Snow Plowed Page 8

I turn and kiss her so hard on the mouth. I can’t control the whimper that comes out of my throat while we kiss. Nor the tears. My cheeks are wet, the sweetness of her mouth mingles with the salt of my tears.

  “I can’t believe you’re leaving.”

  “I’m so sorry. It won’t be long. The town needs you and in the meantime, I’ll sort this out.

  She searches me with her eyes. “Aidan. Are you really coming back?”

  I cup her face in my hands so tight, I have to rein it in before I hurt her.

  “This is real. I love you. And I’m coming back, whether or not you decide to stop loving me. Because I have to finish my job here, and then I have to make it up to you if you’ll let me.”

  I wait what feels like an hour, but finally, she squeaks out a tremulous, “I believe you.”

  Chapter 18

  Ruby

  * * *

  I do believe him.

  He will be back.

  It was all an accident.

  And I still love him, even though this might be the most colossally stupid accident I’ve ever seen in the early stages of a relationship.

  Less than 24 hours later, I’m still cringing at the thought that my nudes are on their way to LA. Might even be there right now.

  And if all goes according to how time works, Aidan will arrive a few hours after the canister arrive at his studio.

  His flight to Chicago was delayed, and he had to sleep for a few hours at the airport. It makes me wish I’d put my foot down and gone with him.

  Instead, I’m wrapped up in my bed, unable to move, holding my breath, wondering what’s going to happen next.

  It’s about 10 a.m. on the morning after Aidan has left. His flight is in the air right now.

  All I can do is hope that Aidan’s assistant does the right thing. But I don’t know that he will. I don’t know anything about his assistant, or anyone else who might come into contact with that film. How do I know how many people work at Aidan’s studio?

  Maybe we should have talked more and had less sex.

  I smirk, even through my anxiety. Nah. I don’t regret the sex at all. I don’t even regret taking the photos. I’m just sad I didn’t get to see them first.

  Mayor Johnson calls for the second time this morning.

  I know what he wants.

  “Hi, Mr. Mayor. Wes is taking care of it,” I say weakly, referring to the fact that I gave my dispatcher permission to clear away the snowdrifts at the schools and the parks.

  “My dear, that’s not why I’m calling…”

  “Mr. Mayor, could you hang on for a minute? Both Anna and Aidan are calling me at the same time.”

  I don’t wait for an answer, but I click over to Anna first. I need to hear my friend’s voice.

  “Babe, are you sitting down?” Anna says.

  “I’m lying down under a pile of blankets, spoon-feeding myself and trying to watch Supernatural on my phone, but everyone is calling me…”

  Anna interrupts, done with my pity party. “Whatever you do, do NOT look at Instagram right now. Delete it from your phone.”

  “Why?”

  “Girl,” is all she says. From the tone of just that one word, I know what this is.

  “Oh no.”

  “Oh yes. Honey, I have already called my grandpa and he’s on his way over to Aidan’s house with that thing he uses to castrate cows.”

  “Anna, it’s not what you think.”

  “What the hell did he talk you into?”

  “It was my idea, Anna.”

  She pauses. “Wait. It was your idea to post nudes of yourself on Mister Photographer’s IG stories?”

  My stomach somersaults. Stories? “Stories are the ones that disappear, right?”

  “After 24 hours, yeah. But there are 12 of them.”

  Is this the worst thing that’s ever happened to me? Maybe a close second to the high school ranking thing.

  “Ruby? You still there?”

  “I’m still here,” I say. “I gotta go. I have to go figure out how much damage has been done.”

  “Sweetie, you don’t have to do anything. I will kill him myself.”

  I check myself. No, I do believe it was an accident. An incredible accident that sent me back to feeling like a vulnerable 17-year-old, but an accident nonetheless.

  “No, Anna. I just need you to come over and listen to me.”

  Chapter 19

  Aidan

  * * *

  Needless to say, Brody is fired.

  I thought I could trust him.

  Turns out, I was wrong. Wrong to the power of infinity.

  I gave a guy a job when he needed one. I trusted him too much. I’d put him in charge of my business social media accounts and it backfired so hard that now I can’t even manage to get a phone call or a text through to Ruby because so many colleagues and business contacts keep calling and texting.

  I spend less than 24 hours in LA cleaning up the mess. Firing Brody, who had stopped answering my calls and texts after I’d initially told him not to open any overnight packages until I’d arrived.

  He’d gotten the canisters, opened them, developed them—just like I’d taught him to—and then tried to sell them to the tabloids to come up with the money to pay off the guy who’d been demanding payment for the old gig that went wrong. Problem was, I’m not enough of a celebrity for the tabloids to care, so nobody wanted the photos of Ruby. So instead, Brody transferred them to digital and posted them to social media. For what? Out of nothing more than spite because nothing went his way.

  Maybe I should have just tried to find the extra money he’d asked for, and none of this would have happened. Or, better yet, maybe I should have labeled my fucking canisters.

  Every time I close my eyes I think about the horrified look on Ruby’s face and I want to kick my own ass.

  The posts were up on my social media just as my plane landed in LA.

  I manage to delete all the nudes, but the damage was already done. Trolls have screen capped everything and the photos are everywhere. Everyone on the internet is wondering who she is. Some have even reverse searched her face and found Ruby’s Facebook and other personal social media.

  Livid doesn’t begin to describe what I’m feeling. I knew it would be bad. I deserve every bad review and negative comment that the good people of Christmas, Michigan are now leaving on my studio’s Yelp page. I mean, kudos to them for going out of their way to take revenge on Ruby’s behalf. But I never would have guessed how cruel people could be to a woman they’d never met. I’ve been clueless until now.

  I only wanted to live in a bubble with Ruby, but now I’m coming out of the bubble I’ve lived in my whole life, of being a man with every advantage that a little bit of talent affords.

  I would give it all away if it meant Ruby forgives me after this.

  The phone finally gets through to Ruby when my plane lands in Michigan on Christmas morning.

  “Merry Christmas,” she says, but I can tell there’s no smile there. It about kills me.

  “Are you OK?”

  “I’ll survive.”

  “I know you will. I’m on my way back.”

  She sighs heavily. “Everyone is pretty mad at you right now. I don’t think you should come.”

  This feels like a punch in the gut. “Of course I’m coming. I need to apologize in person.”

  “You already did. I’m not angry at you.”

  “Ruby, come on, yes you are.”

  She pauses and then chuckles bitterly. She hardly sounds like the woman I know, but then everything happened so fast, I don’t know her at all, do I? “Yes. I am angry. But mostly I just want to cocoon for a while, so if you could give me some space, that would be great.”

  I swallow the lump in my throat. “I’ll be downtown shooting the Christmas Day Community Dinner fundraiser for the women’s shelter. So, if you want to see me, that’s where I’ll be. Come have turkey with me.”

  She sniffs. “I don’t like turk
ey. But maybe.”

  We hang up and I’m still not sure where I stand, but I’ll do what she wants and give her space. It’s the last thing I want. But I’m not even sure where she is right now.

  When I get my rental car, I speed to her house, but she’s not there. I circle the block, stupidly thinking she might be at my house, where I left her, but of course not.

  The only thing left to do is head downtown to the community center for the big turkey dinner benefit.

  As I drop a small donation of all the cash in my pockets into the collection box, I sense a shift in the mood. Heads turn. People whisper. The whispers turn to murmurs as I take Sally out of my case, and pretty soon the murmurs turn to shouts.

  Next thing I know, Ms. Polly from the diner has snatched me by the ear and is dragging me outside the community center and into the street.

  “What do you think you’re doing, young man?”

  I raise my hands in surrender when she lets go of my ear. “Look, I know I messed up.”

  “Son, you didn’t forget to feed the girl’s fish. You posted nudes of Ruby—our Ruby—on the internet. It boggles my mind that you’re even showing your face right now.”

  She’s right, but I explain I have to finish the job I started.

  “Do you know I did you a favor? Those people in there are sharpening their pitchforks right now!”

  She’s not wrong.

  People are exiting the community center and spilling into the street. The line of people waiting to get into the community center broke up once people recognized me. The citizens of Christmas are lining up to murder me.

  Mayor Johnson and his wife are stony-faced on the sidewalk as people shout insults and questions at me that I can barely decipher because everyone is shouting all at once.

  This was a terrible idea.

  Not having a white flag to wave, I put my hands in the air. “I know! You’re right! I’m the worst!”

  But they can’t hear me.

  And then, they really can’t hear me because of something else.

  The noise behind me has everyone in front of me shifting their gaze to a big, rumbling vehicle motoring up the street towards us.

  The bright yellow snowplow rattles its plow down, scraping up snow from the street. It’s worse than I thought. Ruby is headed straight for me.

  The rest of the assembled angry villagers glance from me to the plow. They quickly realize she’s not slowing and they back out of the way. As the truck passes, her plow at an angle, a gigantic avalanche of snow creates a blockade between the citizens of Christmas and me.

  She misses me by only a couple of feet.

  Ruby stops the truck half a block away, hops out, and approaches the crowd, who are all staring at her, stunned and now silent.

  “Listen, you guys,” she starts.

  “Ruby!” I shout.

  It’s the first time I’ve seen her since I arrived back here and my heart is about to burst.

  “I’ll deal with you later!” she says, pointing at me with her mittened hand, her face about ten times as pissed as the day I shoveled all that snow into my own driveway to get her attention.

  She then spins to face her fellow Christmasonians.

  “First of all, you all act like you’ve never seen a naked body before. Almost every single one of you have kids and grandkids, so I know you’re not scandalized that I’m in a sexual relationship in which my lady bits are visible. Unless some of you all are having sex in the dark, which is a strong possibility.”

  The mayor, perhaps ill-advisedly, pipes up. “It’s not that, honey. We’re just upset that this was done without your permission. That someone we trusted did this to you. Especially after, well, you know, what those boys did.”

  Ruby points her hand back at me and doesn’t lower her voice as she continues to dress everyone down. “It was done without my permission. But what’s done is done. And it wasn’t done by him. It was done behind his back after he accidentally sent the photos to his assistant. And what those boys did to me, they did to everyone else that year in my class, and that was eight years ago. I’m not even mad about that anymore. How can I be mad about that?”

  Someone shouts, “But your…everything…is just out there…everywhere!”

  Ruby then does something truly unexpected. “I would advise you all to visit a museum and look at some art, and very soon. Those models were not ashamed of their bodies and neither am I. You all are just going to have to get over it because I’m in love with this man, and he’s in love with me.”

  A second woman who I don’t know has now hopped down out of the truck, shooting me a death glare as she stands next to Ruby.

  “You are?” I ask.

  Without turning toward me, Ruby hisses, “It would be a good idea for you to stay quiet right now, Aidan.”

  I keep my tongue firmly planted between my teeth. I’m fine with that because of what she just said. She loves me. She still wants me to come back here to live with her in Christmas, and that’s all that matters.

  Of course, I still have some groveling to do later, and maybe a lot of work.

  “Now, this is all I’m going to say about this. I asked him to take those photos for me. For me. You don’t need to know why, and you don’t need to be embarrassed or protective of me anymore. I appreciate what you all are feeling right now, but you have to let it go. I’m OK. For all you know, maybe my titties put Christmas on the map and it’ll bring in more money for the town.”

  A few people chuckle. Others get back in line or go back inside to finish their Christmas dinners. Mayor Johnson shifts from one foot to the other.

  “Nothing more to see here, folks. Go about your business,” shouts the woman who earlier gave me the death glare.

  Ruby walks up to the mayor and his wife to have a quieter chat, while this other woman approaches me. I brace myself for the worst.

  “I’m Anna.”

  “Hi, Anna,” I say, reaching out my hand. “I’m—“

  “I know who you are. Listen. Ruby’s my best friend. And right now? I don’t like you. But Ruby loves you and she honestly believes the whole thing was a huge mistake. Me? I don’t know. But understand this. I called off the dogs this time. But next time you hurt that girl? My grandpa has these things…”

  I listen, wide-eyed, as Anna describes some truly horrific procedure that her grandfather uses to castrate cows. I can only assume he’s a farmer. God, I hope he’s a farmer.

  “Understood,” I say.

  “That’s enough, Anna,” I hear Ruby say as she approaches, grabbing me by the front of my coat and hauling me down the street. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter 20

  Ruby

  * * *

  Angry sex is not my thing.

  Or so I thought, until today.

  The adrenaline coursing through me after shouting at the whole town to leave my boyfriend alone and to stop fussing about the nude photos has got me worked up with nowhere to go but on a wild ride on top of a big, hulking, desperate man.

  I’ve left the snowplow at the community center and let everyone in town watch me drag this man down the street by the ear. On the way, I think I heard him remark this was the second ear dragging he’s received today, but I’m too pent up to care enough to ask about that.

  We’re in my house, and my bedroom is too far away for what I need to do right now.

  “Ruby,” he starts, caressing my hair while I madly work at his coat zipper.

  “No,” I snap. “Hands to yourself. Get these clothes off, Buster.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  I’m glad I don’t have to tell him twice.

  I peel off my coat and kick off my boots, discarding them along with my hat, mittens, scarf, pants, all the annoying scores of layers this goddamn weather demands of me. I can’t wait to maul this man.

  Out of some kind of femdom impulse, I leave my shirt on.

  He hikes up the hem of it and I hiss, “I want you on the couch, naked, hands above your
head.”

  The rise and fall of his chest is ragged, he’s working so hard to control the impulse to grab me and kiss me, rip my shirt off. “You’d better be a good boy, Aidan. This is you making it up to me.”

  Naked and biting his bottom lip, a grunt escaping his expanding chest, he does what I say.

  Once he’s lying there, arms above his head, I let him watch me slowly remove my undies and toss them aside.

  “Baby, let me see you. Take off your shirt. I want to see your pretty pussy.”

  “Shut it,” I say, straddling him and impaling myself on his thick length.

  The shuddering gasp from him is intensely satisfying.

  “I want to touch you so bad, babe,” he says.

  “Later,” I reply through gritted teeth.

  “Baby, we don’t have a condom.”

  “You won’t need it,” I say. “Do you trust me?”

  His wide eyes take my meaning. I can’t believe I’m going to do this, but the aggression is real.

  I ride him so hard I wonder if I’ve become a different person. I have, actually. Everything has changed, all for the better. Also for the weird, awkward, temporarily mortifying, but ultimately, for the better.

  His face begins to change. He’s getting close.

  “Don’t you dare come yet, young man!”

  “Baby, please.”

  I slam myself against him and we’re both cussing at how good it feels. The noises we’re making—the grunting, the slapping of wet skin—it’s all too much. I reach down and touch my clit, which is nearly on fire with need.

  Aidan’s eyes travel down. “Sweetheart, you’re killing me.”

  I continue to strum myself to orgasm. “Awfully mouthy for a dude who should be groveling right now.”

  I scream out my orgasm so loud, I don’t recognize myself.

  “Come here to me, let me kiss you while I come inside you.”

  Wait, I think. This is not the plan. The plan was to fuck his brains out and then take him in my mouth. And swallow.

  “But you know that’s how babies are made, right?”