“I have clothes. You just keep taking them off me.”
She laughed. “No, I mean something fancy.”
“How fancy?”
She got up, stark naked, and crossed to her open walk-in closet. Digging through my shelf, she pulled out a white button-down shirt and dark gray chinos—the ones I kept for office emergencies or Zoom meetings. She studied them with a little hum. “Hmm. I think we could make these work.”
“Show me,” I said, already on my feet, just as naked. The clothes ended up forgotten on the floor while we went for another round against the nearest wall.
It didn’t seem to occur to her that I might fly back to Houston before then and return just for the party. In her head, I was here to stay.
I’d never stayed with Ruby for more than one night before. And instead of getting on each other’s nerves, dulling things between us, or the sex becoming a routine, everything sharpened. We grew closer. The sex became even more intense. Consuming. Raw. It wasn’t about anything acrobatic or new, it was about the intimacy.
There was something in the way she touched me, the way her eyes held mine—like we weren’t just in each other’s bodies, but in each other’s bloodstream, too.
“HOLD STILL.” RUBY SETthe cake on the dining table, candles flickering like a tiny bonfire. “Twenty-nine ... plus one for luck.”
“You’re not supposed to add one.”
“Says who?” She grinned. “It’s my rule.”
I leaned forward. “Fine. But if I pass out from lack of oxygen, you’re explaining that to my mother.”
“Shut up and make a wish.”
I blew them out in one go, the flames vanishing in a puff of smoke.
“Happy birthday week,” Ruby said with another grin. “You get to pick the movie we watch and the position later.”
We’d already had round one pretty much as soon as I’d walked through the door, and while she was teasing, I felt a quiet warmth at the fact that even though my birthday had been five days earlier, she still wanted to celebrate with me when I arrived in California.
“I have one more thing, actually,” Ruby said after we finished the cake. She handed me a rolled-up tube.
“I thought we weren’t doing presents,” I reminded her, keeping with the rules.
She shrugged. “It was too good to leave at the vintage market.”
“Oh, wow,” I exclaimed as I unrolled it—a rare Superman poster, an iconic image from theGolden Agecomics. The colors were rich, and the vintage was a collector’s dream. “It’s amazing. Thank you.”
“Did I get it right? I’m not that into it like you are,” she said, watching me with an expectant smile.
“You got it perfect.” I couldn’t quite put words to how much this gift meant. A smirk spread on my face. “You get to choose the position, though.”
Ruby chuckled. “Aww, thanks, birthday boy. I’ll think of something.”
Later, digging through a wicker box on her TV console for the spare remote, I spotted our yearbook. Instead of watching a movie, we opened it on the couch and immediately burst out laughing when we found our pictures.
“God, no wonder no one wanted to go out with me,” Ruby said.
“I would’ve.”
“Really?” Her eyes brightened.
“Don’t be too flattered. Back then, I’d have dated any girl who’d give me a chance.”
“Did you ever try?” she asked, still watching me closely.
“No. I could read the room.”
