“She didn’t say no,” he says.
“What do you think ‘I don’t care’ means?” she says.
Ryder takes the plate and leaves. I turn my head to watch him go back to the kitchen.
An especially annoying part of the week: the way Ryder’s ass looks in his jeans. Small and firm and round. Also, his shirts—fitted enough to let an observer appreciate his muscular back, but not tight. And the way he walks, his long legs stretching with an athlete’s stride, strong and sure of his body, every step purposeful, confident, sexy.
Relentlessly irritating.
“Other than moving Ryder down on the masturbation priority list,” Shelby says, “what are you doing tomorrow?”
I chuckle. “Oh, things that are even lower masturbation priority. Laundry.
The grocery store. And I think I’m out of bathtub cleaner.”
“Well, if you can tear yourself away from that very promising agenda of excitement, Avery and Ruby and I are doing a little girls’ day shopping excursion, if you’d want to join?”
The idea of crisscrossing Lenox Square with Shelby and Avery and Ruby makes me immediately regretful I didn’t just take the cash from Ryder the other day. But I still have a little bit in the bank account I set up before I left England, and what goes better with a new haircut than new clothes? “I would love to.”
“Good. Here’s my card. My cell’s on there. Text me so I’ll have your number and then I’ll call you in the morning to meet up.” She slides off the stool, putting her bag over her shoulder. “But don’t worry, it won’t be too early. I have a rule about Saturday mornings,” she says. “I skip them til they’re Saturday afternoons.”
***
True to her word, it’s after twelve when Shelby calls me the next day, and by two o’clock I’m strolling along the sidewalks of Virginia Highland with her and Avery and Ruby, meandering in and out of the neat little clothing boutiques with their local, handmade jewelry and silk-screen printed t-shirts and billowy spaghetti strap maxi dresses. I love shopping at Lenox, but it’s such a beautiful summer day—warm but not too humid, sunny but not blinding—that I’m glad we’re getting to spend it outside.
We sip the lemonades that Avery bought us all while we browse shoes. Ruby holds up a pair of stilettos, shiny and red, like they’ve been lacquered in nail polish. “Thoughts?” she says.
“Like,” says Avery.
“Like,” says Shelby.
“Love,” I say.
Ruby hands them to me. “You should try them on then,” she says. “I can’t deny someone something they love.”
Avery and Shelby laugh. “What?” Ruby says.
“At Nordstrom last week, you practically punched the woman who took the only size seven in those Tory Burch sandals you liked,” Avery says.
Ruby tosses her head, her copper ponytail landing over her shoulder. “That woman was wearing Birkenstocks with socks. There’s no way she’s appreciating those sandals as much as I would have,” she says.
Shelby rolls her eyes. “You sound like Jackson when he sees someone driving a Maserati,” she says. “One time we got behind one in Buckhead and, totally seriously, he actually said he thought the car would prefer him at the wheel.”
“He knows Cars is not a documentary, right?” Ruby says. “And anyway, Jackson drives a Porsche. What’s he jealous of?”
“That’s the deal with all three of those boys,” Shelby says.
Avery inspects a pair of leopard-print slingbacks on the shelf. “They always want what they don’t have.”
“Or what they can’t get,” Shelby says.
“Which, let’s face it, isn’t most things,” Ruby says. “I mean, how many times have you ever seen anyone withhold something from any of those guys?”
Shelby slides into a pair of black snakeskin heels and examines them in front of a full-length mirror. “Jackson’s been like that since we were kids,” she says, turning to the side, looking at her reflection over her shoulder. “He’d get into trouble, but when the smile came out and the charm turned on with the teacher or our mom or the baby-sitter, it was like their short-term memory was erased or something.”
“Remember how Cash was seeing that one girl a while back and then he decided he kind of liked her roommate, too?” Avery says.
“Oh, yeah,” Ruby says, shaking her head. She leans toward me to dish, a smirk playing across her lips. “So one night he makes out with the roommate in a booth at Altitude, like, not even trying to hide it, and that’s when the first girl walks into the bar.”
“Oh wow,” I say. “So…totally busted?”
“Not even,” Ruby sighs.
“A flash of dimples later and he goes home with both of them!” Avery says.
“Just another average night at Altitude,” Shelby says, teetering in the snakeskin heels to rifle through a nearby rack of dresses. “Where the sky’s the limit on good martinis and bangable chicks.”