Rising (Blue Phoenix, #4)(24)

She swallows the mouthful. “Are you discussing eating habits with me, Jem Jones?”

“Just saying. At least you’re eating.” She frowns at me. “You look better.”

Ruby’s face has lost the gauntness. A couple of days eating properly and she looks better, even if she’s still skinny as hell.

“Right.” Pink tinges her cheeks.

“You don’t have to stay in your room all the time when you’re here. I don’t mind you trying different rooms in my house as long as you keep out of my space.”

She turns her blue eyes to mine, and licks the sauce from the noodles off her bottom lip. Those lips. f-uck. “I’m happier on my own, too.”

“Oh. Okay. Well, just saying.” I stand, is she trying to drop a hint?

“No, I hope you don’t think I’m being rude though.” Ruby puts the bowl down and stands too.

“Nah. I’ve never lived with a chick before so I’m not sure what to do.”

Ruby stares at me as if I have something sprouting out of my head. “Really?”

“No. Or anyone. I guess I like being on my own. Touring, I have my own room. Sometimes I stay with one of the other guys, but I’ve never done the whole house share thing.”

“Oh. Sorry, I won’t stay much longer.”

“That’s not what I meant. You’re cool to stay here. It’s not like we’re really living together, is it?”

“Definitely not. You hide in your room; I’ll hide in mine and we’ll get along fine,” Ruby says with a smirk.

“Yeah.” I tuck my hands beneath my arms. “That way we can avoid not knowing what to say to each other.”

Ruby nods and sits back down, curling her legs under and resuming her shit meal.

Thing is, I want to sit with her. But I don’t.





Chapter Twelve



Jem



Ruby’s creeping into my life; the way the morning sun shines through the curtains and crosses the bed until eventually the light shines in your face and you can’t hide anymore. The brightness is outside? waiting. You just have to get up and let the warmth in.

Her presence in the house isn’t just the scent of her perfume that drifts toward me when I walk through the door; but little things like somebody else’s food in my cupboard, bits and pieces of her life spread across the kitchen counter. Ruby tidies after herself, attempting to minimise her impact, but however hard we hide from each other and stick to minimal contact, we’re clearly sharing the same space. The last person who stayed here was Bryn and that was for three days. Ruby’s been here over a week now.

Usually, I’m out until the evening, but I arrive home early from a meeting and come across Ruby sitting on the floor of the downstairs lounge with paper surrounding her, lidless coloured marker pens spread across the table. Her guitar is slung over her skinny shoulders, hair pulled on top of her head in a loose bun. When she looks around in surprise, the thing that hits me the most is her face is clear of make-up.

With her pale lips and eyes free from heavy eyeliner, Ruby’s vulnerability shows through. She looks her age for once; but in her eyes, she’s older. We’re caught in one of our moments, and this time I can see more of her because she’s only half Ruby. Is this Tuesday? She rubs her long fingers across her lips and, as ever, I wish I could taste them.

“Sorry, I’ll clear up.” Ruby pulls her guitar from over her shoulder and gathers the pens from the table.

“You don’t have to, I was going upstairs anyway.”

“To your den?” she asks with a smile.

“To my den.” I pick up a red marker. “Sweet pens. I didn’t realise you liked colouring.”

“Ha, ha. I’m writing.” Ruby lifts up a piece of paper containing unintelligible lines in different colours.

“Secret code? Cool.”

“I guess it is.”

I take the paper and examine the markings. I know what this is; and if I’m right, this is something else I wish wasn’t part of Ruby. “I can decipher this.”

She looks at me doubtfully. “Sure you can.”

Sitting on the leather sofa, I pick up her guitar. Ruby opens her mouth to protest, as I would if somebody picked up one of mine. They’re an extension of myself; touching them is like touching me. “Pass me a sheet,” I say as I loop the strap over my neck.

Ruby’s way of writing the notes is different, the scrawl harder to decipher because her colours are different. I play a couple of notes attempting to figure out which colours they match. The chords fall into place and I strum the opening lines of the song she’s writing.

“How can you know that?” she asks quietly.

“This is music. It’s a bit tricky because your E chord is yellow, that’s the colour of my C,” I tell her. “And your C Minor is orange, mine’s green. Some of our notes match though.”

Ruby lowers herself onto the glass coffee table and continues to stare. “You have synaesthesia? You see music as colours?”

I nod and concentrate on playing. “This is half-decent. Did you write this today?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you always write music like this?”

“The only way I know how, I taught myself.”