$ᴜɪᴄɪᴅᴇ ɢʀᴏᴜᴘɪᴇ // $ᴜɪᴄɪᴅᴇʙᴏʏ$

Chapter Nine

I had now been following $uicideBoy$ around the country for a total of five weeks, and it had already been almost two weeks since that night I interacted with Ruby for the first time.

It was a weekend night like any other weekend night, the boys had just finished a show and now everyone was slightly drunk, but we were now gallivanting about in the streets of Los Angeles. Scrim held my hand possessively, I tried not to take notice of that but it was so glaringly obvious. But what was even more obvious was the fact that Ruby would not stop staring at mine and Scrim's conjoined fingers. I figured that was the reason for the tight hold Scrim had, he was practically squeezing my hand and dragging me away from Ruby's gaze all night.

At one point I almost tripped over my own feet as we were walking to the bar, and of course it was because I was still tipsy from the beers I had during the show, of course. It wasn't because Scrim suddenly stopped in his tracks, yanked my hand back and shouted, "Oddy, stop undressing my fucking girl with your eyes!"

And my face wasn't bright red because of the laughter that comment received from Meth, Pouya and Ramirez, either.

It didn't take long for the guys to get bored of barhopping, so back in the bus we went, where we could "Relaxingly hang out," as Scrim put it.

And as we all formed a sort of circle in the bus to sit down, I intended to be normal, I thought, when Ruby came to sit too. But the issue was, I was only imagining that was what I was intending. I couldn't say for sure, and I definitely couldn't say for sure when Ruby went to sit down in the chair I was indicating.

The second he went to sit down something happened, and then we were just right back to where we were in his bunk two days ago.

He couldn't sit down. He tried, god knew he did. I saw him sort of turn sideways a little, as though maybe he could avoid the feel of the chair against his obviously sore ass if he just got his body into the right position.

None of it worked, however. He got about halfway into the chair before letting a little wince out, because apparently even the feel of his pants pulling against his marked flesh was too much.

Fuck, it was too much for me and I was all the way over here.

And then my mouth was abruptly opening on its own, and words came out even though I would have preferred not to say anything in front of the guys. But if Ruby and I were playing this game...

"Is there something wrong, Ruby?" I asked, and I could see it on his face. He had absolutely no clue how to answer. He wasn't even sure if we were talking about this thing between us, I knew, but that was okay. I didn't know what I was talking about either.

I was too busy hearing the word again running through my head over and over, as if I had suddenly become an impatient child, demanding their favorite ride.

Ruby glanced around for a moment, Scrim was in the middle of telling the guys a nasty joke with a cigarette bouncing in between his lips, Ramirez's laughter echoing throughout the bus. "Uh- nah, I'm fine." Ruby said, but it was really unfortunate that as he did so, he also sort of shifted in his chair. And of course the minute he tried his eyeballs nearly popped out of his head. Perspiration suddenly dotted his hairline just below his hat. His hands didn't seem to know what to do with themselves, but they weren't the only ones.

I didn't know what to do with myself either. Two feelings immediately bloomed inside me when I saw just how much pain he was in: a kind of twisted arousal that I automatically wanted to kick under a chair somewhere, and even more horrible... the need to care for him. I actually felt it, it was really there. I wanted to get up and go to him and do something impossibly sappy and stupid, like stroke his gorgeous hair. I mean, I knew I was a lost cause before all of this, but really.