Robin and Ruby Read Online Free PDF

twenty blocks away. There was still smoke rising from the ruins on Osage Avenue when George helped Robin lug his bags up to the apartment, and the first call Robin got from his mother was an urgent plea that he get out of there quickly. In the weeks since, he’s quietly wondered if he should have listened to her. But it became a point of pride to not flee the heat, to be one of the few white faces in the crowd at Clark Park last weekend when the neighborhood demonstrated against police brutality. Plus, how could he leave George? He needed to show George that he was down with him.
    George claimed that the Stoopers, as they’d dubbed the boys outside, always said hello to him, but when Robin and George went in or out of the building together, he never heard any of them speak to George.
    Usually Robin puts on his butchest demeanor when he sees them, adopting a toughness that doesn’t come naturally. But right now, he simply doesn’t have the energy. “You suck,” he says to Peter, slamming the door behind him. “And not in a good way.”
    “Don’t leave angry.”
    Robin throws his hands in the air. “I am angry,” he shouts, “and you don’t want to stay over, so I guess I’m going to leave. Angry.”
    Peter hangs his head and mutters, “OK, then. Let’s talk tomorrow.”
    Robin stares through the window at the dashboard. His gaze lands on the tape deck. Peter never listened to dance music before he met Robin. He pushes the eject button and the plastic cassette pops forth. He sees his own handwriting on the label. It reads, “Dance With Me.”
    “I want it all back,” he tells Peter. “Everything I ever gave you.” The words are borrowed from somewhere, a book, a movie. He long ago learned the importance of an exit line.
    He hears Peter pull away from the curb, and then there’s a swell of laughter among the Stoopers. He hears one of them use the word “punk,” which George recently explained to him has nothing to do with punk rock and everything to do with getting it up the ass.
    He takes the two flights up to his apartment quickly, past the first floor, where their landlord’s daughter is raising a bunch of kids, where the cry of an infant is almost a constant. The old wooden stairs creak beneath him, and as he gets closer to his third-floor flat, he realizes there’s music coming from behind the door.
    He enters, and there’s George: naked and dancing.
    Robin gets an eyeful of the muscular triangle of George’s back and the high, hard curve of his ass, shaking with the music. Prince’s seductive falsetto rings out over an amplified beat, I really get a dirty mind, while George shakes his index finger at some invisible lover, his masculine body softened by his sassy pose.
    Robin feels the first smile of the day breaking across his face. “Is this a free show, or are you looking for tips?”
    George spins around, startled to be discovered. He lets out an embarrassed whoop, shields his crotch, and dashes by, near enough for Robin to reach out and slap his ass. Robin can feel the damp heat rising off George’s skin.
    Through the bathroom door, George shouts, “I came out of the shower, and I heard this song, and I was, like—”
    “Empty apartment, dance naked.”
    “You know I love me some Prince.”
    “I’ll come in more quietly next time.” Robin affects this kind of flirtation with George sometimes, a little steam valve meant to release whatever tension might naturally build between gay friends sharing an apartment but not a bed. This tension wasn’t something he’d expected going into the summer, since he and George did not, it seemed, have any unresolved questions about who they were to each other. But George isn’t the diminutive science geek he was in high school. He’s been building up his body, dropping to the floor of the apartment once a day for push-ups and sit-ups in a tank top that reveals the sweet dusting of hair at the center of his developing chest. Robin has imagined