Page 25 of Wrong Car, Wright Guy
“Do you think we’ll end up truly hating each other?” she asks after a while, and I raise my brow in question. “Because of what we do. Arguing all the time.”
I bounce my shoulders. “Perhaps. If we can be professional and leave the argument in the studio, it doesn’t have to. We can separate work and personal.”Am I trying to convince myself it’s OK to want her?
She chuckles. “I don’t know about that. You and I seem to fluctuate between intense dislike and—”
The horn from a rundown-looking Ford blares to hurry us up as we step onto the crosswalk.
“The light’s fucking red, you asshole,” she yells out, raising her arms in the air to make her point.
“Hurry the fuck up,” the guy yells back, Brooklyn in his voice.
“Just wait your fucking turn, you impatient piece of shit,” Ruby spits, walking backward now so she can continue across the street while also hurling abuse.
The moment we’re safely on the other side, the light changes and the car burns rubber taking off, the driver honking the horn and holding his middle finger out the window at the same time.
“Dickface!” Ruby screeches, flipping him the bird in return. Then, without missing a beat, she morphs back into the calm façade she exhibited only moments before. “I’m just up here.” I find myself smiling in awe as she tucks her hair behind her ear.
Ruby Casey is nuts, but in the best possible way. Every day I spend around her just seems to get better. She’s completely fearless, always speaks her mind and doesn’t apologize for anything unless she actually means it. While my on-air persona makes peoplethinkthat’s how I am, Ruby actually lives it. I want to be her when I grow up. And sometimes—like right now—I wish I’d never bought my way into WHGC so I was free to pursue her as much as I want to. Free to lick every inch of her and have no regrets doing it.
But that’s just not how my life works.
“This one is me,” she says, sliding her key into a heavy wood and glass door. “You wanna leave me here or keep walking me up? Keep in mind that we don’t have a working elevator.”
“I’ll walk you up,” I say, not even giving the comment a thought. I want to walk behind her up a staircase, stand close to her as she unlocks her door, pretend for a moment that if she invites me inside, we can do something, be something…more.
“OK.”
We say nothing as we climb ten flights of stairs to her apartment, the scent of ashtray, urine and disinfectant making me want to take her away from here and put her in a pretty apartment building with a concierge and a doorman, a maid service and a car that drives her from A to B so I know she’ll always be safe and secure. I hate that she lives in this place.
“Thanks for walking me home,” she says as she takes off my jacket and hands it back to me, leaning against a door I’m assuming is hers. “You didn’t have to, but thanks anyway.”
I step back and shove my hands in my pockets, my feet telling the rest of me that I’m not allowed to enter that apartment. “Can’t have anything happening to the other half of our winning team.”
“Really? I could have sworn it was because you wanted to help me out of my dress. You know, just in case the zip got stuck.” She’s teasing me, testing me.
“You don’t want me to help you out of that dress, Ruby,” I say, my voice a little rougher than normal, even though I’m trying to laugh this off.
“Why? Will you lick me again?” There’s a cheeky glint in her eyes that has me digging my hands deeper into my pockets to hide the tenting.
A low rumble emanates from within my chest as I shake my head back and forth. “I should go.”
“Oh,” she says, like something just dawned on her. “You have a redhead.”
“A what?” I’m confused and wary all at the same time.
“Redhead. Whenever you leave early, it’s because you have a date with a redhead. So this”—she points her finger between us—“is just you joking around with me, right?”
My chest heaves a breath as I nod quickly. “Right.”
A wry smile touches her lips as her spine straightens. “That’s what I thought.” She turns her key in the lock but pauses before pushes it open. “For the record, Tanner.” She spins around to face me again. “I do have feelings. And just because I’m a bigger than your normal girl, doesn’t mean you can tease me and flirt with me, knowing you’re never going to do anything about it because you’re already seeing someone else—who I’m sure looks like a supermodel by the way—and expect that I’ll just understand that it’s all a joke and I won’t take any of it seriously. Because I will. I will take it seriously because fat girls have feelings too. And when a man buys you a dress and takes you out to dinner, even if it’s a business dinner, and he pays you compliments and makes suggestive commentsand…and licks you…it all means something. And I know I must be crazy for even contemplating this after the way you’ve treated me since the moment we met, but Idothink about you like that, Tanner. I think about you in a fuckable way. And this is probably the whisky talking because I’ve had a lot of it tonight, but I have to be straight up with you here.” She pauses as she looks into my eyes for one long, tense moment. I can’t breathe. “If you don’t think I’m fuckable. If you are never going to do more than tease me, tempt me and then be mean the next day”—her eyes fill with emotion and her voice cracks—“then I don’t want it. And I’ll kindly ask you to back the fuck off. OK?”
As she stares up at me with those big vulnerable eyes, brimming with unshed tears, I want to tell her that I think about her like that all the time. That ever since I met her, I’ve thought of little else. That when I jerk off, she’s the face I imagine fucking while I do. I want to tell her there’s no redhead. I want to tell her there’s only her… But before any of that can make its way out of my mouth, her apartment door opens and a guy taller and broader than me fills the frame and scowls my way.
“Where the fuck have youbeen?” He directs his comment at Ruby before narrowing his eyes at me and slinging an arm around her shoulders protectively. “And who the fuck are you?”She has someone? What the actual fuck?
Feeling blindsided, I take a step back, completely sober and utterly informed. She has someone. Someone with a key to her place. Then what the hell was that speech all about?Fuck. Fucking fuck!
I don’t have the best track record when it comes to women and monogamy, but this… Isowas not expecting this. But I should have known.
