It made sense. “Last night you said you liked my legs from the first day you saw me.”
He nodded. “I did like your legs. And your face. And your hair. Your personality, on the other hand… You’re a bit of an acquired taste, Red.”
Ruby chuckled. “That’s what your sister said about you.”
He rolled his eyes. “Remind me to thank her for that. So yes, I bought the books so I’d have an excuse to see you again. Are you happy now?”
Ruby beamed. “Yes. Very happy.” And she meant it, too.
After brunch, they took a streetcar to the Eaton Centre, the same mall they’d taken the girls to to see the huge tree and the windows at the Hudson’s Bay. It was even busier today, and Ruby could see that Rashid regretted agreeing to come shopping with her within ten minutes of walking into their first store.
“I don’t get it,” he said. “Why are there so many people here on a Thursday afternoon?”
Ruby was looking at the care labels in a sweater. She needed to make sure anything she got for Reena was machine washable since Reena was a baker. And had an infant. “BecauseChristmas is in, like, two weeks? Come on, you must have noticed the pre-Christmas crowds in Calgary.”
He shook his head scowling. “I never go to malls there.”
Ruby squeezed her lips together. She picked a soft gray off-the-shoulder sweater for Reena. It would look fantastic with her breastfeeding boobs, and it was machine washable. Rashid grabbed the same one for Jasmine—probably because he didn’t want to look around more. They went to a fancy menswear store next. Ruby wanted to get a tie clip for Shayne, since he’d said it was time for him to retire his aging club-kid look. But even this small, curated menswear store was absolutely packed.
Rashid frowned. “All these people are getting ties for their fathers-in-law, bosses, and uncles that will sit in a drawer for two decades before finally ending up in a thrift store where no one will buy them because they’re two decades out of style, so they’ll end up in a landfill. You could skip all this and go to Goodwill.”
Several women in the store turned to look at Rashid. One gave Ruby a sympathetic look that she assumed meantI’m so sorry your partner is such a Grinch.
Ruby held in a laugh, quickly picking a silver and mother-of-pearl tie clip. After paying, she gave Rashid the out he probably wanted. “I’m done shopping. What do you want to do now?”
He looked at her for several long moments. She wished she knew what he was thinking when he looked at her like that. She knew him so much better now, but in so many ways he was still such a mystery. She knew all the things he didn’t like—Christmas, consumerism, royalty, billionaires,and designer anything (except cologne)—but she still didn’t know what he actually did like. Other than her, of course.
He was loyal to his family and loved them. Oh, and he loved hockey, which Ruby had never talked to him about because she was completely useless when it came to anything sporty.
She had an idea. She put her hand in his. “I know the girls aren’t here, but it’s Thursday. We’re supposed to do festive, touristy things on Thursdays.”
He raised a brow. “I think dealing with the insanity of this mall is pretty touristy.”
“I mean, yeah, but I want to surprise you. Trust me, Dr. Rash. I know exactly where to take you. You’llloveit.”
He raised a brow again, skeptical. Ruby responded by turning her hand and lightly stroking his knuckles. She saw the minute that her light touch made his skin pebble. Last night she was delighted to discover that he wasn’t just super talented at making her skin sing under his touch, but he himself had super-sensitive skin, too. Ruby was going to have a ton of fun discovering what reactions she could get from touching his body.
He smiled that small, private smile and nodded. “Okay. I’m all yours.”
SHE GUIDED HIM TOthe subway and took him straight to the Hockey Hall of Fame—which, as far as she remembered, was like a museum of hockey. He literally squealed when he realized that’s where they were headed. She had no idea he even knew how to squeal.
“Oh my god! I’ve always wanted to come here! But it seemed weird to come alone. They keep the real Stanley Cup here, right? Unless it’s touring or something. Do you know if it’s here now? I mean, it doesn’t matter to me—I want to go either way, but it would beso coolto get a picture of it! Thank you, Ruby!”
Ruby grinned ear to ear. Rashid was more like her than she’d realized. She just needed to find the thing he loved as much as she loved Christmas.
He was like an excited schoolboy as they went through the museum together. None of it was of any interest to Ruby—she’d been here as a teenager when she had a fling with a hockey bro, but coming with Rashid was so much more fun.His enthusiasm was almost contagious. His reaction to the re-creation of the Montreal Canadiens’ locker room was especially adorable. It was apparently his favorite team as a child. Ruby told him about seeing concerts at the Bell Centre in Montreal—where the team currently played—and about the old jerseys they had on display there. She refrained from mentioning the spoiled hockey wives she used to sell to at the boutique she worked at in Montreal. Ruby almost said they should take a trip to Montreal together—she would have loved to show him her favorite city in Canada, and she would have even been willing to go to a hockey game there if it made him this excited.
But then she remembered this was a fling—and a very short one. She was soon going to live too far for a weekend trip to Montreal.
Rashid was still in a great mood when they left the museum. “Thank you so much! It makes me want to get on skates. I don’t know why I didn’t bring mine with me. I keep seeing the skaters at Nathan Phillips Square. I wish I could join them.”
“Why can’t you? They rent skates there.” Ruby was no skater, but even she knew that.
His brows raised with surprise. “They do?”
Ruby laughed. “Who’s been showing you around Toronto since you got here? They did a terrible job.”
“Let’s go skating now,” he said. “It’s a perfect day for it.” It had started snowing very lightly, but it wasn’t particularly cold.
