Can you take some time off tonight and meet me @ Brynn’s @ six for a date?
Ruby read Luke’s text for the second time, and tried to convince herself their first proper date was not a bad thing. But the sinking feeling in her stomach wasn’t cooperating.
Luke had finished repainting the foyer two days ago.
They’d had an impromptu staff party yesterday to christen the new look front of house area. Jacie had bought two cheap bottles of fizz from the cash and carry down the road, Gerry had supplied the plastic cups, Beryl had produced some inedible cupcakes – which had a movie theme no one could decipher – and Ruby had given a speech thanking Luke for all of his hard work while trying not to blush knowing his hard work on the theatre’s infrastructure wasn’t the only work she appreciated. It had been even more of a struggle not to tear up at the knowledge Luke would be gone soon. But when the party had broken up and he hadn’t said anything, she’d convinced herself they might still have a few days, maybe even a week left to enjoy each other.
But as she reread the text again, she wondered, was the hammer about to fall?
Why else would he want to take her on a date, somewhere public, unless he had something to say he thought she might get over-emotional about? And why had he disappeared two hours before the pensioners’ early-bird screening had started? Was he packing even now, preparing to catch a night flight back to Manhattan?
The hole in her stomach hurt as she tapped out a deliberately nonchalant don’t-worry-Luke-I’m-not-going-to-have-a-breakdown reply.
No probs, Jace can cover for me, I’ll see you there.
‘Hey, Jace, can I ask you a favour?’ she shouted above the hoover her friend was using to suck the last of the crumbs from Beryl’s rock-hard cupcakes off the newly washed carpet before the pensioners started arriving.
Jace kicked the machine’s switch to cut off the noise. ‘Yup.’
‘I’ve got to go out, could you watch the fort until …’ She paused, how long was Luke’s parting speech likely to take? Would he want to come back to the flat tonight? The questions only made her stomach hurt more. ‘Until closing?’ she asked.
Even if their break-up drinks didn’t last that long, and he didn’t fancy a goodbye shag, she was likely to be in bits. No harm in scheduling time for a mini-breakdown until tomorrow morning.
‘Sure, where are you going?’ Jacie asked.
Ruby pressed her lips together to stop them wobbling. She really needed to get that reaction under control before she got to Brynn’s or she was likely to completely screw up the finale of The Ruby Movie.
If she could survive without Matty, she could survive without Luke. And it wouldn’t even hurt as much, once she got over the loss. Because Luke wasn’t dead, he just wasn’t ever meant to be a permanent fixture in her life.
The Ruby Movie didn’t need a man for its Happy Ever After. Because The Ruby Movie was a feminist romcom. No lovesick nonsense allowed.
‘Just to Brynn’s. I’m meeting Luke for a drink,’ she said, the wobble all but undetectable.
Jace propped her elbow on the hoover’s wand and studied Ruby. ‘Why do you need to go out to meet him when he’s going to be scaling the fire escape later?’
Ruby blinked. Fine, she knew they hadn’t fooled Jace, or probably anyone else for that matter – the amount of well-meant “bedroom tips” she’d been getting from Beryl was actually scary – but did Jacie have to be quite so direct?
‘Because we’re just going to be talking, I guess,’ she replied, deciding to meet direct with direct.
‘What are you going to be talking about?’
‘Isn’t it obvious?’ Ruby said, no longer able to hold on to the wobble.
Dropping the hoover wand, Jacie strode over to the box office counter where Ruby had been busy restocking the popcorn maker before she’d gotten Luke’s text of doom.
‘Rubes?’ She threw her arm over Ruby’s shoulder, gave her a comforting squeeze – which managed to hold the wobble back, thank goodness. ‘Has Luke done something? Said something?’ Jacie asked, her incredulity a sign that even she had discovered Luke’s charms. ‘You’ve been so happy in the last few weeks. I thought you guys were having fun together?’
‘We are …’ She gulped past the blockage in her throat. ‘Or rather we were. But I think he’s going to tell me he’s flying home tonight.’ She brushed her hair back from her face, sniffed loudly, and stepped out of Jacie’s hug, feeling foolish now, as well as wobbly.
She’d always known this would happen. Why was she taking it so hard? Perhaps it was just that with Luke gone she wouldn’t have him to lean on when she and Jacie did the presentation they’d been working on for The Rialto tomorrow morning. She hadn’t spoken to him about it, at all, because they’d both been careful to avoid any questions about The Royale’s future.
But without Luke’s sturdy, steady presence by her side, as a lover and a friend, and his expert skills in the sack to send her into an endorphin coma, reality just seemed that much more real.
This wobble wasn’t really about Luke and his imminent departure, this was about her and all the pressure she’d been busy refusing to acknowledge since they’d begun their nightly bonkfests. Avoidance had been wonderful while it lasted, but she couldn’t spend the rest of her life relying on Luke to make her feel good.
‘Perhaps you could persuade him to stay?’ Jacie offered.
Ruby’s heart punched her ribs as she shook her head.
‘No, I couldn’t. And even if I could …’ And luckily, even she had never been that delusional. ‘I wouldn’t.’
Jacie shrugged, but didn’t argue the point.
As Ruby headed upstairs to prepare for her first – and probably last – proper date with Luke Devlin, the hole in her stomach didn’t feel quite so bottomless.
She and Jacie had worked up a brilliant proposal and they’d gotten the green light from The Rialto to make the presentation tomorrow. She didn’t need Luke to save her, because she’d always been capable of saving herself.
She was going to make the Happy Ever After finale of The Ruby Movie happen even if Luke Devlin was about to leave the building.
***
‘Hey, Ruby, long time no see,’ Brynn wiped down the bar and sent Ruby his sauciest smile when she stepped into the local pub three minutes after six o’clock. The place wasn’t too packed yet because it was a week night before ten and Brynn wasn’t doing any of his special events to attract customers like Drag Singalong, or Drag Stand-Up or Drag Queens’ Quiz Night.
‘Hi, Brynn,’ she said, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darker light inside the bar.
‘By the way, Ruby, do you fancy some free entertainment for your Babs and Bob night on Saturday? I thought I could do my version of The Way We Were for the punters. I know how much Matty adored that song.’
‘And your rendition of it,’ Ruby added, smiling. ‘That would be absolutely wonderful, Brynn, I’ll stick it on the poster, if you’re sure?’
‘Course I am, honey,’ he said, then pointed her towards the back of the bar, beside the stage. ‘Your man’s in the corner booth waiting on you. You want me to fix you a lemon-tini?’ he added with a wink.
‘Yes, please.’
Your man? Had her and Luke’s liaison been a secret from anyone at all?
She hesitated by the bar, not wanting to dash straight over to Luke and give away her eagerness.
‘You go on, I’ll bring it over,’ Brynn said, picking up on her eagerness anyway. So much for subtlety.
As she approached the back of the bar, Luke had his head down, tapping out something on his phone with both thumbs – probably travel plans – and nursing a Sam Adams, which she now knew was his favourite craft beer. Funny to think of all the pieces of useless information you could pick up about a man after sleeping with him every night for close to three weeks.
Spotting her, he clicked the phone to sleep mode and stood up as she approached.
Had it really only been twenty days?
She absorbed his muscular physique in the dark designer suit, the jacket unbuttoned and the perfect crease in the trousers. He looked like the man she’d first seen up close in Ryker’s office, rich and reserved, and nothing like the man who had lived in worn overalls and a tool belt doing manual labour for the past five and a half weeks.
‘Hi, Ruby, glad you could make it,’ he said, touching her arm and guiding her into the seat across from him. ‘Is that a new dress? I haven’t seen you in it before,’ he said, his gaze skating over the green satin mini-dress she’d taken out of mothballs.
‘Let’s be honest, you haven’t seen me in much except my Royale T-shirt,’ she said, trying to smile flirtatiously past the ball of misery forming in her throat.
Why did everything seem so formal all of a sudden? And why was having that hot appreciative gaze on her once more only making this tougher?
‘I’m starting to believe in kismet,’ he said, his gaze finally returning to her. ‘Because the dress is perfect for what I had in mind for tonight.’
‘It is? What did you have in mind?’ she asked because his gaze had gone past formal straight to feral, and as much as she wanted to keep it there, the not knowing what the heck was going on was not relieving the tension in her tummy.
‘I need you to rescue me.’ He covered her hand on the table and stroked his thumb across the knuckles, making heat coat the knots in her stomach. ‘Please tell me you got Jace to sub for the whole night?’
‘I did.’
He lifted her fingers and kissed the knuckles, just as Brynn arrived with her lemon-tini.
‘Here you go, Honey, although it doesn’t look to me like you need it,’ Brynn said with a conspiratorial smile which made Luke chuckle before the bar owner left again.
Lifting the frosty glass, Luke handed it to her. ‘Here, drink up, you’re gonna need it.’
She picked the lemon slice off the rim and took a quick sip of the citrusy cocktail. ‘Why?’
‘Because tonight we’re going to the preview of my mom’s one-woman show.’
Ruby let out a delighted laugh, the burst of relief flooding through her veins with the liquor. ‘But that’s …’
Wonderful. Amazing. Awe-inspiring. And not a goodbye. Not yet.
‘Likely to be painfully cheesy,’ Luke supplied with a playful shudder which made her feel as if she had just landed in Oz. ‘I need you with me, to protect me from death by a thousand clichés.’
‘You shouldn’t talk like that about Helena Devlin,’ she said taking a jauntier sip of her lemon-tini. ‘I’m sure her show is going to be incredible.’
And Ruby was going to be one of the first people to see it.
‘Your mum is an icon,’ she added.
But it wasn’t Helena’s status as an actress, a performer, a personality, even a legendary love goddess that was making Ruby so excited.
Tonight she was going to get the chance to meet Luke’s mother. And sleep with him. Again.
After her brief conversation with Helena over the phone all those weeks ago, and years of devouring her exploits in movie magazines, and the few things that Luke had let drop about her, Ruby would always have been curious and excited to meet her.
But what intrigued her most of all now was the thought of seeing Helena with her son, and getting a new insight into the man she’d fallen in— She cut off the thought, hastily reconfigured it … Fallen in lust with.
‘Don’t you dare tell her that,’ he said, sending her a quelling smile over the neck of his beer bottle. ‘Or this is going to be an even bigger ordeal.’
‘Bring it on,’ she said, clinking her glass with Luke’s bottle, and sending heartfelt thanks to whoever might be watching over her tonight.