Ruby

"How was it?" Garrett asks as soon as he comes in from his way-too-early work out class the next morning.

He's sweaty and wearing shorts and a tank top, even though it's very much fall now. I watch as he drops his bag and walks through the room towards me. God, he's such an attractive man, even all glistening with sweat. He takes care of himself and he has always taken care of me.

Taking in a breath, I put down the book I was reading. I'm trying to decide what to tell him. In three years, I'm not sure I've ever lied to Garrett.

    "Eventful," I finally answer.

    "Okay, that wasn't what I was expecting. Did you have fun?" he asks, running a hand through his hair.

    "At first, it was kind of..." I let my voice trail off. I don't know how to explain it.

    "I'm on the edge of my seat here, Ru. You went out on your own for the first time in forever and I need the details," he tells me, and then laughs.

    "Well, you also need a shower," I say quickly, hoping to change the subject.

He sniffs the air around himself. "True. But how was the music? As in, how was Jakoby?"

I think back to that song that he very obviously wrote about me. It was good. His voice was so soothing and it  made me feel too much. I made sure not to bring it up during the ten minutes drive to his apartment before I came home.

    "He mostly plays covers. But he's pretty good," I tell Garrett.

    "Nice. And... did you get to talk to him afterwards, or..."

I sigh. I have to tell him the truth about what happened in the bar. There's no way to keep this from him.

    "After I kicked a guy in the balls for groping me, and I ran out the back door."

Garrett's expression changes. "Oh, god. You're serious?"

    "I was hyperventilating, G. This asshole just pinned me to wall and starting touching me-"

    "No. Fuck, I shouldn't have told you to go." His face looked pained. "Fuck."

    "I was fine. Nothing really happened. And then suddenly Jakoby was there. He cut his set short and came out to find me," I explain, watching for Garrett's reaction to this.

He manages a smile even though I can tell he's still upset about what I told him. "Okay. I think I like this guy already."

Yeah, me too.

"I ended up driving him home, and I was home by 10P.M.," I finish, hoping Garrett doesn't ask for any more details.

    "You sure you're okay? I can't believe that happened," he asks instead.

I nod at Garrett, who's still just standing near me. "I swear. I sort of cracked my forehead into his cheek and my head was pounding for a bit. It feels fine today."

    "Jesus, Ru. No more bars for you." Garrett smiles and finally plops down onto the couch beside me.

    "Definitely not," I agree. "That was a one time thing."

    "So, are you going to see Jakoby again? I think I kind of need to meet him now."

  I should have been expecting this.

    "I don't know, G. He's so... sweet. He's like... innocent, sort of. Like nothing bad has every happened to him. We're too different," I tell my best friend.

But inside, I want to see him again. I hope I get to. I dropped him off at his apartment building across town last night and he got out of the car without anything more than a smile and a thank you.

    "You need some sweet in your life, Ruby," Garrett tells me now, grinning.

    "You're sweet," I say, and then laugh.

    "No, I'm not. I'm your best friend. But you're twenty one, just working and reading books and hanging out with me and Bet-"

He says this as if how I spend my time is a problem. It's not. I wonder why he's trying to push this all of a sudden. He's never really cared what I did with my time before this.

    "Are you and Bet sleeping together?" I interrupt, happy for the subject change.

Garrett grunts, looking surprised. "I thought that was obvious."

    "I guess. She's so great, though. Don't mess it up," I tell him.

    Bet is such a cool girl and even though she's more Garrett's friend than mine, I like her a lot. It's been nice to have a friend around, besides Garrett. I can talk to her about girl stuff.

    "We're not dating, Ruby."

I was definitely expecting this. Garrett has something against conventionally dating girls. He has a ton of friends, a lot of which are girls, and he very much enjoys casual sex, but he doesn't date.

    "Okay. I don't understand why you never date the girls you have sex with. You're always sleeping with someone," I say, looking over at him.  He gives me a warning look.

    "You don't date, either. You don't get a say in it." He shakes his head.

    "No, but I don't go around having sex with anyone, either," I snap back. I was teasing at first but now it's turned more serious.

Garrett's eyes change slightly and I know what's he's thinking. He's thinking about how he and I had sex, how I was the one who started him on this "sex only" mission. I was young and stupid and he felt things for me he shouldn't have. That was a long time ago.

"You should, though. No, never mind. You should date. Start with Jakoby," Garrett finishes.

"You should start with a shower," I say, and then burst out laughing as he sticks out his tongue at me and then stands up to head down to the bathroom. Just like that, our serious moment is over.

The truth is, Garrett and I have a strong relationship. Somehow, we always have. When we met, he was the first person in a long time to treat me like I mattered, and I fell in love with him, fast. He made me feel like love was a real thing, not just something that happens in romance novels or movies.

I was eighteen, living in a shelter that he volunteered at a couple of times a week. I remember our eyes meeting a few times before that first day we talked. And then it was as if he was the only person I was ever meant to meet. He was always so nice to me, and I found out once we had our first real conversation that he had been a foster kid, too. No one had been nice to me in years. I had no friends, no family, but Garrett saw me.

Three months after we first met, he took me to his house for dinner. His foster parents - turned adopted parents - saw this tiny, broken girl and felt sorry for me. Even though I was a bit over eighteen, they took me in. They said I could stay with them as long as I promised to work all my work to get my GED, since I'd dropped out of high school in junior year. I got to see Garrett every day and six months later I wrote and passed the test.

Up until this point, Garrett and I were just friends. We weren't supposed to sleep in the same room, but he would sneak into my room after his parents went to bed and we would hang out. It was summer, I was almost nineteen, when I told him I loved him. He tried to convince me that I didn't, that I was confused. But I knew what I was feeling. I knew it because I'd never felt it before. My heart beat for him, and I wanted him to know. But then, suddenly, he moved out. He got his own apartment with a friend and he said it was because he needed to be on his own.

I was mad at him for weeks.  Thankfully, I was able to stay at Garrett's parent's house for a few more months. I even helped with the two younger foster kids, JoJo and Kylie, sometimes. Jane and Mike, Garrett's adopted parents, treated me like their own, and I am still so grateful for them.

One night, about a month after Garrett moved out, he called the house line. I was the only one home so I answered it, even though I didn't know it was him.

"Don't hang up," he whispered into my ear. "I miss you, Ru."

"You left me," I snapped at him.

"I thought it was the right thing to do. Put space between us. I didn't want you to get kicked out because of anything happening between us," Garrett explained.

"I miss you, too," I finally told him, tears in my eyes.

"Come stay with me tonight?" he asked, and it was like all of the anger I'd been feeling towards him was gone in an instant.

I knew what he was asking and I'd never wanted anything more than I wanted that. I wanted to take back control of my body after all of the abuse that I had received as a teenager, and giving it to Garrett made perfect sense to me. I wasn't a virgin when Garrett and I had sex for the first time that night, but it was the first time that sex meant anything to me.

*

Now, though, things between us are completely platonic. I don't know how we got to this point. When I finally moved out of his parents' house and into his apartment - after the friend he'd been living with had to move out - we'd been secretly have sex with each other for months. It was random and casual, at least for him. For me, every time we connected in that way I fell more and more in love with him. I knew he felt the same, but he was too scared to admit it. When he finally told me that he loves me too, but not in the same way, I acted like I didn't care. I pretended to be fine with it. But we stopped having sex after that. It was too confusing for me.

Since then, for the past two years, I've had to watch the steady flow of girls he's sleeping with come and go through our apartment. I don't exactly feel jealous any more, because I never wanted just sex with him. At least he doesn't give his heart to anyone else. I also have to watch him walk around the apartment half naked, just out of the shower. Like right now.

"Put some clothes on," I call across the room. I can't focus on my book when I can see his bare chest, still wet from his shower.

"Bet's on her way over. I'm just grabbing a snack," he answers, like this is no big deal.

I force a smile at him and go back to trying to reading.

"Seriously, Ru. You should give this guy a chance," Garrett says, on his way back out of the kitchen.

I want to give Jakoby a chance, but I'm not sure how. Everything I felt while he was playing that song? It was the same feelings as when I fell in love with Garrett. It was like this guy finally sees me and sees who I really am. It was as if he and I were the only two people in the room - until I was harassed, of course. I don't believe in happy endings, not for me. So I don't think there's any reason why I should let myself feel anything for Jakoby. Pushing him away might even be the best idea.