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Could Ruby do her window painting here? Would there be enough business for that to work?
“Ooh, let’s come back here next visit,” Mom says, jerking me from my Ruby-colored thoughts. “I hear the hot yoga at this studio is life-affirmingly amazing and also super-hot.”
Super-hot. Damn, that reminds me of Ruby.
Life-affirming fits her too. She lives her life to the fullest, embracing work, friends, and love with a gorgeous determination that makes my heart tick and my mind blaze.
“Sounds perfect for you, Mom,” I say, returning to the conversation.
“Speaking of things that are perfect for us . . . are you saying this whole long-distance thing with Ruby isn’t all it’s cracked up to be?” Mom is nothing if not direct.
I draw a deep breath; I need it for what I’m about to admit.
The godawful truth.
“I miss her,” I say, uttering that combination of words I say even more often than I expected to.
I miss you, Ruby. I fucking miss you. I miss you so much, sweetheart.
Long-distance relationships are wonderful and horrible at the same time. On the one hand, I’m stoked we figured out how to make us work, through FaceTime and airline miles and letters and texts and emails.
And sure, at first the long-distance relationship was fun, in a roller-coaster ride kind of way. It was wildly sexy and exciting to rip each other’s clothes off after pent-up time away.
But we don’t need to be apart to have great sex.
Now, nearly a year in, the missing is too constant. The ache of not seeing her is like riding that same roller coaster for the three-hundredth time in a day. It’s making me sick to my fucking stomach.
My mom and I stop at the crosswalk, look left, look right.
“It’s hard to be away from the one you love.” She pats my shoulder as we head across the road. “So what are you going to do about it?”
That’s the question.
I need to do something about this missing.
I need to figure out how to get Ruby here. Or I need to go there.
That evening, after I take my mom out for ice cream closer to home, I email Max and start to formulate a plan.
A month later
It’s endless, my flight. Only six hours, but it feels like it takes six years. Maybe that’s how it goes when you figure out it’s time to put it all on the line.
When you realize that the thing you’ll most regret doing is not doing something.
Will it be easy?
Who the hell knows?
But easy isn’t the point of life.
Loving and learning and growing and making new dreams for yourself and the people you love is. I have so many dreams for Ruby and me, I’m going to need a Dodge Challenger, with its massive trunk space, for all of them.
I want to spill my hopes the second I get off the plane.
But now isn’t the time.
I have to wait one more day.
Now is the time, however, to haul her into my arms, and smother her in deep, dirty kisses.
She’s waiting for me at JFK on the other side of security, holding up a big hand-drawn sign.
Squeeze the day. And squeeze me while you’re at it?
I crack up, so ready to spend the month of June with this woman, so eager to tackle new adventures that have nothing to do with a list and everything to do with how we want to live our lives. When I cross security, she drops the sign and jumps me. She wraps her arms and legs around me like a koala and holds on tight, and instantly, everything is right in the universe.
I wrap her up in my arms. Kiss her hard. Thank my lucky stars that she’s mine.
Then I set her down and give her a proper kiss. Cupping her jaw, I bring my lips to hers. She melts against me.
When I let go, she smiles as wide as the city. “That kiss is almost justification for you living across the country.”
I smack her ass. “That’s what I was thinking too,” I say, even though that’s not at all true.
But I don’t want to give a single hint about the plan I’ve hatched.
I’d like to have sex with her in the Lyft.
But that’s pretty tacky.
Not to mention gross. And rude.
And I can wait. I like just talking to Ruby as much as all the other stuff.
On the drive to Brooklyn, I ask her to catch me up on everything.
She arches a skeptical brow. “Like everything that happened in the twelve hours since I last spoke with you?”
I roll my eyes. “Woman, it’s not the same. Tell me all the things you don’t tell me over the phone.”
Her forehead creases. “Hate to break it to you, but I’m an open book. I kind of tell you everything.” Then, her eyes sparkle, and she grabs my thigh. “Wait! I do have something to tell you. Gigi met someone last night. Apparently, she had quite the evening with a dashing stranger.”
