Chapter Twenty-Five
Jem
Ruby’s light shines through the broken glass of my world creating rainbows and filling my life with colour. What worries me is rainbows are illusions and when the darkness returns they disappear.
We’re closer but the barriers are still there; me and Ruby don’t talk about emotions or share ourselves outside of the physical intimacy. Not that we’re hiding who we are in public, there’s no way I can avoid touching Ruby’s skin or stealing a kiss if I need a kick-start from the darkness.
A week passed since she gave herself to and trusted me, believed I had no expectations. We joke about the fact we’ve dealt with this and have moved on; but Ruby spends the next two days in and out of my bed. I tell myself it’s the sex without drugs that makes the experience different with Ruby; the physical intensity of every sense operating at full capacity is the drug itself. Gradually, I realise I’m lying to myself. It’s Ruby who makes it different.
I crave her more than anything in my life before, her presence a blinding light pouring into the shadows I’m surrounded by. I need her to stay, to never take her radiance away or leave me lost in the dark again.
But I can’t fall in love with Ruby.
I don’t love.
We return to everyday life, back to the studio and moving Ruby’s life in the direction she spoke about: forward. The first time I slid an arm around Ruby’s waist and kissed her cheek, the horror on Jax’s face was unmistakable. I don’t care what he says; Jax wants Ruby. They share a bond through the band and the music they create together. Ruby’s adamant she’s never seen Jax in a romantic way, but I know he does. Jax spoke to her about us the first day, throwing glances at me as he had a heated conversation with her in the sound booth.
From the look of her hand gestures, Ruby gave him a mouthful of unpleasant words.
The Ruby who lives in my house, who exists in my space, is a milder version of her public persona. I get that; I’ve done the same for years. As soon as you show people the slightest hint of vulnerability they poke until a hole opens up that lets out more than you want, and in turn lets in too much. Only because Ruby has vulnerabilities of her own can I let my guard down a little. Our unspoken agreement not to push each other into revealing any more of our hidden thoughts works. For now.
Inevitably, I f-uck this up.
Since returning from the States, I lost myself in Ruby Riot and then Ruby. I forgot loose arrangements made. I missed a meeting with a pissed-off Liam and didn’t notice today’s date until it arrived. And until Kristie arrived.
I’m in bed and Ruby answers the front door. A few minutes later, Ruby comes into the room with pink cheeks. She’s dressed in my t-shirt, always pulls one off the floor the morning after a night in my bed, and walks around in the shirt and her panties for half the day, which is bloody distracting.
“You have a visitor,” she says coolly.
“Bryn?”
“Kristie.”
I sit and pull back hair from my face. “Crap. Okay. I’d forgotten she was coming.”
Ruby stares wide-eyed for a moment, then her face straightens into her neutral, closed-down expression. “I told her you would be down in a minute.”
“‘kay.”
Shit.
Kristie Dawson is a friend from years back. She’s older than me, widow of Sam Rayne, the front man of Easy Ride, who was as big as Phoenix in the ‘90s. Kristie has her own band, proving she had talent after accusations she only got a recording contract because she was riding the coat tails of her husband. When I was in LA last month, we hooked up as we always do. I completely forgot I arranged to meet Kristie when she came to London. She’s over for a media tour promoting an art house movie she’s in, playing someone who’s basically herself. We share a drug-filled past and were f-uck buddies before the phrase even existed.
Kristie is in the kitchen, sitting on the counter, when I get downstairs. Her platinum blonde hair is bobbed but styled to look like she just got out of bed. She favours the same style of make-up as Ruby and still wears the ‘90s bohemian mix of skirts and tatty jackets she always has. Although Kristie is ten years older than me (I suspect more) she’s smoothed some of her drug-damage with plastic surgery.
“I’m sorry, Kristie,” I say from the doorway. “I forgot we were meeting up.”
“Hey, no problem!” She walks over and places a hand on my cheek, her strong perfume reminding me of sex with this woman. “I’m good for a few hours. We can go for lunch? Is that little cafe still open? Loved the fries there!”
“Yeah, I guess.” I rub my tired eyes. “You should’ve called.”
Kristie laughs and pokes my ribs. “Because of the chick? She’ll know the score if she’s f-ucking Jem Jones.”
I cringe at Ruby being seen in that light. “She’s cool.” I hope.
“Shame, I was hoping you’d be alone,” says Kristie and runs a finger along the skin above my open shirt. “We always catch up when we’re in the same city, huh?”
As she moves to press herself against me, I turn to pull out coffee beans. “Make some coffee while I shower,” I tell her.
“Me?”
“You do know how to make coffee?”
“Yeah, babe, but I don’t normally make it for other people.”
“Fine.”
Kristie slides a hand in mine. “But, I guess you’re not other people.”
With a small smile, I tug my hand away and head back upstairs. Here’s a new emotion I haven’t had for a while. Guilt. But why guilt? I hooked up with Kristie last month but I hadn’t kissed Ruby at that point, she was just a girl in my daydreams. But in my experience, chicks don’t react well to other girls turning up at my house. Especially, when they’ve both been in my bed.
When I return to the bedroom, Ruby’s cross-legged on my bed and engrossed in my iPad. She glances at me as I come into the room then returns to what she’s doing.
“I know her,” she says. “I should’ve guessed you guys would be friends.”
“Yeah.”
Why isn’t she mad? I attempt to read her expression but we both know how good each other are at hiding.
“She said you’d arranged to meet up with her. You going out today then?” asks Ruby.
“If that’s okay.”
She arches and eyebrow. “Seriously, you’re not asking for my permission, are you, Jem Jones?”
Now I’m a bit lost. Good, she’s not being pissy and accusing me of sleeping with another woman and all the drama that entails, but not good if she doesn’t give a shit whether I do or not. Plus, I’ve noticed she uses my full name if she’s trying to distance herself by making me Jem Jones instead of her Jem.
Her Jem?
“I haven’t seen Kristie since I came back from LA.”
“You don’t need to justify yourself.” She scrolls through the iPad, not looking up. “I’m sure I’ll be able to entertain myself.”
“Just lunch.”
Ruby shrugs, focused on the screen. Confused as hell, I head for the shower.
****
Ruby
There is no reason for me to get upset about this. We never discussed exclusivity. I was dumb enough to think it was implied.
Tell that to the blotchy faced, teary girl in the mirror.
Did I honestly think Jem Jones would treat me any differently? That the guy who cares about nothing would care about me? Yes. Because he treats me as if I’m important. Hell, Jem even told me I was. Now I’m convinced I’ve spent the last week projecting the fantasy over the reality.
Well, then it’s time I stepped back to that reality and away from the weird world I’ve ensconced myself in with Jem.
Jem returns early afternoon. I hear the heavy front door and his familiar footsteps as I’m packing up my things from the spare room I haven’t slept in for days. One set of footsteps and no voices.
“Ruby?”
My hands shake as I pack a sweater into the rucksack, heart pushing into my mouth as Jem heads down the wooden hallway, approaching the room.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
Straightening, I take a deep breath, switch off, and turn to him. “I thought it was time I went home, back to the share house I mean.”
Jem leans on the doorframe and crosses his arms, and all I picture is Kristie lying against him, his long fingers stroking her hair. I shift my look to his mouth, remembering his touch and kiss, and furious with myself for caring.
“I knew you were bothered,” he says.
“Bothered? About what?” I pick more clothes from the bed.
“Seriously, Ruby? Don’t give me that bullshit. About Kristie.”
I straighten. “You went out for lunch with a friend. I presume she’s some kind of f-uck buddy, too. Why would I get annoyed about that? It’s not as if…” Shit. I focus on packing.
His tone hardens. “As if what?”
“It’s not as if we’re a couple. I mean, a committed relationship, in love, type of couple. It’s cool, Jem.”
He continues to watch me silently, and the hidden, stupid teen Ruby Tuesday wills Jem to come over, hold her and declare his love. I refuse to look around and instead behave as if he left.
“No, I don’t suppose we are,” he says quietly and walks away.
Taking shaky breaths, I inhale and squeeze my eyes shut, head tightening with the attempt not to cry. I slipped into this. Jem didn’t pull me. It’s not his fault.
Bag packed, I head to the lounge to grab my keys and phone from the coffee table. Jem’s watching TV, one arm across the back of the sofa as he flicks through the channels. He fills my life, and until this morning, it was as if nobody exists outside of us, but I know now he’s not mine. This happening is good; I was falling back into something I wasn’t ready for.
“I’ll see you on Monday at the studio,” I offer as I pick up my car keys.
Jem grunts. Oh, great, a male noise I recognise. An ‘I’m not talking to you’ grunt. What the hell did I do wrong here?
“Yes? Jem?”
“Yeah.”
“Enjoy your weekend,” I say brightly.
He turns to me, the expression on his face arresting. His eyes are darker, mouth pulled into a line I recognise from arguments we had early on. “Yeah, maybe I’ll call my ‘f-uck buddy’.”
I reel at his tone. “Whatever. Your life.”
“Exactly.” He returns to his clicking through TV channels.
“I’m not sure what I did wrong here, Jem.”
“Nothing.” He throws the controller onto the seat as a music channel appears.
“Okay, then. Bye.”
My foot has barely left the bottom stair in the hallway before Jem appears at the top of the stairs and calls my name. I turn back to him. “What?”
“I didn’t f-uck her. I mean, I’m not going to. Not anymore.”
“Please stop trying to justify yourself. I said it’s cool.”
“No, I want to tell you because if I did f-uck her, this would be over, right?”
I drop my bag. “Let me see. As an average person I think that my lover f-ucking another person may not be what I want.”
Jem takes a step down. “So if I’m not, and you’re my lover, what’s the problem?”
“No problem.”
“Then why are you leaving?” He walks down the rest of the steps. “I don’t want you to go.”
“It’s probably time I left. Things are better now, Dan’s under a restraining order and he hasn’t tried to contact me. He’s due in court soon, so I doubt he’ll make things worse for himself. I don’t need to hide here anymore.”
“You’re not hiding anymore, are you? You’re here because you want to be. I want you around. No more surprise visitors, I promise.”
I huff. “Jem, you are who you are. It’s all good.”
“No, it isn’t if you’re leaving. I said I don’t want you to go.”
“Why? Why do you want me around?”
Jem looks past me, the way he always does if I touch on things he doesn’t want to talk about. Fine. I bend to pick up my bag and Jem snaps his attention back to me.
“Because everything’s better with you here. I’m used to you being with me now.” He closes his hand over mine. “In my space, in my bed. Everything.”
“Used to me? That’s not the most romantic…” Oh, crap.
Jem’s eyes widen. “Romantic? You want romance?”
“No, I don’t believe in romantic love. You know that.”
“Hearts and flowers and teddy bears on cards are bullshit anyway. Stomach churning, breathlessness, and aching are closer to the truth,” he says.
“Pain?”
“Yeah, love is painful.”
“Then you’re doing it wrong.”
“I don’t do it at all. I don’t love.”
“No, of course. And neither do I.”
Touching on a subject we’ve never discussed is weird enough but the tension in the air between is stranger. In the small space, there’s barely room for the two of us to stand and not touch, and I’m scared if I try to leave, he’ll stop me. My legs wouldn’t work anyway, my stupid self is still waiting for him to hold me in his arms and profess the love he’s denying.
Jem takes my face in both hands and searches my eyes, the way he does when I’m sure he’s trying to read my mind. “So why do I want you as much as I do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is caring about you enough? Can we share enough of ourselves, but not so much we lose our grip on who we are?”
“Not all of ourselves?” I ask.
“Not everything.”
“Jem, if we don’t give all of ourselves, we can’t commit. And if we can’t commit, there’s nothing to cement this. I think the problem is neither of us wants to have a relationship.”
“Commit.” He wrinkles his nose and drops his hands from my face. “I can commit to you that I won’t touch another woman while you’re in my life. Is that what you want?”
His definition of commitment is what I’d expect of him. Jem can give himself to me physically, but keep an important part hidden.
“What I want from you is something I’m not prepared to give you myself,” I tell him.
“What do you want?”
“Your heart.”
The expression that crosses Jem’s face is wide-eyed shock, he turns away rubbing his neck. The link I felt to him snaps. “Shit, Ruby.”
“That’s the issue here.”
Jem bumps his rear onto the bottom step. The light from the tiny window casts across the hallway, the dust in the sunbeams like stars in the sky. The silence tells me everything I need to know. How could this ever work if we constantly push each other away? I can’t have another relationship where I doubt my worth, where somebody takes but won’t give. Realistically, I shouldn’t get into a relationship at all.
“I didn’t think I had a heart,” he says, quietly. “But you found it and pushed life in. You already took my heart, Ruby.”
My heart stutters at his unexpected words. “I didn’t, Jem. I haven’t tried to make you love me.”
“I never said I love you. I said you’ve taken my heart.” Jem’s mumbling his admission to the floor, not me.
“Explain what you mean.”
He shakes his head and looks up. “I’m a guy. I don’t talk about this shit.”
“Guess what? You’re going to have to or I’m walking out of the door.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say!”
“I need you to explain what ‘this’ is. Then at least we both know and we can stop the second-guessing and confusion. Then we can decide what to do. I can decide what to do.”
Jem taps the wooden step next to him, the sound echoing in the small space. He can’t do this, refuses to do what we need to stop our merry-go-round of confusion. One tiny admission is all I’m getting, I guess.
I turn to the door.
“Ruby, I can’t explain what I don’t understand.”
Turning back, I meet his hassled look. “I’ll tell you what you make me feel and then if you recognise any of the symptoms, just let me know.”
“Sure,” he says with a small laugh. “Might help.”
I’ve lain myself open to people before and ended up shredded to pieces, and the longer I leave it before I tell what’s hidden, the harder I’ll fall when I discover I’m alone in my feelings. This time I’ll admit everything and if Jem can’t tell me what I need to hear in return, I can end this before my need for love sees me making shit decisions again.
I cross my arms. “Well, there’s the stomach churning, breathlessness, and chest-aching I have right now which I’m sure isn’t the flu.”
“Yep. That’s what I was talking about before, but that’s not a good thing.”
“There’s the constant desire to be close to you I’ve had for weeks.”
“Right.”
I inhale. How much am I risking by doing this? “There’s the calm of being in your arms and feeling as if the rest of the world doesn’t exist and doesn’t need to.” Oh, God, I sound like a bad romance novel.
Jem stares at his feet. “Yeah. That too. Okay.”
“Help me out here, Jem. I’m opening up to you.”
“There’s an emptiness when you’re not here.” Jem looks up warily and I raise an expectant eyebrow. “Shit. Okay, there’s the way time stands still when I’m away from you and passes too quickly when I’m with you.”
“Yes?”
He stands. “I can’t do this.”
“I didn’t think you could; it’s okay.” I say and smile through the lie.
“No, it’s not okay. f-uck.” Jem rubs his temples and closes his eyes. As he releases the breath, something else comes too and he closes the gap between us. Jem strokes my cheek with the back of his hand, the touch soothing the hollow ache that was beginning. “One smile, one look, and one touch from you blasts my world so full of colour it f-ucking blinds me.”
Only Jem could use the word f-uck in an explanation of his feelings… He circles an arm around my waist and grips my back, holding me to him so I can’t move. This is safe. I can tell him. Tentatively I put my arms around his neck; if I touch him, I can say this.
“What hurts is, being with you is the most natural place in the world, and I’m frightened one day you’ll push me out. Like today, her…”
Jem nudges my cheek, winding his fingers into my hair. “No, not her. She means nothing and never has. I’m not interested in anyone else because I have a gut wrenching fear of my own. If I lose you, I’ll lose a part of myself I recently found.”
I loosen his hands. “No, I’m not trying to take part of you.”
“I mean you match me, a reflection of my past come back to show me who I can be again. I get you. You get me.”
This. Why can’t these words have been spoken before? “You make me feel it’s okay to be me, not who you want me to be,” I whisper.
“Never be anything but yourself, because that person means a hell of a lot to me.” Jem cups my cheek in his hand and kisses me; his lips barely touch mine, but push away any remaining inclination I have to walk out of the door. “Don’t leave. Please.”
“So what is this?” I ask.
“I don’t know what this is, but it’s ours.”
“I guess everything else about us is different to normal.”
“Ruby, I’m crap with words and expressing myself, that’s bloody obvious. But each time I touch you or kiss you, I’m telling you everything we just said.” Jem runs his fingertips across my skin, tracing the heart-shaped tattoo on my chest. “I’m telling you, you have my heart.”
“Jem, that’s getting close to romantic. Next it will be flowers and teddy bears and texts with kisses.”
“No way!” I laugh at his doubtful look. “But you’re staying, right? I said enough?”
“Yes.”
“Thank f-uck for that!”
Jem seizes me around the waist and lifts me; I wrap my legs around Jem’s waist, take his face in both hands, and kiss him. Kiss Jem as if it’s the first time and only time, desperate and hungry. This isn’t the first or last, but he’s finally my Jem. He tastes of the man who’s turned my body from something used or beaten to something filled with an intense desire I’d never dreamt of. I’m rewound to those times – from Jem holding me when I needed support, to the intensity of sex when I craved us. This desire burns through, intensified by the words exchanged and the pull into our safe place again.
“I don’t deserve this,” Jem says.
“What?”
“You. I do so much wrong to people; I’m scared I’ll hurt someone else again.”
I rest my forehead on his. “Jem Jones, shut up and just f-ucking kiss me.”
He nips my bottom lip, and smiles against my mouth. “Ah, Ruby Tuesday, your mouth…”
No more words, enough have been exchanged today. If we carry on talking, I’ll obsess about the words we can’t use, at the place in our souls we can’t allow anyone in. Jem’s heart thumps against my chest at a speed to match mine, hearts marching in a new rhythm.