Chapter Text
“Just don’t have sex with him.”
Belle choked on her iced tea. Across from her, Ruby’s face was dead serious.
“What?” she snapped in a low whisper.
“Just promise me this,” her friend insisted. “If the opportunity presents itself, you won’t have sex with Mr. Gold on the hood of the his Cadillac.”
“Ruby!” Belle said, looking around and lowering her voice even more. It didn’t matter that it was so early in the morning and the dinner was practically empty. All it took was one person for the rumor to spread quickly. “I’m not going to have sex on the hood of his Cadillac! For goodness sake!”
“Nor in the backseat, like a proper lady?”
“Ruby!”
“This is a bad decision!” Ruby said. After three days of being lectured on the subject by her best friend (a best friend, mind you, who was prone to making bad decisions herself), Belle was on the verge of telling her she sounded like a broken record. “A bad, terrible, horrible decision! But since you refuse to listen to me, on the one occasion when I am being the reasonable one out of the two of us, at least promise me you won’t take it one step further before he gets a divorce. And a restraining order. Just promise me that.”
“Nothing will happen because there is nothing to happen,” Belle argued. “That was just a silly thought. It meant nothing and it won’t happen again.”
“But what if the car breaks down? What if you are stranded in the middle of nowhere? What if you get caught in the rain, get soaked wet, and start getting bad ideas.”
Belle stared at her. “Since this isn’t a romantic comedy, I assume we will be fine.”
“But what if, Belle?”
“If the thought even pops into my head, I will immediately think of you, scolding at me over breakfast. That will be enough to kill the mood. But that won’t be necessary because we will spend eight hours on the road, sitting far apart from each other, talking about nothing important, or enjoying awkward moments of silence. That will be it.”
“Right.”
Belle waited.
“But just in case everything else fails, I got you some condoms.”
“Ruby!”
“What?”