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She ignored that and shoved a few sticky, unwrapped gummy bears into my hand. Then she said, “I’ve been thinking, and when you get home to San Francisco, you’re going to need some help. It’s probably hard to do much of anything with a broken arm and leg. I know lots of people, including a few home health care nurses. Coincidentally, all three of them are also drag queens. I can give you their numbers.”
“Thanks, Nana,” Aleksei said, “but that won’t be necessary. I’ll be taking care of him.”
“Sure, but not around the clock. You’ll need to go to work, and he can’t be left alone for eight hours at a time.”
He shook his head. “I’m not going back to work. Not until Timothy’s back on his feet. Even then, I’ll mostly be working from home.”
She beamed at him and patted his cheek. “You’re a good man, Lexie. Hot, too. You know, you should sign up for that pole dancing class that Timmy used to do. I bet you’d be real good at it.” She wiggled her brows, and then she took a big sip of that margarita and exclaimed, “I need to go find my man! I feel the urge to boogie-oogie-oogie!”
With that, she rushed off into the crowd, and I murmured, “I adore her.”
“Me, too. Here, let me help you with your fistful of possibly illegal in Nevada drug bears.”
He got up and wrapped the gummies in a napkin before depositing them in a trash can. When he came back, I said, “You weren’t serious about taking all that time away from work, right? You just told Nana that so she didn’t send a pack of drag queens to take care of me.”
“Oh no, I meant it.” He sat down on the edge of the lounge chair, facing me.
“But you wouldn’t just abandon your staff and your clients.”
“No, I wouldn’t, but just look at this past week. I’ve been out of the office longer than I ever have since I opened the place, and the sky isn’t falling. My staff stepped up, and our clients are receiving excellent service. A couple of my more temperamental clients are threatening to walk if I’m not the one handling their accounts directly, and that’s their choice. But even if they do leave, the company will be just fine without them.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “But your business means everything to you.”
“You mean everything to me, Tima. That’s why I’m going to be there for you through every step of your healing process and physical therapy. By then, my office will have totally adjusted to my absence. I figure I’ll take on more of an advisory role, so my staff can consult with me as needed. But that’s about it.”
“This isn’t you, though.”
“No, and thank god for that! You know what I kept thinking about, in the painfully long hours it took to get myself to the airport, fly to Southern California, and reach your bedside? The last conversation we had at the fundraiser. You mentioned traveling together, and I automatically made excuses for why I couldn’t really do that. I tried to cling to my job, because that was my comfort zone.
“But enough already! I know exactly what putting work first does to a relationship, and I’m not going to do that to you. I refuse. I’m sorry that it took the terror of possibly losing you to finally wake me up—because my god, Tima, when I got a call from a hospital saying you’d been in an accident, my entire world came crashing down around me. Life is so precious, and you’re so precious, and I’m not going to fuck this up by being afraid to change.”
I whispered, “I feel like I’m dreaming.”
“But it’s already happening. I’ve taken a huge step back from work, and once you’re well again, I want us to do all those things you mentioned. Let’s swim with dolphins, and make love under the northern lights, and ride a bike wherever the hell you said you wanted to do that. Don’t take no for an answer. If I start to revert back to the old me, take my hand and drag me out the door if you have to, out of my comfort zone, and remind me life is for living. You’ll do that, won’t you, Tima?”
“Yes. Absolutely.” I grabbed his lapel with my good hand and pulled him to me. When his lips met mine, it felt like our first kiss all over again—so full of hope and possibility.
Epilogue: Aleksei
Eight Months Later
“Are you sure about this?”
I looked over my shoulder as I said that, at the ever-growing wave that was bearing down on us. Then I glanced at Tima. He was a few feet away, straddling a surf board, while I clung to the edges of a body board. I’d tried learning to surf, but standing up on that contraption was never going to happen. Not in this lifetime.
