Through all that time, Gabe had been friendly, maybe a little flirty. He, like Professor Caldwell, referred to her as Danhauser. Sometimes he’d clap her on the back or touch her on the arm, and he always insisted on escorting her home when rehearsals ended after midnight. She learned that he was the only child of a single mother, that he’d never known his dad and had always wanted to attend college in New York City, where his mother had lived and where, he suspected, he’d been conceived. But he’d offered those courtesies and told her his story while Ruby knew he was hooking up with other people, first with two different members of the all-girl Greek chorus and then with the guy understudying Tiresias. She hadn’t let herself hope. At the cast party, she’d contented herself with standing in a dark corner, sipping white wine from a plastic cup, watching Gabe dance, wondering why he hadn’t made that his major as he waved his arms in time to the beat. She’d been chagrined when he’d caught her staring again, then surprised when he took her by the hand.
“Danhauser. Dance with me.” It hadn’t been a question, and Gabe hadn’t waited for an answer. He’d pulled her through the throng of people and began to dance. Ruby did her best to keep up.
“Close your eyes,” Gabe shouted. She did… and then she felt him pulling her closer, felt his fingers in her hair, tucking one of her curls behind her ear. “You’re so pretty,” he’d said, his mouth close to her cheek, and Ruby had been so startled that she’d blurted, “What?” loudly enough for all the dancers near them to hear.
“You,” Gabe said, his mouth very close to her ear. “I can’t stop thinking about you. With your beautiful hair and your cute little stomping boots.” Ruby stared down at the Doc Martens she’d started wearing after someone had dropped a prop marble bust on her left foot during a junior-year production of The Play That Goes Wrong and broken two of her toes.
Gabe had backed Ruby into the corner where she’d been hiding. He’d cupped her cheek in his hand, bent down gently, looking into her eyes, waiting for her nod. Then he’d kissed her, first softly, then more boldly, licking at her lips until she tipped her head back and then slipping his tongue into her mouth. He’s done this a lot, Ruby told herself. It doesn’t mean anything. She told herself she was an observer, that she wasn’t feeling anything but a clinical, almost scientific interest in how Gabe went about seducing someone. She’d never liked kissing all that much, but as Gabe nibbled at her lips and slid his tongue against hers, she had to admit that she was finally getting the point of it.
They’d kissed for what felt like hours, first in the corner, then on a couch. Ruby felt hazy, lust-dazed, her body more liquid than solid when, finally, Gabe had whispered, “Can we go somewhere a little less public?”
“Okay,” she’d whispered back. “But you have to stop calling me Danhauser. You have to call me Ruby.”
“Ruby,” Gabe said. Then he’d nibbled at her earlobe, making her moan out loud. She’d taken him back to her apartment, and they’d spent their first night together.
They hadn’t had actual, all-the-way sex that time. But the following weekend there was another party, at a rooftop bar in SoHo, and they’d both had a few drinks. Back in Ruby’s bedroom, the kissing had, once again, been sexy and luxuriously slow （later she’d learned that Gabe had eaten an entire edible before the night began, which meant that everything unfolded at a deliciously languorous pace）。 By the time they were both naked, Ruby had never been more aroused, but the actual intercourse had been disappointing, clumsy, quick, and unremarkable. “You good?” Gabe had whispered at the end. Ruby had nodded, not wanting to confess that she hadn’t come anywhere close to an orgasm or wanting to show him what it would take to get her there. Gabe had fallen asleep with his head against her chest, and Ruby had spent a delightful hour running her fingertips over the silky, almost hairless expanse of his chest and his shoulders. Gabe’s skin was the brown of hulled walnuts where the sun touched it, warm golden where his clothes covered him up, and what body hair he had was inky black and silky straight, finer than the hair on his head. Ruby, pale and freckled as she was, prone to sunburns and betraying blushes, loved Gabe’s skin. She loved that Gabe got her sense of humor, that he admired her ambition, that he thought that she was beautiful, with her curls and what he always called her stomping boots. Even though they’d grown up very differently, she knew they were the same. Ruby had been abandoned by her birth mother; Gabe had never even known his dad. And even though that first loss had made Ruby a planner, a maker of lists who’d pictured her future in elaborate detail, while Gabe’s life with a single mother had left him relaxed and easygoing, willing to roll with whatever life dealt him, Ruby knew that they were more alike than they were different. They were broken in the same places; they were both survivors, who knew how the world could bruise you, and that shared knowledge meant that they would never hurt each other.