poking at her pride nearly overwhelmed Micah’s presence, but she shook off her disappointment before he could sniff it out. “If I’d wanted to be interviewed by Micah Blackwell of the National Sports Network, I would have called you up and let you know I’d be here. I didn’t, so I don’t.” Because she managed to make those words come out strong, unlaced by her fears, she straightened her shoulders and looked him in the eye.
“USA Track & Field deserves to know who you are and what you are doing. The American public deserves to know.”
“No!” She’d surprised them both by yelling the word and she took a deep breath to calm herself. “For years, the press and the American public had their nose in every little thing I did. My haircuts. My nail polish. The color of my sports bra. And, only during Olympic years, my running. You’ve had your rule over my life. You’re all vultures—you can find another scandal to pick at. I wanted to run in a race with other people. I did that today, along with ninety-nine others. I’m no different from any of them.”
Even under the brunt of her anger, Micah’s face was open and placid. Whatever emotion had driven him to her door he’d buried deep inside, where she couldn’t see it, replacing it with curiosity. Share your intimacies with me. Confession is good for the soul. What a liar his face was. Confession opened wounds from which fresh blood poured. It riled up the vultures until they circled over her life and waited for it to be destroyed. “You didn’t seem to mind the press’s attention until you got caught doping and they took away your gold medal.”
Her jaw clenched and she had to spit out her response. “You’re here because you think I will get you good ratings, which means you’re no better than I am. And before you lecture me—” Ruby put her hand on the doorknob “—I sure as hell know more about my sins and their consequences than you do.” She opened the door. “Now get out, before I call the front desk.”
“I still want an interview.” Micah didn’t appear to be going anywhere. His hands weren’t even on the wheels of his chair. “You should think about it. I’ll be far kinder to you than King Ripley will be if he figures out who you are.”
Except Ruby was certain she could outsmart King Ripley. “I am sure it’s considered bad etiquette to wheel you out of my room against your will, but I didn’t invite you in here, so I don’t really care.”
Micah cocked his head and regarded her, his scorn caressing every square inch of her bare skin. The sensation was familiar enough that she relaxed her shoulders. He was nothing she hadn’t endured before and couldn’t endure again. Besides, she was smarter this time. A different and better person. He didn’t have to know that Ruby Heart was a new person because she knew.
“I think I could stop you,” he said. Several long seconds went by with his arms still crossed over his chest, the bulges of his deltoids straining his T-shirt sleeves. Would he call her bluff? Finally, he put his hands down and left her room without saying another word. Ruby shut the door with a soft click, then leaned her forehead against the wood and took a deep breath, closing her eyes against the memories of a phone constantly ringing and camera flashes invading her peace.
She breathed deep into her abdomen before she opened her eyes again. This was the only race she was allowing herself to run. Without an interview, any story Micah did about her was dead as soon as she drove home.
She turned back to her desk, the egg-salad sandwich—now warm as well as soggy—wilting on its plastic wrap next to a small bag of potato chips and some carrots. She was no longer hungry, but she’d been an athlete for too long to confuse food with emotions. Besides, she thought as the bag of chips wrinkled when she cracked it open, she didn’t have to taste the food to gain nourishment.
* * *
MICAH HADN’T GONE five feet when he stopped and reflected back on Ruby, both the woman in the hotel room and the girl he’d interviewed five years ago. Despite being twenty-four when she’d won her gold medal, and in the public spotlight off and on for the previous four years, after she had captivated the world by winning the silver medal in a sport Americans hadn’t known they’d cared about, Ruby had been a girl existing in a silly, cloud-filled dream world where putting one step in front of the other until her chest broke the finish line was the only thing that mattered.
The juxtaposition between the Ruby of then and the Ruby of now was jarring. If she’d denied being Ruby Heart, he might have even believed her. Five years ago, Ruby’s hair had been bleached blond and razor sharp at her chin. She’d worn heavy black eyeliner and bright red lipstick. Everything about that Ruby had been composed to catch—and hold—your attention. Like the rest of America, the costume had fooled Micah into believing Ruby was slicker and worldlier than she actually had been. Not until he’d rewatched his interview with her on YouTube with five years of distance could he see the bewilderment in her eyes under all that makeup.
This Ruby Heart, with her pigtails, wide brown eyes and smattering of freckles, had all the innocence of the clichéd girl next door, designed to be forgotten once your front door shut. Only now Ruby’s eyes had the harshness of a woman who knew what it felt like to have a knife in the back combined with a sense of resignation, as if she expected another stab at any moment.
Had she really changed from that attention-seeking girl she’d been? She’d turned down an interview, but Ruby was a runner, and she might also be the kind of person who liked to be chased. Which was fine; Micah still enjoyed a good hunt.
One thing was certain, she still had the same glorious body. Her T-shirt and gym shorts meant there had been plenty of bare skin for him to appreciate. When she’d moved her arms, her biceps had expanded and collapsed and he wished he’d managed to make her take a step toward him. With so little body fat, her legs were a lesson in muscle anatomy, and they rippled when she moved.
Micah had always been a leg man, and his tastes hadn’t changed just because his own legs were now the downstairs neighbor he waved at but who never waved in return. Calves made shapely by high heels were not the legs he fantasized about. He liked the condensed power in a female athlete’s thighs—a ham man, his teammates had said. His college girlfriend had played tennis, but her thighs in that swinging white skirt had nothing on Ruby in gym shorts. All that power in a sleek, racing version.
Micah rubbed his face, then squeezed the bridge of his nose, forcing himself to remember why Ruby was in that hotel room and not fresh off another Olympic triumph. Pigtails were as much a costume as the red lipstick had been. She needed no pity. And she didn’t deserve his admiration of her body. She’d been given the opportunity to compete on the greatest stage the world offered her sport and she’d responded by filling her veins with the blood of another person. Blood doping was a gruesome way to cheat, making a mockery of both the sport and the people for whom that blood meant the difference between life and death. A vampire, draining the sport and the athlete of all its integrity. A monster.
And, after her interview, she’d had the audacity to expect pity from him.
He put his hands back on the wheels of his chair and refused to think of Ruby’s thighs in any way other than belonging on the hot seat while Amir filmed the interview of Micah’s career. He would show the world how little a doping athlete changed, no matter the tears they produced in a confessional. And then he’d take the promotion NSN offered.
MICAH HAD ARRIVED back in Chicago late Tuesday night and wasn’t expected in the studio until after lunch on Wednesday, so he stopped at his favorite restaurant for a bite to eat before work. The lunch hour meant Micah had to force his way through the other regulars, all of whom greeted him, to get his wheelchair to a table. But Sheila, the hostess, always took special care of him and got him a table for four, which was great until King showed up. “Is this seat taken?” the other reporter asked while pulling out a chair and sitting down. Micah didn’t bother to say no; King would only pretend that the restaurant was too noisy to hear.
After asking the waitress, Patty, for a beer, King turned to Micah with the manly joie de vivre that could lure