Ruby's Misadventures with Reality by Samantha Bohrman

She’d been lusting after Noel from across the room for years. Of course she was thrilled that she probably, might have, almost certainly did sleep with Emerald City’s most attractive zoning commissioner, but her uncertainty stopped her from breaking into a touchdown dance in front of his fridge. Noel wore his fortune and looks as comfortably as Ruby might wear a leopard-print bikini and a fashion turban. In his crisp white button-down shirt and flawlessly tailored slacks, he looked like money, like his weekend accessories might be a leggy model and a tennis racket. Noel didn’t look like the kind of guy who would paint himself purple and roll around in the sheets, or admit to it, anyway. He arched an eyebrow and chuckled, but he didn’t answer. Ruby gave him a coy look and giggled self-consciously. Waking up at the zoning commissioner’s house covered in what she could only assume was purple sex paste with a smooshed party hat under her pillow-it just didn’t add up, not for a temp attorney who spent most nights Facebooking in front of The Bachelor. Under her borrowed bathrobe, her skin was covered in fine purple grit, as if she’d run through a sprinkler and then rolled in grape-flavored Pop Rocks. Then, it all went fuzzy until this morning when she’d woken up in Noel’s Ethan Allen-inspired bedroom in serious need of a toothbrush and a shower.

She had been wearing her best approximation of a power suit while giving a local developer hell. She remembered speaking in front of the Zoning Commission yesterday. It was everything she’d ever wanted, if only she knew how she’d gotten here. Thanks, she said, and they went back to smiling and sipping coffee like two wayward Old Navy mannequins. She willed him to say something to explain last night-anything would do-but all he managed was a disappointing, If you’re thirsty, the water from the fridge dispenser is ice cold. Noel looked like he might speak, but he took a farm boy-sized bite of his blueberry Pop-Tart instead. Wearing nothing but a borrowed bathrobe, Ruby stood in Noel West’s high-end prefab kitchen and leaned against the granite countertop while smiling like an actress in a refrigerator commercial. To Justin, Mike, and Tamika, but mostly Wendy.

Ruby's Misadventures with Reality by Samantha Bohrman