Riding the Sugar High: a Grumpy Sunshine Romantic Comedy

34. You’re Leaving

Hey.

Kyle helped me set the phone up.

I’m on the porch.

Your shower is taking too long.

Come out here. I miss you.

Where are you?

Sorry, I thought I heard the bathroom door.

Seriously, you don’t need seven different lotions.

Your skin is so soft, just come out here and fuck me.

This is Logan, by the way.

I watchthe screen impatiently as I shift on the step, but still no answer from Primrose. Until three dots appear on the screen.

Primrose

Ten texts???

Logan

Too many?

Primrose

That was quick. Were you staring at the phone, waiting for an answer?

Huh. Maybe I’m not supposed to do that.

Logan

Yes.

The front door opens, and Primrose comes out in a beautiful yellow dress that makes her look like summer. Her hair is still wet from the shower, and she must have used all seven lotions I’ve seen her use during her... skincare routine, as she called it, because her cheeks are glistening.

“‘This is Logan, by the way?’”

I shrug. “You didn’t have my contact saved yet.”

She stands behind me, and as she gently pulls my hair back, I rest the top of my head on her legs and watch her.

“Though I do appreciate the sentiment and share the enthusiasm, I don’t think we can have sex.” She points at the house. “Your whole family is in the backyard.”

I know, but a man is allowed to dream.

Why did I plan this lunch? I guess I felt like Primrose deserves a proper send-off, and I figured that with everything that’s been going on with Aaron and Josie, we could all use a distraction.

But Primrose is leaving today, and I don’t think I have it in me to pretend I’m fine. I’m anything but fine.

Sure, now I have a smartphone, and Kyle promised to teach me how much I’m allowed to call and the type of conversations that are appropriate to have via text. Primrose has shown me how to turn it on and charge it, and her contact is saved, which is all I need it for. She even promised to send me “nudes.”

But it’s not the same as having her here, is it?

It’s not the same as waking up with her body on mine, not the same as cleaning up after her or knowing that she’s past the orchard, making candy inside the house.

“Come on. Let’s go.”

I take her hand and watch her try to pull me up. Instead, her shoes slide along the porch until she nearly tumbles back. With a chuckle, I stand and follow her to the back of the house.

She waves her beautiful fingers at Kyle before she takes a casserole off his hands and brings it to the big table we’ve set up in the backyard. Simon follows, then tells her something that makes her laugh, which causes the skirt of her dress to sway as her chest gently shakes.

God, I’m going to miss the sound of her laugh so much.

“Lono?”

I look down at Sadie, pull her up on my lap and sit. “Hey, pretty girl. I like your dress,” I tell her as I touch the pink sleeve. “Is it new?”

She nods, playing with a strand of my hair. “It’s the same as Prim.”

I nod, trying to hide the full extent of my anguish behind a smile. “You look just like her. Maybe she’ll give you candy after lunch.”

Her eyes widen, her face splitting with a full smile. “Really?”

“Uh-huh. Go ask her.”

She jumps off my lap, then runs to the porch, calling Primrose’s name. Once she crouches down to talk to Sadie, she looks back at me with a chuckle, and I swear my heart stops for a moment.

“Hey.” My brother joins my side, and my cheek-straining smile hardens.

“Hey.”

With a tired sigh, he sits beside me. “It’s been a while, huh?”

I look at him questioningly, and when he gestures at the table, flashbacks of our childhood hit me all at once. Aaron, Josie, Simon and me, running around the table as our parents and their friends ate lunch. Then a grown-up version of us sitting at the table too, every Sunday, waiting for lunch to be over so we could smoke weed somewhere in the fields. “Yeah, it has.”

Josie comes out of the kitchen with my mom, and she glances at me and Aaron before looking away. “Are you guys still...”

“Yes, still divorcing.” He swallows, lips rolling over his teeth. “I don’t know how...how we’re going to explain it to Sadie.”

“Would it help if I told you that, in the end, the happier you are, the happier she’ll be?”

“I don’t think it would,” he says with a sad smile. “But it’d help to know you’ll be there.” Meeting my gaze for a moment, he shrugs. “For Sadie.”

“I’ll always be there for her. And...you.” When he turns to me, I release the breath I’ve been holding for what feels like five years. “Got your back, remember?”

His eyes flare as they flick to my back, where the ink he inspired still sits, then he looks down at his hands. His eyes moisten, but with a sniffle, he looks away and finds his composure again. “I quit my job.”

My mouth opens as I turn to him, and he chuckles. “What—seriously?”

“Seriously.” He crosses his legs, stretching back, and now that I think about it, I haven’t seen him this relaxed in...shit, years. “I’m done. I’ve worked twelve hours a day for five years. It’s time to do something else—something that makes me happy.”

“Do you, uh, want to come work at the farm?”

He studies me for a long moment, then shakes his head. “No, the farm is yours. I need to find my own thing.”

I’m about to ask if he already knows what that might be when Primrose’s melodic voice reaches me again, and I find her with my dad, Sadie between her arms as she whispers into her ear.

“What about you? Are you ready for her to leave?”

I swallow, wishing there was alcohol on the table already. “Do I look like it?”

“No, you don’t.”

Well, fuck, I’m not. How can I sit here and pretend to be okay with it? How can I go through driving her to the airport knowing this morning was the last time I”d hear that little gasp she makes when I bottom out inside her?

Not the last time, I guess, because we’ll meet again. Soon. When winter hits, I’ll see her in Mayfield, and my mom invited her to spend Christmas with us before she even set foot in the house earlier today.

But right now, it doesn’t feel like enough.

“By the way, I wanted you to know, uh...”

“That you’ve given her the money?” Aaron laughs, rubbing his stubble. “Kyle inadvertently told me already.”

Seriously, why do I keep that idiot around?

“I invested it in her,” I specify. He doesn’t need to know that it wasn’t my original intention. “We’ll draw up a contract and everything.”

“It’s your money,” he says. “And Kyle also said you’ve had to pass on some clients because of the new volume of orders, so...you’re free to choose how you spend it.”

I nod. I should probably thank him—I still haven’t—but I think it’ll take me some time. The fact that we’re sitting at the same table and no heads are flying is a miracle in itself.

With a long, deep sigh, he shakes his head. “She’s been here for what, sixteen days?”

I’d tell him to back off, but he’s right. And in that time, I’ve fallen for her harder and faster than I ever thought possible. Even so, I can’t let her walk away from her dream.

She deserves to have it all.

“Seventeen.” I shrug, then mumble, “She’ll go. I’ll be fine.”

“No, that’s not what I mean.” He shrugs when he notices my eyes set on the side of his face. “I just...” He flashes me a playful smile. “Seventeen days ago, your farm was failing. You and I weren’t talking, and I was in a loveless marriage. And today...”

“Today, I’m here, having one of our Sunday lunches for the first time in years.”

He nods, huffing out a laugh. “Pretty fucking great.”

He doesn’t need to tell me how amazing she is. How everything she does is impressive. I know that very well.

Watching Primrose set Sadie down, I smile. “She believes in me so blindly.” My throat constricts, tears burning in the backs of my eyes. “I needed someone to believe in me.”

He squeezes my shoulder for a moment. “So...what are you going to do?”

“I’ll drive her to the airport, kiss her goodbye, keep a smile on for her sake, and then...”

Then that’s it.

I’ll focus on work, maybe spend more time with Aaron and Sadie.

“Do you think you guys will be okay?”

I watch Primrose entertain our guests as if this is her house—it might as well be, goddammit. She’s in everything, from the million candles to the pink containers, lipsticks, and creams in the bathroom to the scent of sugar in the air. She’s embedded in me, so I know what she’d say if the question were pointed at her.

She’d tell me to believe in it. To believe in me and her.

She’d tell me to live life fully, to wear my heart on my sleeve, and not to brush off our seventeen days together because these moments might be as fleeting as dust, but even dust has its place in the world.

Before she got here, I hated my life. And it’s much better now because of everything she’s done, but not having her here feels like going back to those gray, meaningless days that blur into one another.

She’s brought all variants of pink into my life.

And it turns out it’s my favorite fucking color.

* * *

“Please, just let me carry your goddamn luggage, Primrose.”

“I don’t need you to,” she insists as she drags the large suitcase along.

She doesn’t need me to? She looks like David trying to cart Goliath around on tiny wheels. But her mood started worsening when we left, and by the time we reached the airport, she had a dark cloud following her around.

“Stupid—freaking—” She kicks the pink suitcase when one of the wheels gets stuck on a broken tile, and raising a brow, I watch her sigh and glance up at me. “Fine. Can you please?—”

“Would love to, Barbie.”

With her suitcase in hand, I follow her to the large screen showcasing the departures. Once she’s located her check-in counter, we stand in line until a grumpy flight attendant takes her luggage. I wait by a bookstore for her to finish up, watching the people inside browse through books and magazines.

“You can go if you want,” she says as she joins me.

“Hm? What?”

“You look uncomfortable. I know you don’t like crowded places.”

Yeah, I don’t. I hate the fluorescent lights and loud noises, people screaming and crying and yapping. Of all the crowded places in the world, airports are my least favorite. So many emotions all around me. “It’s fine. I’m not going to leave until your plane takes off.”

“But we’ll have to say goodbye at security.”

“I know.” I push the rising feeling of despair away, then point at the store. “Come on. I’ll get you a couple of books for the trip.”

“You don’t need to.”

“I want to.”

She follows me into the store, but the usual bounce in her step is noticeably absent. “How about this?” I ask as I pick up a book with a dark cover that reminds me of one I’ve seen her read. “The Hollow House. Sounds intriguing, right?”

“I guess.”

“Or romance? Huh? You want another one of your spicy books?”

“What am I going to do with them now?” she mutters. “You won’t be there to take care of me.”

“You can handle it yourself.”

She pouts. “It’s not the same anymore. Not after you.”

Setting the book down, I turn to her with a sigh. “I know this is hard. Trust me, I’m not enthusiastic about it either. But we’ll talk on the phone every day, and we’ll text. And you’ll be so busy with your sweets and social media, you won’t even notice time passing before you’re here again.”

“Or I’ll be too busy getting my product off the ground. You’ll be too busy with the farm. We’ll talk for a while, then we’ll talk less. And then we’ll be stressed out and start fighting. Until, at some point, we’ll stop talking altogether because we can’t stand each other anymore. And I’ll never see this place again.”

“Don’t say that,” I scold. “You know it’s not true.”

“It could happen.”

“Barbie, you’re just in a shitty mood.”

She gives me a flippant shrug, and anger quickly boiling to the surface, I set the book back on the shelf.

“Okay, you want to fight? Would that help? Do you want me to scream at you and be an ass until you leave?”

She huffs out a light chuckle. “It might make it easier.”

“Fine. Then I’m choosing your books, and I don’t care what you want.” I walk past her, ignoring her amused expression, then glance at the dozens of covers in front of me. “This one,” I say as I point at a pink one. “And that one,” I continue, this time not even bothering to check which one I’m pointing at. “Those are the books you’re getting. End of story.”

She hums, then grabs two different ones. “I want these.”

Her tone is softer now, her brows pulled together, and her lips curved into a mischievous smile.

This woman loves to push my buttons.

I’m going to miss her so much.

With a nod, I grab the two books and walk to the cashier.

“Thank you,” she says as I hand them to her.

“No problem. Ready to go?”

Her smile vanishes again, so I hold her hand. “Look, we still have those stairs over there, then a ten-minute walk before we get to security. We can fight a whole lot more.” I snap my fingers. “For example, you shed like a border collie. I won’t miss the blonde and pink hair all over my carpet.”

She chuckles, and happy with the result, I walk up the stairs. “You know what else I won’t miss?”

“What?”

“How you always put the milk carton back in the fridge even when it’s empty. Or—oh, your snoring. And you’re a total cover hog.”

“I don’t snore,” she mumbles.

“You do.” She doesn’t. She’s also the only one who drinks milk, so that was bullshit too. As for the covers, I guess that’s true, but I run hot at night, so I never keep them on. “Your turn,” I say as we reach the top of the stairs. “What are you not going to miss about me?”

“Uh, your, hmm...you...” She frowns, staring at the floor as we walk.

“My beard scratching your face?” I suggest.

“I love it. Not just on my face.”

Not now, I mentally bark at myself when I picture her pussy opened up for me. “An internet connection.”

“Turns out life without Wi-Fi isn’t so bad.”

We’re approaching the security lines now, and my heart is squeezing too hard to pretend this isn’t a big deal. She’s leaving, and she’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.

“I won’t miss the stupid way you kiss me.”

I look down at her, her teary eyes staring into mine.

“It’s the worst. The way you always need to touch me everywhere. How you cup my cheek like I’m precious. How you pick me up all the time, but always hold a hand over my skirt or dress to make sure nobody can see my underwear.”

I swallow hard.

“I won’t miss sleeping with you either, with all those cuddles. You always scratch my back and twist your legs around mine. You breathe me in and kiss me until I’m asleep.”

My eyes sting, but I try to smile. “I won’t miss talking to you.” When my voice nearly breaks, I clear my throat. “Your voice. Your questions. The million things going through your mind at any given moment. And I definitely won’t miss waking up next to you.”

“Morning breath?”

“The worst,” I lie. “And your hair is messy. Your boobs are pressing against me. You’re warm, with that peaceful expression on your face. Just...” Fuck, now I’m going to cry. “Awful.”

“Yeah, you too.”

We stop, and suddenly, I realize there’s so much I forgot to tell her. Does she know I feel strong and confident whenever she calls me a cowboy? That every time she enjoys something I cook for her, it melts my heart? I don’t think I ever thanked her for keeping a vegan diet while she stayed with me. And I definitely didn’t tell her that she saved my life. That I will forever be grateful for it.

“I guess this is it,” she says. Tears are streaming down her face, but she’s almost expressionless, as if she’s not even sure it’s really happening.

“Yeah. For now.”

She nods, then turns to me, and knowing what she needs, I lean forward and pull her up, a hand on her ass as she winds her legs around me.

“I wish we’d gone out on your bike more,” she says. She chuckles, but a sob breaks through. “That we’d kissed more. And spent more time with your friends, and with the animals, and at the valley, and?—”

“We’ll do it all. This isn’t the end.”

She nods, nuzzling her face into my shoulder, and for a minute or two, I let her cry into my jacket. All her sorrows pour out as her shoulders shake, and I fight against my own painful breakdown.

I refuse to cry because this isn’t the end.

“Okay, come on.” I rub her back, then her hair. “Enough with this. Go, and call me when you get home tonight. All right?”

She nods, wiping her tears away, then her lips are on me a million times before she slides down. I kiss her again, then again, until she really needs to go, or she’ll miss her flight.

“Do great things, okay?” I say as she takes a step back.

She nods and, with one last look, joins the line.

But the gut-wrenching fear that this is the last time I see her kicks the breath out of me.

“Barbie,” I call, though most of the crowd turns to me. I walk over to meet her, thanking the couple of people who’ve already lined up behind her when they let me through.

Her nose is red, sobs shaking her shoulders. “Wh-what is it?”

I take my jacket off. “Take this.”

“Your jacket? No—it’s your favorite, Logan.”

“That’s okay.” A tear falls down my cheek, and I harshly wipe it with my thumb. “Because we’ll meet again, and you’ll give it back to me.”

The security guard tells Primrose to advance, and after a moment of hesitation, she takes my jacket. “What about you? I don’t have anything to give you, Logan. What—” She opens her bag and frantically looks inside, mumbling something about her cowgirl boots. I’d never take them from her anyway.

“I already have something of yours,” I say as I bring a hand to her arm to stop her. When I show her my wrist, she grimaces as she stares at the pink flamingos.

“But that’s just a scrunchie. You gave me something so important, and I...”

She drifts off as I pull the scrunchie up, revealing the wonky horse beneath it. “Trust me, it’s important. And it wasn’t easy to convince the tattoo artist not to fix that line,” I say as I point at the deformed ear.

“Logan,” she breathes out. “When...when did you do this?”

“Yesterday. It was fading, and I needed it to stay there.”

She brings a hand to her mouth and nods frantically before throwing herself against my chest. “If you ever need someone to save you...” Holding my wrist up, I force my lips to bend into a smile. “I’ll be there in a minute. With my white horse.”

“I love you,” she mouths, and once I mouth it back, she turns around, eventually disappearing into the crowd.

Gone.

* * *

I walk, then walk some more, until I’m looking at the departures board, and I’m not even sure how I got back here.

Glancing around, I find an empty bench and sit. Her flight leaves in an hour, and I have nowhere else to be.

I cup my face, and for a while, I exist. I try to process the fact that she’s gone. It feels like it’s all been a fever dream—like it happened in my mind. Finding someone so imperfect for me that it just made sense. Finding her in such a weird way, then finding her again and again.

I kept finding her, and now, I’ve lost her.

“Hey.” Someone sits beside me, and I turn to my brother with wide eyes.

What is he doing here?

Resting his back on the chair, he exhales. “Prim asked me to come. She figured you might need the support.”

I look down, blinking hard and fast to stop the overwhelming emotions I feel from taking over.

I didn’t lose her. She’s right here.

She’s still saving my life.

I let out a heavy sigh, and when my brother’s hand rests on my shoulder, all my sadness and gratitude and relief erupt into tears.