Page 12 of Walk of Shame
Chapter Four
Christopher
This fucking sucks.
Maybe it’s my ego, but something is off here. Ashley wasn’t telling me the truth about that night. I don’t care what she says, she hadn’t been thinking of anyone else when we’d been together. Not the way she’d stared up at me with needy, liquid-blue eyes. I’ve pictured other girls while someone else was under me, and that’s not what it looked like. What it felt like.
How had she transformed from being all over me the night of the engagement party to not even wanting to have dinner with me?
We had a connection. It wasn’t in my imagination.
I didn’t have answers, but I did have a source of information.
I went up to my room and called my brother’s cell.
“Hey, how’s paradise?” My brother, Chad, asks when he picks up.
Chad is the middle brother, sandwiched between my oldest brother Cameron and me. The lone non-surgeon in our family of doctors. A software developer, he leads a team at a firm in the Loop and recently got engaged to his girlfriend, Ruby.
Ruby is one of the most awesome people I’ve ever met. Chad once referred to her as a rebel snow white and it’s a perfect description. With shiny black hair, ridiculous blue eyes and full red lips, she’s gorgeous, fun, and there’s not one thing conventional about her. Until she came around, Chad had always dated nondescript blondes that worried my outspoken, feminist mother for their lack of challenge.
But my mom loved Ruby the second they met. We all had. She’s exactly right for my brother.
Ruby also happens to be friends with Ashley.
I clear my throat. “Interesting, I’ll give you that.”
Chad laughs. “How can a conference about cutting open people be interesting?”
I narrow my gaze. “Ashley’s here.”
Silence, before a speculative, “That is interesting. I know you took her home, did you decide to keep her for a bit?”
“Not exactly. It’s somewhat of a coincidence and not the point right now.” I pick up a scrap of paper lying on the nightstand and run my finger along the edge. “Is Ruby there?”
More silence before he sighs. “Hang on.”
I hear a bunch of rummaging and background noise and talking before my future sister-in-law comes on the line. “Hey, what’s up?”
I don’t mince words. “Ashley’s here.”
“Did she follow you?” The question is delivered without pause.
I don’t like the implication Ashley’s the kind of girl that would do something like that, and I want to ignore it, but denial isn’t in my nature. If Ashley is a nutcase, better to cut my losses, use the night to fill my fantasies, and call it a day. I crumple the paper. “Is she really the type that would do that?”
“I wouldn’t think so, but she’s had a tough go recently, so I don’t know.”
It brings me some relief, but it doesn’t dispel the niggling doubts. “I don’t think she did.”
“Why’s that?” Ruby’s, smoky singer’s voice is curious.
“Well, for one she wasn’t happy to see me and two, she wants nothing to do with me.” I run my hand through my hair. Processing through my answers makes me more sure. “That doesn’t strike me as stalkerish behavior.”
Ruby laughs. “Oh, I can tell you right now that is not how she’d act if she’d followed you. I’m not saying she’s above playing innocent, but if she followed you, she’d be all over you.”
The last of my doubts evaporate. “That’s what I thought. So I want you to tell me her story.”
Now Ruby falls silent, and I can practically hear her pondering through the cell. “Did you ask her the night of the party?”
