"About a week."
I pressed my lips together. She was wearing some kind of light scent, maybe her shampoo. It was oddly springlike in this frigid weather. "That's a long time."
"Not really. It's just something to keep my hands busy. When I'm knitting, my mind is a million miles away."
"What do you think about?"
That guarded look returned to her face. "Mostly about how nice it is to be left alone."
I stepped back and grinned. "Point taken."
"Jonah?"
"Yeah Ruby?"
"I'm fucking freezing."
I hadn't noticed. For some reason I was really warm.
I walked into the coffee shop and instinctually started looking for the knitting circle. It was ingrained in me to interact with my fans, and some level of instinct put me on the lookout for the gray and white heads and arthritic hands. The amount of fan mail the King Brothers got from nursing homes was always surprising, and also slightly disturbing. But I was certain that even if Ruby didn't like me, these grandmas sure would.
I was looking for the grandmas. And looking. And looking. Until Ruby tugged on my coat sleeve. "Are you coming? Did you change your mind or something?"
I looked around, feeling strangely frustrated. "Where are they?"
She gestured to a clump of girls in the far left corner, gathered around a clump of shoved together tables.
Did I say girls? Excuse me. They weren't girls, they were women.
Young women. Hot women.
I looked at Ruby wide-eyed. She was giving me a look that told me everything I needed to know about what an idiot she thought I was. She let her eyes roll slightly before gesturing for me to go ahead. "Sit down. I'll introduce you."
Feeling something very close to stage fright, I went over and pulled up a chair. There were seven Stitch and Bitch members already seated, and they all watched us - watched me - with expressions ranging from eagerness to pity.
I sat down. "Hi ladies."
"Hi Jonah," said a perky blonde with a slight giggle.
"Sorry about your Uncle," said one I'd never met.
"Thanks." I looked at the complicated looking swatch of fabric on her lap. "That looks good."
"You know how to knit?"
"No."
"Then why are you here?"
I glanced at Ruby. "She has the same question. Just looking for something new, I guess."
At that, Ruby glanced up from her knitting bag with that reluctant smile. "Then you'd better get out of Crown Creek. It's always the same thing here."
Yesterday I would have agreed with her. But today that brand-new feeling wouldn't let me go. I mean, I was sitting in a coffee shop surrounded by very hot women who all seemed to want a piece of me, and I had no interest in getting names or numbers.
That was something new for sure.
I settled back to watch, oddly fascinated as Ruby rolled out a very organized looking assortment on knitting needles. "That looks like some kind of homemade ninja assassin kit," I mused, taking in the gleaming, sharp points.
"Oh I didn't tell you? I moonlight as a ninja assassin," she deadpanned, not even looking my way as she hefted a mass of yarn from her bag. "Kindergarten teacher by day, deadly spy by night."
"I believe it." I kind of did.
Suddenly she was moving her hands lightning quick. Perfect little stitches cascaded from her needles as they flashed and clicked. I looked around at the other women. They were all doing the same thing, but only Ruby's project interested me. The way her fingers darted in practiced, controlled motions reminded me of the complicated finger-picking on an intricate guitar solo. "You're a knitting rockstar," I informed her.
She grinned and looked down. "Hardly," she disagreed. "You should see Moira's stuff. She's not here today, but she knits these lace shawls that I swear look like spiderwebs."
"Sounds pretty," I said. It did. I'd never had any interest in knitting before, but I kind of wanted to see these shawls for myself now.
The perky blonde suddenly gasped. "Oh Ruby!" she cried, diving for her own well organized bag. "I forgot! I brought that handspun!"
I looked at Ruby, confused. Apparently, bringing 'handspun' was a good thing, because Ruby practically swooned. "Oh my god, the angora?"
The blonde was nodding as she pulled out a hunk of something that looked like rope made out of clouds. "From Dandelion, yup?"
Ruby took the cloud-rope reverently and set it in her lap. She petted it for a moment and I swear she licked her lips. "What is that?" I asked. I could see it was yarn, but it was wound in loops, with sections of colors bleeding into each other. The effect was like some kind of circular rainbow.
Ruby looked up, still petting her treasure. "Cora's father keeps angora bunnies" she explained to me. "She spins their fur into yarn."
I blinked. "For real?" I looked at perky Cora. "Spin as in like Rumplestiltskin or something? People still do that?"
Cora laughed. "Yes people still do." She turned to Ruby. "You need to wind it into a ball, of course."
Ruby grimaced into her bag. "I forgot my niddy-noddy."
The two of them were speaking a completely foreign language. "Your what now?"
"Helps wind yarn." She glanced at me. "You know how you were looking for something to do?"
I sat up straighter. "Yes?"
"Hold your arms out."
I smiled and reached for her.
She slid the circle of yarn around my wrists. It felt like she'd clapped me into handcuffs. "Now. Hold still."
Chapter Eleven
Ruby
He held still.
There was no reason for me to make him hold the yarn. I could easily have wound it using the back of one of the cafe chairs.
But there was something satisfying about making Jonah King sit perfectly still with his arms out, as I ignored him and wound my precious yarn
Or tried to ignore him, anyway.
It was kind of hard to do. First, because my hand brushed his every time I passed the ever growing ball of angora around it. Second because he was watching me like I was some kind of alien life form. And I supposed I was, to him anyway.
"I bet you never thought you'd grow up to be a yarn holder," I said, suddenly challenging him. I felt this strong need to tear him down. I wanted him down here with me. On my level.
But it seemed like no matter how hard I tugged, he stayed up there, lofty, on his pedestal. Above me. Above Crown Creek. "I always knew that if I worked hard and stuck to my plan, I'd be a yarn holder sooner or later," he said with a disarming grin.
Goddamn that dimple. All the Kings had it. Claire had it, right in the center of her cheek. But while on her face, it made her look cute, on Jonah it looked...
Sexy?
I ducked my head and wound the ball double time. I was winding too tight, straining the fibers, but I didn't care any more. I needed to stop touching Jonah. "Why are you here?" I asked again. He'd almost answered me before, his long pause by the doorway betraying how much thought he'd given to coming here today. This time I was going to find out for real.