Page 52 of Spark

KENDRICK

I ’m practically skipping as I exit my car in my driveway and start walking the short distance to my front door.

Maybe I’m reading into it, but when Ruby called me “baby” in those texts, I felt it in my soul.

It felt like a sign—like confirmation she’s going to be open to keeping our relationship going, even after she moves back home.

I swing open my front door, and my stomach instantly growls as the delicious scents hitting me. Home cooking . That’s what it smells like in here. Did Ruby go the extra mile and order some amazing food in time for my arrival?

“What smells so damn good, Ruby Duby?” I bellow. And when I don’t see any sign of her, I call out, “Hey, where are you, baby? I’m hungry for a Ruby Deluxe!”

Ruby emerges slowly from my kitchen, looking shellshocked and pale.

“Hey,” I say, unsettled and confused by her body language. But when I see my journal in her hand, I get it, instantly. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“It was never called ‘Spank,’” Ruby sputters. “It was always called ‘Spark,’ the whole time. ”

Fuck.

“I didn’t go looking for it,” Ruby says, holding up the journal. She comes to a stop in front of me, her face still pale and her eyes wide. “I wanted to make you a special meal. A Martha Stewart recipe. And I needed the blender for the pesto sauce.”

I try to take a deep breath, but my lungs feel like they’ve shrunken down to half their capacity. It’s the moment of truth I’ve been avoiding for weeks now. No, for twelve years. Should I deny “Spark” is about her, or is this the moment to confess every feeling I’ve ever had for her?

“Is it about me?” she squeaks quietly. She’s visibly trembling.

Fragments and phrases flicker across my panicked brain.

Can’t have you.

Gem of a friendship

You want him, not me; before that, my big brother.

I’d torpedo the band for you.

Burn at the stake for you.

Burn the world down for you.

And worst of all, If only my gem of a best friend would love me, too.

I feel dizzy. Trapped. There’s no way out. My words on those pages aren’t hard to interpret. Especially for Ruby, who knows every inch of me. There’s no hiding from the truth now. No minimizing it. The time for total and complete honesty is now here, whether I was ready for it or not.

I exhale. “Yes.”

“You wrote it while Cooper was on tour with me?”

I nod slowly.

“Before you found out Kai was full of shit?”

“In New York. Right after you texted me to come down for birthday drinks.”

Her chest expands sharply. “You saw Cooper and me writing songs together during the tour, and you wanted to murder him?”

I nod slowly, once again.

Ruby swallows hard. We’re both standing stock-still and staring at each other.

“What parts, if any, aren’t the truth?” she whispers. “What’s true and what isn’t, Kendrick?”

Welp, this is it. The point of no return. “It’s all true,” I confess. “Every word.”

The admission hits Ruby like a ton of bricks. Indeed, she clutches her heart and grunts like I’ve shot her with an arrow. The only question is whether it’s hitting her hard in a good way or a run-for-the-hills way.

Ruby takes a step forward. And then, another one. “How long before you wrote ‘Spark’ about me did you start feeling that way, Kendrick?”

As she stops in front of me, mere inches away, I pause an inordinately long amount of time.

I feel like I’m teetering on the bitter edge of a chasm—one that can’t be scaled again, once I take this leap.

But what choice do I have? The truth is the truth.

I love her. Madly. Deeply. Eternally. And I always have.

Either Ruby feels the same way about me by now, or she doesn’t. I guess I’m about to find out.

I exhale in resignation. “The second you sat next to me in chemistry class.”

Ruby’s lips part as her eyes widen.

“That was when I felt the initial spark, anyway,” I clarify.

“After that, it quickly grew into a raging, obsessive forest fire. That’s why I invited you to audition for the band without knowing if you could play ‘Chopsticks.’ Because I wanted to spend time with you, outside of school, so I could try to make you feel the same forest fire as me. Or at least, the same spark.”

“Oh, Kendrick.” With a loud exhale, Ruby throws the journal onto the couch and hurls herself at me, at which point I kiss her furiously, passionately, desperately , until both of us are gasping for air and murmuring all kinds of excited words into each other’s lips.

Still kissing her, I stagger my way into the bedroom.

And when I miraculously reach my bed without tripping, knocking over a lamp, or banging into a wall, I lay Ruby down, rip off her clothes and mine like they’re on fire, and then race over to my nightstand to get myself covered up with record speed.

“It’s okay,” Ruby gasps out, stopping me midway through my task. “I’m on the pill. You don’t need one, if you’re okay with that.”

She doesn’t need to ask me twice.

I crawl onto the bed, my hard cock leading the way, and Ruby cups my cheeks in her palms when I reach her, pulling me in for a deep kiss.

“I love your words,” she whispers into my lips. “They’re the hottest thing I’ve ever read.”

I slide my fingers into her hair as I kiss her. I’ve fantasized about this moment for as long as I can remember. And yet, somehow, it’s even better than any fantasy.

I spread her legs and eat her pussy like a starving man. And soon, she’s writhing and purring with an orgasm that sends pre-cum dripping down my cock like a river.

Panting, I crawl up the length of Ruby’s body, desperate to feel myself inside her without anything between our bodies for the first time.

With my hand on her cheek, and my lips on hers, I sink myself slowly inside her, as deep as I can go, prompting both of us to moan and shudder at the delicious sensation.

“You’d burn down the world for me?” Ruby grits out as I thrust energetically, in and out.

“I’d burn down every world for you, in every galaxy, in every lifetime.”

Ruby moans as my gyrations pick up speed and intensity.

My heart feels like it’s pounding at full capacity for the first time in my life, my nerve endings like they’re teeming with electrical impulses foreign to me before now.

I feel alive. Like my soul is a jigsaw puzzle and it’s found its final, remaining piece. I feel complete.

“Call me baby,” Ruby purrs, sinking her fingernails into my arm.

“ Baby ,” I gasp out, before leaning down to kiss her deeply.

I’m dying to say, “I love you, baby.” But just in case it’s too soon to say that, I kiss every inch of her face and neck, while thrusting with everything I’ve got, letting my body tell her what I’m not brave enough to put into words.

“I’m on fire for you,” I choke out. “I’d burn the world down for you.

I’d do anything for you, baby. Anything at all. ”

With a keening moan, Ruby arches her back and comes underneath me, and I release inside her with my fingers lodged in her hair.

I love you, Ruby Connolly.

I love you, I love you, I love you.

After a moment, my body calms down, and I slide off her and kiss her cheek.

I hand her a tissue box, and as she cleans herself up, I lie on my side next to her, smiling broadly. “I was terrified you’d read those words and reject me.”

Ruby laughs. “So, you let me believe they were for a song called ‘Spank,’ instead?”

I laugh. “You’re the one who said it was called ‘Spank.’ Not me. I just didn’t correct you.”

“That’s not true. You added fuel to that flame. Repeatedly.”

I shrug. “The idea clearly turned you on, so I gave it a little fuel and let you run with it.” I shake my head. “Much to my ever-increasing anxiety.”

“I can only imagine how stressful that must have been, every time I brought it up. ”

“It was fun, too. Sometimes. But mostly stressful.”

She laughs. “Why not just write a song called ‘Spank’ and give it to me? Problem solved.”

“I tried. But you know me. I don’t write lyrics the way you and Savage do. I don’t even know how I wrote ‘Spark,’ in the first place. It came to me in a trance, and, unfortunately, it turned out that trance was a one-off.”

Ruby giggles. “I’d love to read a song called ‘Spank,’ written by you.”

“Yeah, no shit, Ruby. You’ve made that abundantly clear.”

She laughs again. “Sorry.”

“Trust me, anything I might have written to try to satisfy your curiosity would have been a major let-down for you. So, why show you something anti-climactic, you know?”

“Literally.”

“That’s the same joke I made to Savage.”

She rolls her eyes. “You told Savage about all this?”

“I had to tell him. I was going crazy. Plus, I needed his advice about what to do.”

“You needed Savage’s advice?”

“That’s how desperate I was.”

We both laugh.

“So, that’s what all those furtive looks at our songwriting session were all about, huh?”

I nod. “When that motherfucker brought up ‘Spank’ as a song idea, I seriously wanted to murder him.”

“Savage could have written a song called ‘Spank’ for you in fifteen minutes.”

“Yeah, he offered.”

“ Ew . I was joking, Kendrick.”

“Don’t worry, I told him no. I said that would be gross—like him seducing you into my bed.”

She makes a gross-out face. “What’s wrong with that man? ”

I chuckle. “He was only trying to be helpful. I mean, you can’t deny his version of ‘Spank’ would have been smoking hot and extremely effective.”

“Who does he think he is? Cyrano de Bergerac?”

“Who’s that?”

Giggling, Ruby explains it to me, and I have to admit it’s a perfect reference.

“See, that’s why you’re so much better at lyrics than me. I’m a former football player who bangs on his drums for a living. But you know all these obscure literary references and shit.”

Ruby bursts out laughing. “Babe, Cyrano De Bergerac isn’t obscure. Modern movies steal from it all the time.”