Slow Burn

by Roxie Noir

  I come back. I stand on the corner and look through the window, but I can’t see her, so I walk past the front of the pub slowly, looking in.

  No Ruby.

  Are you fucking kidding me?

  She’s not at the bar, she’s not at a table, she’s not in any of the high-backed booths. Now I’m stopped in front of the windows, staring in blatantly like a total fucking creep, but I don’t care because Ruby’s gone. Taken.

  Exactly the kind of thing I was hired to prevent.

  I pull the front door open so hard that the bells on it smack against the frame, and half the people inside look up. It’s a weeknight, so it’s pretty quiet inside, the place all classy low lighting and fake candles on every table.

  The bartender nods and I nod back, already scanning for Ruby.

  She could have left of her own accord, you know, I think. That’s probably more likely than a kidnapping.

  I pace through the restaurant, the old wooden floor creaking beneath my feet. By now I’m praying that I find Ruby tucked away in a booth, sitting on someone else’s lap. Just as long as I find her.

  Then, finally, at last: a blonde head in the booth against the far wall. I can’t see whoever she’s facing, just her.

  The knot in my chest unwinds all at once, and I take a deep breath. I deserve a fucking drink.

  Chapter Eleven

  Ruby

  I flip the page and pull one foot onto the bench seat with me. It took me forever to sneak Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince into my house under my father’s nose, and I wanted to read it somewhere with no distractions, no one calling or shouting for me, no threat that one of my parents or siblings might walk in suddenly and bust me.

  Was sneaking out risky? Sure. I’m always afraid that my father’s security has changed the camera setup or where the motion sensors are pointing, and I’ll get busted.

  But Thursdays are half-off Jack Daniels at Finnegan’s Pub, it’s always quiet, and I can sit in the back and have an hour or two actually, totally, and completely to myself.

  I take another sip of whiskey. I flip another page.

  Someone steps up to my booth and stops, both hands resting lightly on the table.

  I look up at him and my heart plummets. Instantly, I know that this is all over: drinking, reading, getting to be alone.

  “Buy you a drink?” Gabriel asks.

  I lose my grip on my thick paperback, and it flops shut, making me lose my place, but I just shove it aside.

  “Who else is here?” I say, my voice thick and slow.

  Gabriel frowns.

  “It’s just me.”

  I lean out of the booth and look around. No one looks back, so at least the rest of my father’s security team isn’t here.

  “What are you doing here?” I say, my heart still in my throat, beating so hard it feels like a war drum.

  “Funny, that’s what I was going to ask you,” he says, a half-smile settling onto his face. “Is that a yes on the drink, or…?”

  He taps his knuckles against the table, and I just shake my head no.

  “Do you mind if I get one?” Gabriel says, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. “And can I trust you to not run away while I—”

  “I can take care of you,” says a waitress who’s just appeared by his elbow.

  She pulls a pad from her apron and smiles up at him through her thick eyelashes, a dimple forming in one cheek. The Jack Daniels sloshes around in my stomach unpleasantly, and I look away.

  “Oh, thank you,” Gabriel says. “I’ll have what she’s having.”

  “Of course,” she says, smiles again, and walks away. Gabriel slides into the booth opposite me, his big hands on the table.

  My palms are still sweating, my nerves still jangling, but nothing terrible has happened. Not yet.

  “I had to order at the bar,” I say.

  He glances in her direction. I wish he wouldn’t.

  “She probably didn’t see you come in,” he says, shrugging and smiling at me.

  “I’m sure,” I say, taking another sip for fortitude.

  “Are you trying to imply something, Ruby?”

  “Just that only one of us got instant service from a cute waitress.”

  A frown flickers across his face again, and he glances in her direction.

  Quit looking at her, I think.

  “I did enter in a rush,” he says.

  “You think that’s it?” I ask, drawing shapes in the condensation that’s pooled around my glass. “It’s not that you’re—”

  I stop for a second.

  Tall, ripped, handsome, sexy, and masculine-ly alluring in ways I don’t quite have words for?

  “—A man?” I finish.

  “I must look like I tip well.”

  “Sure,” I say, and I let it drop, because I think we both know why she practically sprinted to take his drink order.

  I make a triangle in the condensation water on the table, tap my finger in it once, and look up at Gabriel.

  “Did you find me or follow me?” I ask.

  He smiles.

  “Followed you,” he says. “Until now I’ve been behaving myself as part of my new employment situation.”

  I lean back in the booth, my back against hardwood, finally starting to relax a little.

  “And what about this constitutes not behaving yourself?” I ask, tilting my head a little to one side. I know I’ve got nothing on the waitress, but around Gabriel I can’t help but flirt. Only a little.

  “Just the drink,” he says, lacing his fingers behind his head and leaning back in the booth as well, blue eyes dancing. With his arms like that I can see the lines of his muscles highlighted by the low light of the electric candle, and I have to look away before I start thinking about what I want him to do with those arms.

  “I haven’t had one in a little over a week, you know,” he goes on.

  “You’re not getting up to something else after this?”

  I don’t know why I’m prodding. It’s not like I want him to say oh, and I’m going to go have sex with the waitress and also the other waitress and probably a few more very attractive ladies while I’m at it, see you at tomorrow’s flower-arranging session.

  Gabriel laughs.

  “What else is there to get up to in Huntsburg on a Thursday night?” he asks. “If I had my car maybe we could go to IHOP or Wal-Mart and really raise some heck, but I followed you here on foot.”

  The waitress comes back and sets Gabriel’s whiskey in front of him. It’s significantly fuller than mine was.

  “Can I get you anything else, hon?” she asks, touching his shoulder.

  I swear it feels like something pops inside me, and I look away. I’ve never touched him, aside from a handshake.

  “No, thank you,” he says.

  “Just holler if you need something,” she says, smiles, and walks away. I glare after her, feeling like the ugly girl in middle school.

  Or, at least, how I think the ugly girl in middle school probably felt. I was homeschooled.

  “You sure you’re not up to something else?” I ask. I don’t even mean to say it, because it’s childish and I know it’s childish, but it just comes out.

  I think he finally picks up on what I’m asking, and glances after her again as he takes a sip of his drink.

  “Ruby,” he says, settling his elbows on the table and leaning forward a little. “We both sneaked off your compound and now we’re drinking together. We’d both be in a metric fuckton of trouble if we got busted, so we can speak candidly, right?”

  “I think you just did.”

  “Are you trying to find out if I’m going to fuck the waitress?”

  I look down at the table, and I can feel myself blush so hard it’s like my face is in front of a furnace.

  “No,” I say. “Nothing like that at all, I was just asking if there were any parties or—”

  “I’m not,” he says, lifting his glass to his lips again.

  “I w
asn’t asking that.”

  Yes, I was.

  “Then whether or not you were asking, I’m still not gonna fuck her,” he says, putting his glass down. There’s a teasing smile tugging at his mouth, and I suddenly realize that he’s enjoying getting a rise out of me.

  I swallow and try to stop blushing. It’s like plugging a broken dam with one finger: ineffective.

  “I think you could,” I say.

  “I think I could too.”

  Heat slithers inside me, and I pull my other foot onto the seat. There’s something about his quietly cocky confidence that I like, I mean really like, but I hate that I like it.

  “But I’m celibate for as long as I’m working for your father,” Gabriel goes on.

  I raise one eyebrow.

  “Is that in your contract?” I ask. I know it’s a strange, invasive thing to put in someone’s employment contract, but my father’s a strange, invasive employer.

  “No,” Gabriel says. He doesn’t elaborate.

  “Is that the only reason you’re not going to…”

  I try to say fuck her and fail, my face heating up again. I can’t even say the word fuck out loud in front of him. God, I’m a wreck.

  “…take her home tonight?” I finish.

  “No,” he says again. “I’ve got to take you back home, for one thing. For another thing, she’s not my type.”

  “What is your type?”

  I’m flirting with him. Oh no. Oh no.

  Gabriel just smiles, his elbows on the table again.

  “Harder to get,” he says.

  “Well, I’m also celibate,” I say, trying to joke because obviously I’m not having sex with anyone. “Maybe we can have a support group.”

  “I think your parents would really hate that idea,” Gabriel says, grinning. “The two of us bemoaning the hardship of not getting laid.”

  I take another sip of whiskey, my glass getting close to empty, and I nearly say it wasn’t much of a hardship until you showed up, but I keep my mouth shut.

  “My parents already hate a lot of things, including my presence in their house,” I say. “Though I think I could kill my mother if I told her that I missed, uh, you know… marital intimacy.”

  Cool, I’m blushing again.

  “Do you?”

  And I’m blushing even harder, so I drain my whiskey glass, the ice cubes falling against my upper lip. I put the glass back on the table with a clunk and look at it for a long second, because that question is a little off. I mean, it’s nosy and far too familiar and probably borderline rude, but it also makes me realize something.

  I lean my chin on one hand, propping it up on the table.

  “You don’t know why I’m divorced, do you?” I ask.

  “I guess it’s not the usual reasons.”

  “Not exactly.”

  Gabriel twists his glass in one hand, his face darkening.

  “He hurt you?” he asks, not looking at me, his voice nearly a growl.

  I’m a little surprised.

  “Not at all. Nothing like that,” I say quickly.

  His shoulders relax, and he looks at me.

  “Lucas is gay,” I say.

  He leans back in the booth, folding his arms over his chest, and looks at me for a moment. I try not to watch the muscles in his forearms and look at his face instead.

  “And people are upset that you divorced a gay guy?” he asks, puzzled. “Finding out your spouse is gay seems… like a pretty good reason for a divorce.”

  I tilt my glass up to my mouth, even though it’s already empty, and get the very last drops out. Even though it feels like everyone knows this story already, I’ve never actually told it to anyone before. The gossip mill has done all the work for me, but Gabriel’s not part of the gossip mill.

  That means I have to start from the beginning, and I don’t even know where the beginning is.

  “I didn’t find out that he was gay,” I tell him, looking at my glass between my hands. “It wasn’t a secret. It’s never been a secret.”

  Gabriel nods at my empty glass.

  “You want another one of those?” he asks. “Don’t worry, I’ll walk you home.”

  He winks, and I smile, despite myself.

  “You mean you’ll do your job?” I tease.

  “Technically, I’m off-duty right now,” he says, grabbing my glass and standing. “I’m seeing you home out of the goodness of my heart.”

  “And because there’s nothing else to do around here.”

  Gabriel grins, then walks to the bar across the room. I try not to stare, but I can’t help but watch the way his t-shirt is a tiny bit too tight around his shoulders. The way the muscles in his forearms move as he sets the glass on the bar and orders another one.

  The way his jeans hug his butt just right.

  Then I look away and try to figure out where to start. I don’t really want to tell him the whole story, because it makes me sound like a naïve moron, but there’s no way around it. I was a naïve moron. I’m probably still a naïve moron, because despite everything I’ve learned in the past six years, I’m pretty sure I don’t know much about the world.

  After a bit Gabriel comes back, the glass in his hand much fuller than the glass I originally got.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  “You seem like you could use it,” he rumbles. “Cheers.”

  We clink glasses together, and I take a sip. It’s not Jack, and I raise my eyebrows.

  “Buffalo Trace,” he says, before I can even ask. “You’re about to talk about getting a divorce, so I figured you might want the good stuff.”

  I push one hand through my hair and lean against it, looking over at Gabriel.

  “I’m going to try to start at the beginning,” I say. “But tell me if I’m not.”

  “Will do,” he says.

  Chapter Twelve

  Gabriel

  Ruby puts her thumb to her lip for a moment, her knuckle against her teeth, staring into space like she’s trying to collect her thoughts. I force myself not to imagine my thumb between her lips, her teeth against my knuckle. Her tongue against the pad of my thumb as she sucks it into her mouth, those wicked eyes teasing me.

  “Okay,” she says, like she’s decided something, and I snap out of it. “Lucas Dawson is the oldest son of Russell Dawson, the pastor at the Word of God Apostolic Covenant Church, which my family belongs to.”

  I nod. The Church is pretty notorious — the only reason they’re not as famous as Westboro Baptist, the church in Kansas that protests soldiers’ funerals because gay people exist, is they think they’re too genteel to wave signs around and make spectacles of themselves.

  “The Reverend first found Lucas’s stash of gay porn when Lucas was fifteen. I don’t remember exactly what happened, but instead of keeping it secret like I think most people would have, the Reverend decided that in order to lead his flock properly, he should make an example of his son.”

  My blood’s starting to run cold. I can’t imagine being a gay kid in an environment anything like the Burgess’s household. Let alone being made an example of.

  “The Church might not be quite as regressive about gay people as you’d think,” Ruby goes on. She’s got her head on one hand, the other splayed on the table, and she’s tapping her fingers one by one. “Even though they think homosexuality is caused directly by Satan and is horrible and evil, they have this hate the sin, love the sinner policy. Basically, what that means is: if you’re gay, and you pray really hard about it, and you never do gay stuff, and you really want to not be gay, you’re all right.”

  “So it’s fine to be gay as long as you never actually touch another person of the same sex,” I say.

  That sounds like hell. The prospect of a few months of celibacy is already wearing on me a little. I can’t imagine thinking that I’d never, ever be able to have what I really wanted again.

  “Well, no,” Ruby says. “That’s step one. They’re also completely determined that, sin
ce gayness is a product of Satanic influences, if you get Satan out of someone, they’ll stop being gay.”

  I have a bad feeling about what’s coming.

  “How do you get Satan out of someone?” I ask, taking a long drink of whiskey.

  “You send them to a re-education facility for a couple months.”

  We both go quiet for a moment.

  “Lucas didn’t really talk about what happened there,” Ruby says, quietly, looking at her glass. “But they sent him three times before we got married, and I was nineteen then. I think they kept finding porn, maybe even caught him with someone. I don’t know. I couldn’t ask. But he had nightmares, even years later. He used to wake up shouting.”

  “Shit,” I mutter. I know how that feels, but my nightmares are about roadside bombs and being ambushed out of nowhere. I don’t know what happened to Lucas, but I’ve got the feeling it was pretty bad.

  “Meaning, I knew Lucas was gay when we got married,” she goes on, her gaze flicking up to me and then back down. “But I also believed everything that my father and the Reverend told me, and I knew he’d basically gone to heterosexuality boot camp.”

  She’s tracing circles in the condensation on the outside of her glass, and she pauses for a moment, like she’s gathering her thoughts.

  “Lucas wanted to be straight, and I think he wanted to love me and he wanted to be attracted to me, so when our fathers suggested the match, it seemed like a good idea. We could please them and prove that gay people could forsake Satan and become straight.”

  “And then you got divorced and proved otherwise.”

  Ruby snorts.

  “My father and the Reverend don’t think we proved a thing, but most of the world took it as evidence that praying away the gay doesn’t work. Because if the Reverend’s own son and Senator Burgess’s daughter couldn’t make it work, who else would even have a chance, right?”

  Her voice is practically dripping with sarcasm, a bitter edge to it I’ve never heard before. Not that I can blame her, but I want to reach out, put my hand over hers. Tell her we all do dumb shit when we’re kids.