by Roxie Noir
As I do, I can suddenly feel him explode inside me as he growls into my neck, then moans my name. I’m still rocking, still shaking, and he holds onto me so tight I think he might break me in half.
Gradually, I stop shaking. Gabriel loosens his grip and kisses my neck, stroking my back gently as I lean down and kiss him on the lips, the kiss slow and lazy, like we’ve got all the time in the world.
And we do. It’s morning, it’s daylight, and no one knows or cares where we are. I get to do this whenever I want, and in that moment, I can’t believe my luck.
Chapter Forty-Two
Gabriel
After a while we flop over, onto the bed, and lay there without moving. A pillow falls halfway onto my head, but we’ve got our arms and legs tangled together and I’m way, way too lazy to move it right now.
Ruby keeps dozing off, only to wake up, look at me, smile faintly, and doze off again. I think I could watch it for hours, because even though I’ve seen a lot of her already, I’ve never seen her like this, happy and carefree and safe and secure and naked.
“I’ve got a proposal,” she says, somewhere around the fifth time she wakes up. Her eyes drift closed again.
“I hope it doesn’t include doing anything useful,” I say, my voice coming out slow and low.
“Of course not,” she says, a smile tugging at her lips. “It’s that today, we stay in bed and don’t put clothes on. We can worry about everything tomorrow.”
We’re halfway holding hands, and I grab the fingers that I’ve got and raise them to my lips.
“We have to eat,” I say.
She sighs.
“How about this,” I say, brushing her hand with my lips as I speak. “We order pizza to the room, and I wrap a towel around myself to collect it. Just so I don’t terrify the delivery guy. Or make him think this is some kind of porno situation.”
Ruby opens her eyes and raises one eyebrow.
Right, I think.
“A lot of porn movies start with—”
“I know about porn and pizza delivery boys,” she says, her voice slow and teasing. “My ex watched lots of gay porn, remember?”
“I can’t say I’m familiar with gay porn conventions,” I point out.
“I think they’re the same,” she says. “But I like your idea. No clothes, stay in bed all day.”
We’re both quiet for a moment, her eyes searching mine steadily, like there’s something she wants to say but doesn’t know what or how.
“Just us, in this bed, free to do whatever the hell we want,” I say. “Everything else can wait until tomorrow.”
I kiss her fingers again.
“Everything else is a lot,” she points out, shifting slightly on the bed.
“I’ve already got some things figured out,” I say.
“Don’t tell me you were holding out on me,” she teases. “If you already have a job and an apartment, tell me now.”
“Ruby, I don’t have shit,” I say, teasing her back. “I just know that when we figure all this out, we’ll be figuring it out together, and that’s the part that really matters.”
She glances down at our hands, slowly turning hers inside mine, knuckles against fingertips.
“You shouldn’t feel obligated,” she says, her voice suddenly soft again. “I know that we have a thing and you helped me escape, but—”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I ask, trying not to laugh.
She looks at me like I’m crazy, but I can’t help myself. I’d do anything for her, and she’s acting like finding jobs is going to be a big deal.
“No?” she says, raising one eyebrow.
“We don’t have a thing,” I say. “I fell in love with you, and I’m dead fucking serious about everything I said, because as long as you’re willing, everything we have to do from now on we do together. Me and you. The two of us.”
Ruby’s smiling again, though her eyes are a little too bright, and she wraps my fingers around hers.
“I love you too,” she says softly. “But I should warn you, I can’t even—”
“I don’t care.”
“Seriously, Gabriel, I’ve never—”
“Don’t care.”
“—Had a job, or—“
“I don’t care.”
“—Written a check, I was technically on our checking account but Lucas always did that—”
“You’ll learn in thirty seconds, I swear.”
“—I don’t even know how to apply for a library card.”
She goes quiet. I’ve got her hand pressed to my lips, and I’m laughing at her quietly, because it’s ridiculous that she escaped a cult and is worried about not knowing how to write a check.
“Are you done?” I ask.
Ruby bites her lip and starts laughing, too, her eyes dancing.
“Good,” I say. “The library card reminds me, I got you something.”
“Underpants with books on them,” she guesses.
I give her a kiss, roll over, hoist myself off the bed, and paw through the plastic Wal-Mart bags until I find what I’m looking for.
“Close your eyes,” I tell her, looking over my shoulder.
Ruby closes, her eyes, head propped on one fist as she lies on her side on the bed. Even now she’s breathtaking: the way her waist and hip curve, her touchable, warm skin, the smile around her eyes because right now I think she’s happier than I’ve ever seen her.
“Closed,” she reports.
I pull it from the bag and set it on the bed right in front of her.
“Okay,” I say.
Ruby opens her eyes, and she just starts laughing with delight.
While I was out, I picked up the complete box set of Harry Potter.
“You said you left yours behind, and I know you hadn’t even read the last one,” I say. “And it seemed like a good way to celebrate freedom.”
She sits up and pulls one out of the box set, running her fingers over the cover as she reads the back, and I get back into the bed.
“Thank you,” she says, and leans over me, her blonde hair whispering against my chest.
“You’re welcome,” I say, and she gives me a kiss.
True to our word, we spend the rest of the day in bed. We alternate between reading and fucking and ordering pizza, and even though there’s a lot of heavy shit hanging over my head, I can’t help but think it’s one of the best days of my life.
Two days, still in Conifer, North Carolina, we’ve started trying to map out our lives. We’ve outlined all the things we need to do — find jobs, find a place to live, get bank accounts, get phones, everything — and it’s exhausting, especially for Ruby. I’ve got a storage locker in D.C. that’s got some stuff in it, but the truth is that I never owned all that much, and Ruby hasn’t got anything.
That afternoon, we take a break and walk to a coffee shop. It’s cute and quaint, little hand-lettered chalkboard signs adorning the walls, but as we order coffee, the middle-aged woman behind the counter keeps looking at Ruby strangely.
I’m about to say something, when instead, she taps her nails on the counter, sighs, and speaks up.
“Sweetheart,” she says to Ruby. “This may be a real odd question, but have you got anything to do with that girl who’s in the news for runnin’ away from that Senator in South Carolina?”
I put one hand on Ruby’s lower back, and Ruby clears her throat.
“I am that girl from South Carolina,” she says, pushing her hair back behind her shoulders.
I can tell that every muscle in her body is tense, because this is what we’ve been waiting for. The Senator was a popular man for years and years, and there’s a huge swath of the voting public who didn’t really know him. All his platforms and promises, the whole Return to Moral America, sound fantastic until you realize what he really meant by it.
The woman gasps, one hand flying to her mouth.
“You poor thing,” she says, then puts her hand to her chest.
Ruby tenses ev
en more, and I step forward, ready to tell this woman off if I need to.
“I can’t even imagine,” the woman goes on. “My people are from South Carolina, and every time I see my mother all I hear about is the Burgess bastard this and the Burgess bastard that. Morality my fanny, he wants everyone barefoot and pregnant from the day they can breed ’til the day they die and I hope that S. O. B. gets what’s coming to him.”
Ruby’s mouth is a perfect little O, and she’s just staring at the woman.
“Lord, look at me,” the woman says, shaking her head and looking down. “I’m sorry, hon, he’s still your father, I don’t know what I’m thinking going on like this, I just get so riled up sometimes—”
“He’s absolutely a son of a bitch,” Ruby says, her voice astonished.
Then she laughs, relaxing.
“I just don’t usually hear other people admit it,” she says. “That’s new.”
The woman smiles at us, leaning her elbows on the counter conspiratorially.
“If half of what that email you wrote says is true, I don’t doubt it,” she says. “And I think you’re brave as hell, sweetheart. You staying around Conifer?”
We wind up chatting with the woman — her name’s Margaret — for almost two hours over two cups of coffee and several pastries, which she won’t let us pay for. Ruby slowly tells her the whole story and Margaret listens, wide-eyed, between customers.
“Did you see my sign?” she asks when Ruby’s finished.
We both look around at the hand-lettered chalkboards adorning the walls, and I wonder which one she means.
Instant human, just add coffee?
Give me the coffee and no one gets hurt?
“The sign on the door,” Margaret says. “It says ‘Hiring, inquire within.’ If you’re in need of a job, I’d be happy to consider this an inquiry.”
Ruby and I look at each other. We hadn’t really planned on staying in Conifer, but we hadn’t planned on not staying, either.
“You can think it over,” Margaret offers. “Sounds like you’ve had a rough couple of days.”
Ruby turns to me, eyebrows raised.
“Have we got a better plan?” she asks, keeping her voice low.
“I don’t,” I say. “Do you?”
“You know I don’t,” she says.
“Then go for it,” I say, grinning. “Maybe later you explain how you have zero job experience but still got an offer before me.”
She laughs and turns to Margaret.
“Can I fill out an application?” Ruby asks.
Margaret waves one hand.
“Don’t worry about it,” she says. “I haven’t gotten any better applicants.”
“Can I at least do it for practice?” Ruby asks.
Margaret just laughs.
“Sure, sweetheart,” she says.
Ruby’s job isn’t full-time, but Margaret seems to know everyone in Conifer, so in another week I’m doing odd jobs and landscaping around town with a brother of her cousin’s friend. He knows someone who’s looking to rent out a one-bedroom cabin a few miles outside town.
When Sarah-Joe — that’s the cousin’s friend’s brother’s buddy with the cabin for rent — finds out that Ruby is a cult escapee and I’m a veteran, she knocks fifty dollars off the rent and waives the security deposit.
“Listen,” she tells us, standing in the tiny front room, a wood stove behind her. “Margaret likes you, and that old broad is a tough nut to crack. Besides, I know where you live.”
We spend the rest of that day cleaning the place until it shines, and we move in the next day: a mattress on the floor, a kitchen table from the Salvation Army two towns over, pots and pans and silverware from the dollar store. One set of neighbors brings over chili and cornbread that’ll last us a week, and the other set brings over apple pie and lasagna, just to come say hello.
That night, after I wash out the bowls and dry them with our only dish towel, Ruby’s standing on the back porch, looking out at the dark forest, listening the creek below whisper. When I put my arms around her, she sniffles.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
She shakes her head.
“Nothing?” she says, her voice small and quiet in the dark. “I don’t know?”
Ruby leans back against me, and I don’t say anything. I don’t know what to say, or if anything I’d say could even help.
“It’s just that people are so nice,” she finally goes on, her voice barely a whisper. “And I can’t help but think that they want something in return, because that’s how it works, and then I feel guilty for being suspicious of someone who’s probably just being a good neighbor.”
She sniffles again. I kiss the top of her head.
“Plus, I can’t believe we’re here, and we have a place to stay and jobs and everything,” she says. “It’s... I don’t know. I kind of always thought that if I left my family I’d be living on the street before long.”
She swallows, and I hold her tighter.
“Thanks for sticking it out,” she whispers, and I smile into her hair.
“You don’t have to thank me,” I tell her. “I’m here because you’re here and I want to be with you.”
“Thanks.”
“Stop it,” I tease her, and she laughs, then sniffles, then laughs again. “I love you, and a mattress on the floor makes less noise anyway.”
“I love you too,” Ruby says, turning her head to kiss me. “And our neighbors are half a mile away, so it’s not like noise matters.”
I grin, then reach down and squeeze her ass with one hand.
“Hey!” she says. “I’m crying here.”
“No, now you’re laughing and wondering how far sound carries in the woods,” I say, and kiss her again as she turns and puts her arms around my neck.
“I don’t think it’s very far,” she says.
“I know how to find out,” I say, and before Ruby can retort, I scoop her up in my arms, step through the cabin door, and take her into the bedroom.
The neighbors never do complain.
Epilogue
Ruby
About A Year Later
“Do I at least look normal?” I ask, looking down at myself.
Gabriel crosses his arms, furrowing his brow.
Then he shrugs.
“I’ve never been to a square dance,” he says. “That looks like what people wear to square dances. I think.”
I make a face and stick my tongue out at him, because he is no help when it comes to clothes or fashion, and even though it’s been a little over a year since we moved to Conifer, it’s the little things like this that still trip me up.
Because when you spend your life with really, really limited fashion options and then you can suddenly wear anything you want, sometimes you get it wrong. Like a month ago, when I wore a pencil skirt and heels to a party that turned out to be a casual barbecue in someone’s back yard.
Or over the summer, when a friend’s sister got baptized in the creek and I wore denim shorts and flip-flops. Also the wrong choice of clothes.
“I can’t have another Ellie’s Baptism situation,” I tell Gabriel.
“I don’t think it’s going to be a black tie square dance,” he teases. “Listen, if we show up and everyone else is wearing ball gowns and tuxes, we’ll just leave. How’s that?”
I’ve got on the flat ankle boots I wear to my job at the coffee shop, jeans, and a plaid shirt rolled up to my elbows, because that seems like what you should wear to a square dance.
“I think we’d never hear the end of it if we just left,” I laugh. “Tammy’s been on me for months about coming. Though I think you’re the one she really wants to see.”
“If she keeps bringing me brownies I’ll square dance with her all night,” Gabriel says, laughing.
“Should I be jealous?”
“You should make more brownies.”
He walks to the kitchen table and grabs his keys as I take our jackets off the coat rack an
d toss his to him. We’ve got furniture now — some from the Goodwill, but mostly they’re hand-me-downs from the people we’ve met over the past year.
They’re really nice, and I’m still not used to it. Even the people who agree with my father’s politics and would have voted for him if they lived in South Carolina are really nice.
“You know, she bakes for all the men in the Sheriff’s Academy,” I point out, still teasing Gabriel. “It’s not just you.”
I shrug on my jacket, and he opens the door to the chilly autumn night.
“But I’m her favorite,” Gabriel says, grinning. “She told me.”
“She tells that to all of you,” I say, and walk through the door as he holds it.
He grabs my ass, and I laugh. Tammy’s the River County Sheriff’s wife, they’ve got three hell-raising boys, and they still somehow find the time to invite us over for dinner once a week. If she wants to dance with Gabriel, it’s fine with me, because she and Margaret have pretty much become my replacement moms.
I haven’t heard from my real mom since I left. Every so often I hear from Zeke, who’s still at home but trying to save up for an escape so he doesn’t have to run away barefoot, or from Joy, who’s still sneaking into college math classes.
But as far as everyone else is concerned, I’m dead to them. My father lost his re-election last year, and the huge scandal I caused is probably what did it. For months afterward, I practically couldn’t answer my phone because news outlets wanted to talk to me about it.
I even got accosted walking around Conifer a few times by reporters, but thankfully it’s died down. I don’t want to be famous, or on the news, or anything. I just want to be normal.
The square dance is in Johnston’s barn, and we park in a field outside. Gabriel holds my hand as we walk through the muddy grass, fiddle music already leaking out of the brightly-lit barn.
The moment we’re inside, I relax about my outfit. This is what you wear square-dancing, because people wearing plaid, jeans, and boots are all do-si-do-ing and linking arms and spinning around and bumping into each other and laughing in the middle of the dance floor.