Ulysses Paradox (a Will Lenney fanfiction.)

chapter sixteen

Christmas Day past uneventfully. Ruby hadn't heard from Will since he walked out of her flat a few days prior, and didn't even send her a text message to wish her well. Audre and Taj asked her to come over, but she found an excuse with a family phone call, which lasted less than an hour and was relatively boring. She made herself a nice dinner and went to bed happy that she hadn't decorated her flat, so at least she wouldn't need to begin cleaning up tomorrow.

It was the next day that she finally heard from Will. They'd gone three days without correspondence before, but this time it had felt different.

Merch showed up. She looked at the text and didn't know how to respond. She was glad the process was entirely over, and she had no more business strings attached, but his text left an overwhelming opportunity for her to say the wrong thing. Thankfully she didn't have to worry about this for too long. Will sent a second message.

you free? She said yes, and he responded quickly.

come round then? Alex and James are here.

His friends would be there, meaning they had a buffer of people between them, and they wouldn't be able to talk privately. This seemed more good than bad, and Ruby gathered herself into something presentable and headed out.

"Is Ruby coming by for the big reveal?" Alex asked. James glanced at him, and then to Will, and Will shrugged. He'd drafted several text messages over the last three days, some more desperate than others, but none of them had been sent to her. When he'd left her last he had felt hurt that Ruby hadn't been quick to denounce her boyfriend in favor of him, but when he'd called James to vent, his friend had called him an idiot for thinking that it was appropriate to continue agreeing to have sex.

"But she's the one who suggested it!"

"You can say no, you nonce. She's trying to reconcile her emotions, and you trying to get shagged is not helping a single thing. If you want to have that conversation with her, do it when you're both sober and not fucking."

Now they all sat around his kitchen counter, and Alex was still waiting for an answer.

"Uh, yeah. Yeah I don't remember quite what she was up to today, I'll send her a text."

She arrived about thirty minutes later, and Alex opened up the door when she knocked.

"Aye, mate, glad you made it. We're stoked!" She was wearing a regular pair of jeans and a university sweater, and Will didn't think he'd ever seen her dressed so casually. She always wore something that she could realistically wear to an art gallery, or out for dinner at a place where they serve glasses of wine for exorbitant prices, somewhere being out of touch and uninterested was the expectation. 

Will knew that she wasn't really like that, but seeing her juxtaposed in an outfit that realistically, any of his friends would wear out of the house, made her suddenly reachable. Even naked, Ruby's body held onto some of that disconnect, and now Will was frustrated with himself for thinking of her naked instead of saying hello like any other person.

"Glad you could make it, Ruby." James said to her. Will just gave her what he hoped was a friendly smile, and she didn't meet his eyes when she returned the greeting.

"Right then," Will said. "We've had enough anticipation, let's open these damn things up." There were three large boxes set out on the kitchen counter, and Will handed out knives to cut through the packing tape.

As they began pulling pieces out, everyone was generally excited to see Will's sweatshirts that he'd been showing them pictures of for weeks in real life, laid out in front of them. Ruby looked over each piece with scrutiny, and Will kept glancing toward her, hoping she was excited as he was. Of course, seeing the final product of her work was a normal part of her job, but Will could assume that there was a certain satisfaction that came along with making it through to the end.