Shacking Up (Shacking Up (Shacking Up 1)

Ruby makes an uncomfortable noise. “I think I took too much.”

“Your eyes are bigger than your stomach,” I observe. She’s only managed to get through half the contents on her plate.

She pats her stomach. “It appears that way.”

When her shirt was sticking to her skin in the shower I noted the definition there. She’s in very, very good shape. I drag my eyes back up, which means I’m looking at her chest for a second before I meet her eyes. “Did you leave room for dessert?”

It comes out heavy sounding, and a little raspy.

Ruby’s eyes flare and then her lids lower, so does her voice. “Dessert?”

“I always order dessert when I get takeout from this place. It’s in the fridge.”

“Oh. Right. I might need a little time for my stomach to settle before I can put anything else in there.” She rubs it a few times for emphasis.

I try to keep my eyes in safe zones, away from her chest.

She clears her throat. “Now that we’re cleaned and fed should we go through the house rules?”

“Right. Of course. Hold on.” I push away from the table and cross the kitchen to retrieve the binder I put together. Since I’m away for such an extended period I wanted to make sure I cover all possible scenarios.

“Wow. You have a binder?” Ruby looks like she’s trying not to laugh.

“There are a lot of things that need to be covered.”

“Uh huh.”

“Your tone implies you think this is excessive.”

She takes the binder from me and opens it. “How many pages is this? More than a hundred?”

“It’s ninety-eight. Francesca and Tiny have very specific needs.”

“Ninety-eight pages of needs.” She leafs through it and mutters, “I wish someone was this in tune to my needs.”

I bite my tongue and say nothing about how I’m sure I could attend to every single damn one of them if she’d like to go back to my bedroom and play “hide and seek” in my sheets with me. “It’s not all about Tiny and Francesca. It also contains codes, passwords, fire safety, where to locate things, how to use various technological equipment, public transit information, areas to avoid, that kind of thing.”

“Is there a section on how to make the bed? Do you have a diagram for hospital corners?”

“I trust in your ability to make your bed however you see fit.”

She stops flipping, jabbing her finger at the page. “You have instructions on how to use the washer and dryer.”

“This is coming from someone who got stuck in the shower because she couldn’t figure out how to adjust the temperature or work the jets. Besides, they can be difficult to figure out.” It took me three loads to get what was going on at first.

“I’m more of a visual learner. Why don’t you show me all this stuff? Do you have a checklist? Maybe a star chart? I can have dessert when I earn five stars.” Her eyes light up with the same mischief I caught a glimpse of when she was playing with Francesca on my bed.

I spend the next hour going over everything in the house, from where to dispose of the garbage to how to use the TV remote, to where to find Francesca and Tiny’s food. Ruby appears as if she’s paying close attention. When she has a question she puts her hand on my arm and looks up at me with wide, inquisitive eyes.

I’m in the middle of showing her where to find the pots and pans should she want to cook when she walks away from me.

“Um, what is this?” She taps the table across from Tiny’s terrarium.

“It’s an answering machine.”

“What year is it from? Nineteen-eighty?”

She’s probably pretty close.

“It even has the mini-cassette tape!” She appears flabbergasted. “You have a cell phone, don’t you?”

“I do.”

“Then why do you have this?” Ruby picks it up and it takes everything in me not to freak out and tear it out of her hands.

Instead I gently pry the machine away from her and set it carefully back on the table, brushing away any dust or fingerprints. “It’s nostalgic.”

“Because you were born at the end of the decade?” She’s sort of poking fun, but her voice is soft, and she seems more curious now than anything.

“It was my grandmother’s. She’d had it forever. The tapes were so hard to find so I figured I would try to teach her how to use a cell phone. She kept saying no, and I kept trying to persuade her.”

“Did you?”

I nod. “I told her we could play poker against each other all the time and she was sold.”

Ruby laughs. “She’s a card shark?”

“She was.”

“It sounds like you’re close.”

“We were. She passed away last year.” I’d been away at the time and almost missed the funeral, much like I’d missed a lot of things relating to my family. That’s why I’m glad to be back in New York.

“I’m so sorry.” Ruby reaches out and puts her hand on my arm, giving it a soft squeeze.

“Me, too. She was a great woman. She was the mastermind behind the whole hotel empire, although my grandfather took all the glory for that. Anyway, when we were cleaning out her place I found the answering machine and took it. It was one of those things . . . I should probably get rid of it, but . . .”

“I think it’s sweet.”

“Hardly anyone calls me on that line. My mother sometimes does. There’s a manual in here if you run into issues.” I tap her hip and she shifts to the side. I open the drawer and show her the dog-eared manual in the Ziploc bag.

Her nose crinkles. “Maybe I’ll just leave this one alone.”

I lean against the counter behind me. “That’s probably best, and if there are any real issues you can always call, text, or email.”

“It might be easier than going through this.” She pats the binder tucked under her arm. “Unless there’s an appendix and a quick reference guide.”

When I say nothing, she moves to stand beside me, her arm brushing mine as she sets the binder on the counter and flips to the back page, where there is, indeed, a quick reference guide, but only for the most major of potential issues, such as Francesca getting ill or the fire alarm going off in my condo, both of which I sincerely hope don’t happen.

“Wow. You’re uh . . . super organized, aren’t you?”

I shrug. “I just like to be prepared.”

She shifts, angling her body toward me. I’m quite a bit taller than she is, so I get a nice peek at her cleavage. “Were you a Boy Scout?”

“I spent a few years in Cadets.”

“Ah. So you’re very disciplined, then?”

“I guess.” I suppose in some ways I am. As an athlete, I had to constantly push myself, especially when I was injured.

“Does that mean in addition to being organized, you’re a rule follower?”

“It depends, I suppose.”

“On what?”

“Whether I like the rule or not.”

She laughs. “So you just like to enforce them? Not follow?”

“Something like that.”

Ruby pinches the sleeve of my T-shirt between two fingers and lifts it until she reaches the edge of my tattoo. “This seems pretty anti-rule to me.”

“It’s hardly anti-rule anymore. Everyone has tattoos these days.”