Re: Ruby and Clint
Clint had of course been hoping that she wasn’t just walking around with him to be nice, or like she owed him any attention or anything, so the way she was smiling at him was reassuring. Also the way she leaned on the rather comfortable-looking couch. He ambled in a little closer, something in his own smile turning warmer. “Oh yeah?” he murmured, feeling kind of flushed and pleased. Clint reached out to run his fingers down Ruby’s arm to toy with her fingers a bit. “To be fair, I’m kinda a shitty tour guide? Definitely not professional.” He was grinning as he stepped in close enough to smell her, his eyes roaming over her face. “Can I ask you somethin’?”
Ruby's heart sped up as his fingers brushed down her arm and her fingers responded by playing back with his. She wished now that she'd had a few more big gulps of her drink; it would have calmed her very sober nerves. "Sure," she smiled warmly. "Whatever you want." She didn't have to answer, but he could always ask. Ruby wasn't an open book, but she wasn't afraid of voicing her opinion on things either.
He had touched her plenty the other night, of course, that tended to happen during sex. But finger-play was pretty different. Kind of more romantic and intimate. And Ruby was smiling really pretty at him, making his stomach flutter ... fuck, was he nervous? Clint didn’t usually get nervous around girls. He was a fairly confident guy and he knew his place in the high school pecking order. But Ruby was different, she was outside his usual circle, and he wasn’t positive she would say yes, but he had to ask anyway because why not? “You wanna ... maybe ... go out on like, a real date with me sometime?” he asked, his brow lifting and lips half-curling again.
A real date? When was the last time she went on a real date with a guy she really wanted to maybe date? It felt like forever ago and the prospect made Ruby uncharacteristically giddy, butterflies churning within her. God, she was such a girl sometimes. “I’d like that,” she smiled back at him, letting her fingers thread through his. That was nice. Almost mushy nice. It was hard for her to believe this was Clint she was mooning over, but he was stupidly cute as he smiled back at her. “What does a real date with you look like?” It was probably a silly question and it wouldn’t change her answer, but she was curious. She’d dated guys who thought a date was parking somewhere and getting high before making out, so she wanted to know what to expect if he didn’t mind telling her.
Clint’s smile broadened as she said yes. He felt like fist-pumping, but didn’t want to let go of Ruby’s fingers to do so. He did shift in closer to her though, his heart picking up with happy excitement. Maybe it would be a complete bust and they wouldn’t be compatible at all outside of a party-hookup context, but the fun was in finding out, right? What was life if you didn’t even try? And she wanted to go out with him! It was cool. “Depends on the girl, I guess, but ... hmm.” Still grinning, Clint squinted one eye at Ruby like he was assessing her. “With you ... dinner somewhere good, but not too dressy ... Then either like, a horror movie at the Orion orrrr ... fuckin’ around at the arcade? Ice skating? Something fun.”
Ruby found herself grinning, laughing a little as she nodded in response. That was, like, real date material. Like he might actually like her, not like he just wanted another excuse to hook up with her outside the parties. It was exciting to be wanted like that and Clint was cute enough to give it a try, even if there was a part of her that wholly expected them to crash and burn. She wasn't sure what they had in common outside drinking and sex, but she wouldn't know if they never got around to talking. Not that she wanted to here necessarily, but they definitely wouldn't be having sex at the ice skating rink. "All of that," she said. "Everything you named I'd be into. Just keep in mind that if you go with a horror movie, my nails can be brutal," she teased, lightly scratching them over his palm. She wasn't a wuss, but jump scares always did her in.