“What was I saying?” Ruby tried to recall when the coast was clear. “Oh, yes. What’s wrong with you?” She jokingly slapped my arm. “You asked about Sebastian? So here goes: Your situation is not that much different than mine. He, too, was my first and we’ve known each other forever. Yet, here we are fucking each other senseless whenever he’s in town with no strings attached.”
“You said that the last couple of times you got together you ... felt things.”
“I said that?” Her eyebrows almost reached her hairline.
“Aha.”
“Impossible. I don’t use the F word.” Ruby didn’t do feelings. Ever since she found the swan under the ugly duckling she had been in high school and college—her words, not mine—she was exclusively in casual relationships.
“You did. You said your stomach did a weird flip when he kissed you goodbye.”
“It was just a physiological response to a particularly good kiss. That’s not the same as ‘feeling’ something.”
“It’s gonna bite you in the ass one day.”
“Oh, he already did.” She chuckled. “You want to tell me that when you saw Owen two years after you slept with him, you—?
“He came to my father’s funeral, remember?” I cut into her sentence. “I had too much on my mind to be thinking aboutthat.”
For two years after I’d asked Owen to take my virginity, I thought about what it’d be like to see him again. No guy in college, try as he might, came anywhere close to making me feel what Owen had with just a kiss. But then my fatherpassed—didn’t wake up one morning—and everything changed. Simon, Nicole, and I moved back into my parents’ house to be with my mom, and I dropped out of college not long after.
Owen had arrived for the funeral, and before I could process it, my mom and brother had asked him to be a pallbearer. I’d had too much on my mind to dwell on how he looked in a dark suit or the fact that, across the ocean, he was becoming someone—climbing the league ladder, earning recognition.
Before we left for the cemetery, he placed his hands on my waist and pulled me into a hug. I held on, maybe a second too long, before slowly letting go. He tipped his head down, slid his hand under my chin, and wiped my tears away with his thumb. His eyes were red. “You’re like family to me, Rio.”
“You’re right,” Ruby admitted now, her thumb chafing the stem of her glass. “But what about the times after that? He did come to visit several times, including when both your nieces were born.”
“I only saw him twice when Chloe was born and that was twelve years ago. He’d just been signed to a first-league club in Spain. And when Emma was born ... well, you know.”
“Yeah, Bradley was there.” A disgusted expression appeared on Ruby’s pretty face. “And that model.” She rolled her eyes. “I was there, too.”
She had been.“Um, is he trying to make the rest of us feel bad?”Ruby had asked at the sight of Bambi.“Oh, wait, she opened her mouth, and I heard her speak. Never mind that,”she had whispered to me at the christening, just as mytactless mom pretty much shouted,“Her accent! She sounds just like a princess!”
Ruby sipped from her cocktail. “The past is in the past. I’m talking about today. I’m not advocating for romance, just sex.” Her face when she said the R word made me laugh. She looked like she accidentally ate an expired dairy product.
“No, no, it’s too complicated all around, even forjustsex.” I signaled quotation marks at ‘just’.
“You’re afraid!” Ruby set her glass down with a firm thud.
“Yes!” I shot back, tossing my hands up.Finally.
“Of developing feelings. But he’ll go away anyway, and you won’t have to see him. You said so yourself. Why not get the most fun out of it while you can?”
I exhaled. She didn’t get it after all. “I’m not like you, Ruby. I can’t.”
Ruby sighed. “It’s like giving a good steak to a vegetarian.”
TWO HOURS LATER, Istood in front of Owen’s door. A sliver of light peeked from underneath, and the lingering trace of his cologne—woodsy, with a hint of something sharp, something undeniablyhim—hung in the air.
I was tempted. So tempted to knock, to see what would happen.
Instead, I walked into my room and closed the door behind me.
Ruby would be disappointed in me.
To keep myself busy, I flipped through the notes I’d made at work. We needed to restock on lavender and eucalyptus essential oils, Candelilla wax for our balms, and glass jars for the new batch of organic whipped body butter. I also wanted to film a video about making our hand-poured soy candles with dried botanicals—something I discovered could boost sales.
After work the next day, Ruby’s words still lingered in my mind, so I went straight to the garage, tied my hair up, and slipped on my work apron. I arranged everything I needed on the long wooden worktable—essential oils lined up in neat rows, wicks cut and ready, wax melting in a double boiler on a portable burner.
