Ruby: A Reverse Harem Romance (Jewels Cafe Book 6), page 8
John leaned forward, looking way too interested in that random fact. “I’m on the Universal Reproductive Committee and I’ve never heard of sex dolls—”
I jumped forward, interjecting. “Look. We’re Ruby’s … friends.” For the first time ever, I hated that word with a passion. Friends. It was such a lie. I hardly even knew her. But she was somehow more important than anyone I’d ever met. I stared into John’s brown glare, squaring my shoulders. “We all just want Ruby to succeed. We want to help.”
John’s eyes narrowed. “Humans know nothing about miracles.”
Ruby cleared her throat softly. “They don’t know about miracles, but they know about humans. And that’s where all my trouble is.”
Her face fell and she looked so sad that I wanted to scoop her up and have her sit on the couch wrapped in a blanket while I fed her wine and marshmallows. I had no idea if she even liked marshmallows, but it seemed like an angelic kind of snack.
John shook his head at her. “It’s not your trouble, Ruby. It’s the human’s trouble.”
Ruby crossed her arms, her stubbornness lashing out like a snake. “It is my trouble if humans don’t believe in true love and I don’t know that they don’t, so I set up a whole miracle for a stupid nonexistent thing like love—”
Her words were like those fucking Game of Thrones, Daenerys-gone-crazy, dragon fire. Unexpected and terrifying. I held up a hand. “Wait. Who said we don’t believe in true love?” I did. I mean, I wasn’t worthy of it. Not with Ruby, anyway. She was so pure and innocent. I was a downright asshole. I hadn’t even taken her to dinner before I’d pawed her like a fucking primate. Dammit. I fucking deserved a punch to the nards. But I believed in love—
Ruby snorted. “If I learned anything from last year’s disaster, it’s that humans don’t love the way heaven says they do. Down here, love changes faster than the weather.”
“Not true,” Migs stepped forward.
Ruby shook her head. Her mouth curved down in a frown; an expression that never should have marred her beautiful face. “Nope. I saw it first-hand. People hop from mate to mate here. Like that game Muriel taught me to play. Checkers?” She played with a strand of hair. “That’s why I’m staying away from that whole awful business this Christmas. No love miracles! I’m helping a teenager cope with her sister’s death.”
John’s hand smacked his forehead. “Ruby, that’s like a level eight miracle.”
She blinked. “Not according to the scroll I was given.”
John snapped his fingers and a scroll appeared out of midair. He pulled it open and read aloud, “Level 1: All I Want for Christmas is You: Includes: True Love, Best Friend, Pet. Level 2: Baby Please Come Home for Christmas: Returned Spouse, Child, Parent. Level 3: Oh Santa: Miraculous Gift of Sight, Walking—”
Parker cleared his throat. “Does anyone else notice that these levels sound an awful lot like Mariah Carey Christmas songs?”
Migs just shushed him as Ruby snatched at the scroll. “This is not the version I got!” She leaned against the register and then groaned. “I already submitted all the paperwork for this miracle. Not to mention I promised Maddie that I’d help her sister Holly. Plus, even if I could change, I’d never want a stupid love miracle again anyway. That whole idea of humans having true love is just dog poop.”
My heart crumpled like the note I’d sent to Sarah Pattermen in sixth grade. Ruby didn’t believe in true love? If she didn’t believe in it, how could I ever convince her to love me? At that moment, if the Big Man had come down, I would have had words for him. I mean—words. What the fuck was he doing letting me find my soulmate only to find out she’d never love me in return?
Chapter 9
Ruby
For whatever reason, Bar sidled over to me and asked, “Can I pick up in here for you?” He had these sad eyes as he asked, so I nodded. Maybe cleaning cheered him up. I had a soul now, but I still didn’t understand why he was sad. What good was a soul if I couldn’t understand the reasons for other people’s emotions.
Bar reached out to touch my shoulder but stopped short and put his hand down instead. He went over to the boxes of shoes Holly had destroyed the other night and carefully started organizing them. I got a strange feeling watching it, this sadness. For some reason it almost looked like he was punishing himself, but I had no idea why.
John pulled my attention away, of course. “Ruby. Miracle. Rundown. Go.”
I explained Holly’s situation and her sister Maddie to everyone, which just made John run a hand down his face. Seeing that made me cringe a little inside; I’d seen that face far too often. Growing up in his shadow, I’d made a lot of mistakes. And he always had the same reaction. I didn’t even need Harmony’s Guide to understand that human expression. I knew it meant disappointment. He did the same thing no matter what body he was in. Cover his face when he didn’t want me to see how I’d failed him. Tears gathered in the corners of my eyes. I did not like disappointing my brother.
“Spirits, Ruby? Ghosts? And a girl who’s sad about death—you had to pick the most complicated miracle—” John took a deep breath and smiled at me as he shook his head. He always tried to scold gently. But it didn’t make it hurt any less. He sat down on one of my white chairs, pushing aside an open shoe box with his foot. “Girl, it’s like you’re trying to drive black cattle in the dark.”
I stared down at the floor. With my new bit of human soul, I could tell that John was feeling frustrated, but apparently having a soul didn’t make English any easier to grasp. I didn’t understand the cow reference. Just like I didn’t understand most things. It was so fucking frustrating feeling like the stupidest person in the room all the time when I wasn’t. Migs walked over and his hand slipped through mine. Could he tell I was at my wit’s end? He squeezed my fingers and gave me a smile. It bolstered me a little.
Migs leaned in and whispered in my ear, “He means that you’re making work hard for yourself with this miracle.”
“I didn’t mean to,” I murmured back.
“I know, mi corazón, that’s why we’re here to help.” His nose came forward and nuzzled mine. My heart skipped like a little girl down the sidewalk.
I smiled gratefully up at Migs when he pulled back. I realized I loved his blue eyes with their dark lashes. I loved how he somehow knew just what to say.
John cleared his throat. “Umm. Work. Ruby.”
I turned to my brother. “All I want is to figure this out and make it work. And then I’ll stick to lost pets for the next few decades or whatever. Ugh. Sometimes, the bureaucracy upstairs is so frustrating!”
“Upstairs!” Parker interjected, strolling over behind John to look at my register. He ran a hand down the side. It sparked to life at his touch. “Try working down below. You have scrolls and out-of-date handbooks, but I have daily quotas. You know I have to take out sixteen devices a day? A day! Plus, each month there’s a target for generators, fridges, you name it. Silver Springs isn’t that big. I have to run to other towns all the time to hit my quotas. Travel, travel, travel. I’m so sick of travel. And I don’t even get to stick around to watch people get annoyed half the time. I don’t even get to see the hard-earned results of my work.”
John shook his head at Parker and turned back around to face me. “This is who you’re hanging out with?”
“Hey, we’re soulmates. Lay off. I don’t like demoning as much as R doesn’t like miracling.”
My hand flew to my chest. It was so wonderful to hear that I wasn’t the only one in the universe who hated their job. I bit down on a grin, because John would definitely not be thrilled to see that.
John scoffed, pointing back over his shoulder. “He doesn’t like demoning. Yeah. Right.”
I blinked. “Parker wouldn’t lie to me.” I leaned over and looked at him. “Would you?”
Parker leaned against the table that held the register along with a display of adorable printed socks. “Okay, I don’t like major demoning. Minor stuff can be fun sometimes. But at the end of the day, it’s still a job.” Parker crossed his arms over his chest, making his thin shirt spread tight over his sculpted pecs. I temporarily lost track of John’s disappointment in me as I stared. I licked my lips.
Of course, Parker noticed. And as John kept talking—coming up with a plan we should follow to achieve this miracle—Parker slowly flicked open the buttons of his collared shirt one by one until I realized I was rubbing my thighs together and nodding absently at whatever John said.
Parker gave me a naughty wink when he pulled his shirt open and traced a nipple.
John snapped his fingers. “Ruby. Focus.”
I blinked rapidly and stared at his fingers for a second before focusing on my brother’s face as he said, “We need to meet the ghost sister. We’ll need to get back some of those things that Holly’s parents donated. We’ll need to find out where those are.”
I nodded. “Sure.” I checked the clock. “School’s getting out in half an hour. Do we want to meet Holly and figure out where her parents donated everything first?”
John nodded, heading toward the door of my shop.
Bar called out to stop him. “Um. Are you gonna want to change first?” Bar stood up from where he was crouched by a very orderly line of shoes. He gestured at John’s robe. “I can lend you some clothes if you need—”
John nodded. “That would be great, thanks.”
Bar nodded and walked to the door. Parker held up a hand. “I’m faster. I’ll go.” He walked toward the front door and turned and leaned against it. “Don’t know your sizes for this body, do you John?”
My brother shook his head while he asked, “Did your shirt get ripped?”
Parker didn’t answer him, just smiled, before he disappeared as a streak down the street.
Bar returned to the floor and boxed up quite a few shoes. He handed several boxes to Migs and took several boxes himself. “We’ll just put these in the back for you.”
I nodded and sat on the plush white couch in the showroom. Without my guys here as a buffer, I was certain John would lay it on thick.
He did. John immediately came over and sat down beside me. “You need to distance yourself from these humans, Ruby. And that demon especially. This isn’t proper angelic behavior and you know it.”
My heart sank. My soul felt like someone had just tossed sand in its eyes. Maybe it wasn’t proper angelic behavior. But was I really a proper angel? I mean, I’d agreed to have a spell put on me without really asking what it was. That wasn’t proper angelic behavior either. But even though the English thing still caught me up, I felt like I understood the guys’ emotions a bit more. I felt connected to them in a way I hadn’t before. Part of me wanted to connect with them in even more ways—naughty ways like that vampire had connected with that pegasus shifter in the graveyard.
John leaned forward, as if he could tell what I was thinking, which—technically—he shouldn’t be able to do while we were in human bodies because they didn’t communicate telepathically. “Look, I know you wish that you were in a different assignment. Miracles is a hard division to be in. I’m not gonna lie about that. But I don’t want you to fall in with a bad crowd. Two guys and a demon? They’re all hormones and trickery. I mean, it can’t get much worse.”
My stomach fell like a raindrop, plunging down from its happy life in a cloud only to splat against the nasty, rocky, pointy ground. John didn’t like the guys. My guys. My soulmates.
I was about to respond, but Parker literally rushed back into the showroom at that moment, dropping a huge black garbage bag at our feet. “Here. I grabbed everything in Bar’s room for you. Why don’t you go upstairs and change and Ruby and I will grab everyone coffee? The guys and I didn’t get our morning jolt and I’m sure we could all use it.”
John started to protest, but Parker grabbed me around the waist, picked me up, and ran out the door and down the street before my brother could say another word. Parker stopped seconds later in front of Jewels Café. He set me down on the sidewalk outside the busy little shop and ushered me into the line, his hand on the small of my back just like I saw a man doing to his wife in front of him.
“What would you like, gorgeo—”
“Hey, do I know you?” A guy with close-cropped brown hair walked up to Parker and squinted. “I’ve seen you in here before.” The guy wore a brown leather bomber jacket and had a laptop case slung over his shoulder.
Next to me, Parker shook his head, a little too frantically. I felt proud of myself that I recognized the over-shaking technique as odd. But then I realized Parker was nervous. His hand clutched at the back of my dress. Why was he nervous?
I extended my hand to greet the guy in front of us. “Hi. I’m Ruby.” I smiled.
The guy smiled in return. He didn’t seem threatening. He seemed kind of sweet. I didn’t get any alpha/predator vibes from him at all. But when his gaze turned back to Parker, it was flat, lacking any of the warmth he’d shared with me. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to keep coming here man. I’m pretty sure you’re the reason my computer died last week.” He arched a brow at Parker.
“It wasn’t me,” Parker denied. But even as he said that, a woman jabbering on her cell phone suddenly stopped and looked at her screen. “Dammit.”
All of us turned to look at her as she tapped her fake nails repeatedly against the phone screen and heaved a frustrated sigh.
“Not you, huh?”
“Look, I’m just trying to get my girl some coffee. Please. I won’t come back after this. Look. Here.” Parker reached into his jacket and pulled out a carrot. He offered it to the other man.
Were carrots a form of bribery on earth? I thought people only wanted those plastic cards or paper bills. Stupid Harmony.
“You know there’s a grocery store just down the street, right?” The man scowled as a pretty blonde woman in an apron walked over to us. She looked familiar. I think she’d been in my shop before.
“Chase, honey, I think you’re holding up the line.” She leaned fondly on Chase’s shoulder and his hand went to cover hers in a gesture that made me pine. I wanted that. I’d thought I’d felt it for a second when Parker’s hand had been on my spine. But, was I wrong? Was John right? Was I just getting tricked?
“Is that a carrot?” the blonde woman raised an eyebrow as she looked from Chase to Parker and back again.
“Apparently,” Chase scowled at Parker. “Not all bunny shifters like carrots, you know.”
“Are you sure?” The blonde looked up at him innocently.
I felt like I was missing something. Since when did bunnies not like carrots?
“Amber, sweetheart, you know—” Chase said.
“I do,” Amber smirked. “But this man is offering you his carrot …”
My eyes darted between the two as Chase’s eyes widened and he held up his hands and made a giant X in the air with them. Was this one of those situations where people had gone and changed the meaning of a word? Dammit!
“No. Just no,” Chase said.
“I can clearly see it right there.” Amber nudged her chin toward the carrot.
“I can too,” I jumped into the conversation. “It’s a pretty big carrot. It looks nice and crisp. I bet it tastes delicious.”
Amber turned to us, her eyes sparkling with mischief. “Sorry. Just had to pester him.” She grabbed the carrot out of Parker’s hand. “Grab your coffees on the house.” She turned to Chase. “You. Come with me.” She looped her arm around his. “We need to have a talk about you digging in other people’s gardens.” She led him off, taking a bite out of Parker’s carrot as they walked through the door to the kitchen.
Chase’s voice drifted back to us as he told Amber, “I have a pretty delicious carrot too. Wanna taste?” Before the door swung shut, I saw Chase’s hand swat Amber’s ass. Her giggle floated back to us. What an odd couple. Fighting in public was obviously some kind of turn on for them. Though why they’d fight over vegetables, I had no idea.
We put in our order. As we waited, Parker turned to face me.
“So … I know that I’m the sticking point here. Being what I am,” his mouth quirked up to the side, but I could tell he wasn’t happy. I could feel how he was sad, frustrated, and regretful all at once. It was almost overwhelming, knowing he felt all those things. Knowing that he felt all those things because of the connection we had. Did he want to break it? My chest curled up into a tight little ball at that thought.
But Parker reached out and took my hand gently. “I can’t lie about who or what I am. But, this—” he gestured between us, where the emotion sat thick as whipped cream on top of hot chocolate. “It’s worth things getting a little weird sometimes, right? It’s worth having to share with Migs and Bar and getting over the differences and morality quibbles to feel this, right?”
He bit his lip as he looked at me. Behind him, a register sparked, making the teenage girl working it jump back and shriek.
“Shit,” he muttered. “I didn’t mean to do that.”
Parker moved me farther down the counter toward the napkin holders, so that he was away from electronics. His fingers wove through mine and he held our hands up in front of us, like he was creating a bridge between us, his soul to mine. I could feel the intensity of his words when he said, “Ruby, you haven’t said anything.” He pressed his lips together and closed his eyes. “If you’re gonna say no, do it now. Please. Before I can become even more attached.”
I froze. The idea of ending things felt … wrong. It felt like trying to walk on a cloud upside down. Or trying to breathe water in this human body. It felt unnatural. But Parker was a demon. A hot demon, yes. A sneaky, naughty demon kinky enough to tempt me even when my brother was in the room. But he was a demon. I was an angel.
“How do you really feel about evil?” I asked.
His eyes opened and he gave me a soft smile. “I’m in the tech division by choice. Anything darker turns my stomach.”
