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“My equipment, or your pleasure?” He pauses. “Or the two being used in conjunction?”
“Any of it.”
“Is it because I’m a humanoid—a zombie, in the slang—or because you’re not attracted to me?”
My face is so hot I’m sure it’s beet red. “I don’t—that’s not—I just know we’re not discussing it.”
“Because your purple silicone toy is also a piece of electronic equipment.” He glances at the vibrator on the dresser. “Much like myself. Except I have human skin cells instead of silicone, which makes me more realistic than the toy. I’m also not purple.” He considers this for a moment. “Nor do I vibrate. Unless there’s a setting I haven’t accessed yet.”
“AIDEN.”
“I’m just observing—”
“Stop. Drop it. That is it. No more. We are done. This conversation is over. Permanently. Forever.” Wiped from my memory forever.
“Understood.”
I turn back to my bag. My hands are shaking. My face is on fire. I am going to murder Liv for the dressing room comment because it has clearly been stored in his memory banks and is now being deployed at the worst possible moment, in a hotel room with one bed and a vibrator on the dresser.
Kill me.
I shove the vibrator into the bottom of my bag, under three layers of clothing, inside a sock.
“Ruby?”
“What?” I don’t turn around.
“If you ever change your mind, you should know I have a full understanding of sexual acts, including female pleasure. I’ve researched it extensively.”
“Of course you have.” I close my eyes. Count to five. Turn around. “Aiden. I am going to say this once, and I need you to hear me. If you stop talking about this—right now, this second, and never bring it up again unless I bring it up first—I will get you a dog.”
His whole body changes. Not dramatically—Aiden doesn’t do dramatic. But his posture shifts, his eyes widen just slightly, and there’s a stillness about him that’s different from his normal stillness. This one is hopeful.
“Really?”
“Maybe. Probably. We’ll discuss it after the wedding.”
He pauses. “I accept your terms.”
“Great.”
“I’m not going to talk about it anymore.”
“Thank you.”
“The sex or the dog?”
“BOTH, Aiden.”
“Understood.”
I need to get ready for the rehearsal dinner, and I need to do it in a hotel room with a man who just offered himself as a sex toy alternative and is now sitting on the edge of the bed—the one bed, the only bed—scrolling through dog adoption websites on the hotel TV because he figured out how to connect to the browser in under thirty seconds.
I grab my dress, my makeup bag, and my last remaining shred of dignity, and I head into the bathroom.
My dress is green. It’s simple, fitted, stops just above the knee, and I bought it three weeks ago for more than I should’ve spent because Liv was in the fitting room saying, “Ruby, if you don’t buy that dress, I will buy it and burn everything else you own.”
I do my makeup. Nothing dramatic—mascara, a little color on my cheeks, lip gloss. I pin my hair half up and let the rest fall. I put on the earrings my grandmother gave me, the small gold ones because they’re the nicest pair I own.
