactly what Cooper was thinking, because everything he accused me of during our relationship made it into that damned song.

“I certainly never gave him any reason to be jealous of you, if that’s what you’re asking me. ”

Kendrick twists his mouth, but he doesn’t say a word.

Can he sense I’m not telling him the full truth?

But how could I tell him about the time Cooper accused me of having a sex dream about Kendrick, when I genuinely don’t vividly remember the dream myself, so I can’t confidently confirm or deny the accusation?

For all I know, I was moaning “Kendrick” loudly in my sleep because I was dreaming of him giving me a slice of delicious chocolate cake.

Or hell, maybe I wasn’t moaning “Kendrick” at all, like Cooper insisted.

Who knows? I’m certainly not going to take Cooper’s word for it that I did that.

Repeatedly. And I’m not going to pass along Cooper’s possibly baseless accusations to Kendrick.

“What about the other lyrics?” Kendrick asks. “The sex dreams and ‘you said his name twice?’ Do you think those lines are about me, too?”

Jesus. “How many questions do you get in a one-on-one game of Birthday Truth or Dare ?”

“Unlimited.”

“No way. You don’t get unlimited dares when we play. You only get one per player. It should be the same with truth.”

Kendrick smiles. “Dares take more energy to execute, though.”

“I’m too tired for more.” I fake a yawn. “Let’s stop and go to sleep.”

“Just answer that last question.”

“I forget what it was.”

“Do you think the other lines were about me, too? The sex dreams and saying his name twice.”

“I have no idea.” It’s not the truth, but there’s no way I’m going to admit Cooper accused me of everything in his song. “Can I ask you a question, even though it’s not my birthday?”

Kendrick touches my hair. “Ask me anything. I’m an open book.”

I snort. “Says the man who literally snatched away an open book from me.”

I giggle at my own cleverness, and Kendrick cracks up, too.

“That’s actually an amazing segue to my question. What’s ‘Spank’ about?”

“Here we go.”

“I know I can’t read it, but can you tell me the gist?

” He doesn’t respond, so I add, “Just tell me if it’s about spanking the monkey or spanking an ass.

Tell me that, and then I’ll drop it.” I probably shouldn’t be steering this intimate conversation in bed to anything sexual—even a sexual song or poem. But I can’t resist.

Kendrick smiles. “It’s about both. Spanking my monkey while fantasizing about spanking a woman’s ass.”

I gasp. “Kendrick Cook, you naughty boy.”

He grins. “‘Spank’ is all about the primal urge to have dirty, raw sex.”

“It sounds like the perfect starting point for a sequel to ‘Hate Sex High.’”

“They’re not proper lyrics, though.”

“The rest of us could whip them into shape. Seriously, the title alone would make it a hit.”

“How much of it did you read?”

“Just the title and the first line. But just that bit had me frothing at the mouth to read the rest.” I pause to remember the scrawled words on the page. “‘Lying awake, my body staging a coup.’ That’s about your insomnia?”

He nods slowly, his eyes wide.

“What’s the next line?” I whisper.

Kendrick exhales. “Nope.”

“Come on, KC. Please?”

“You said you’d drop it, Ruby.”

“I will. Just tell me this. Were you lying awake, spanking your monkey, and your body was staging a coup because you were so horny? Is that what that line meant?”

He smirks. “What else? I was horny as fuck, jerking myself off and thinking about how much I wanted to fuck someone. Spank someone. Anyone. I mean, that part was honest. But the rest was just a creative writing exercise. No basis in fact whatsoever.”

“I don’t get why you’re so embarrassed to show it to me. Everyone masturbates and gets horny and lonely. And everyone fantasizes about spanking an ass or getting their ass spanked, as the case may be. ”

“I’m not ashamed to jerk off or get horny. I just don’t have any desire to share something I wrote about my hottest sexual fantasies.”

“Oh my gosh. Your hottest . . . ? Kendrick Cook, you have to let me read it.”

“Nope.”

The image of Kendrick making love to that blonde on that couch all those years ago pops into my head again.

My god, Kendrick was going to town on that woman, but with his palm tenderly cupping her cheek.

For years afterwards, that was my hottest sexual fantasy.

Until, of course, I managed to exorcise the image from my head and genuinely accept the fact that Kendrick and I would never be anything but best friends.

The thought jolts me back to reality. The fact that Kendrick has never thought of me as anything but his close friend.

Like a sister. And one fake kiss didn’t change that for him.

I’m the only one who went to visit the other one at their school, unannounced, because I was hoping the weekend might lead to me losing my virginity.

Kendrick never did that. Or even thought about that. Only me.

I reach out and touch his hair. “Okay, I’ll drop it.”

“Thank you.” He yawns, which makes me yawn.

“You’re sleepy?” I whisper.

“Yeah. You?”

I nod. “Try to sleep. Close your eyes, and I’ll stroke your face and hair. That worked last time, before I woke you up screaming about Cooper’s song.”

Kendrick makes a sympathetic face.

“It’s okay. I feel much better about that. Cooper is dead to me now. I don’t give a fuck.”

“Good. Don’t let him ruin anything for you, okay? He’s not worth it.”

I exhale. “Okay.”

“Promise? ”

“Promise.”

“Good girl.”

Shit. Good girl. That was smoking hot.

“Don’t let him win,” Kendrick murmurs, closing his eyes.

“I won’t,” I whisper. “Now, take deep breaths. You’re going to have an amazing, restful sleep.”

Kendrick smiles with his eyes closed. “You know what? I think you might actually be right about that.”