Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
GRACE
Four days apart had passed both in an eternity and a blink. Grace hadn’t slept more than three hours a night. The only way she’d have the nerve to take a few more days off was to meet her billables for the month before leaving. While she packed her bag, she’d never been happier to be exhausted.
Icarus, however, was sitting in her half-packed suitcase glaring at her.
With his judgy blue eyes and swishing tail, he said, Really, bitch?
You leaving again? Sheila had shown her displeasure by tipping over her food bowl and screaming.
Grace imagined she’d been channeling Sarah McLachlan’s mournful lament.
“I know, guys.” She sat on the cold tile floor next to Icarus and called Sheila to her lap. “But this time Grandma is coming to stay here with you, okay? And you’ll be on the good stuff for the fireworks.” She scratched the back of Icarus’s head, but Sheila hadn’t stopped glaring.
“Don’t worry, I don’t have any more trips planned,” she added, chest aching like the first time she’d inhaled cold, mountain air.
Grace had been moving fast and working nonstop, but near the finish line when she could track the end of Alix’s absence in hours, she couldn’t stop wondering what came next. Couldn’t stop fearing inevitable heartbreak.
It wasn’t fair, but it seemed to track that the easiest relationship she’d ever had would be with a woman three thousand miles away. She held a purring Icarus to her chest and closed her eyes. A new anxiety she hadn’t wanted to take shape formed in her sour stomach.
Were they just a vacation fling? Thanksgiving in Miami, Christmas in Colorado, New Year’s in LA.
They couldn’t pretend their entire relationship wasn’t built on escapism.
On moments carved out and separated from their real lives.
It was easy to get along and get lost in the excitement of something new when they were both showing only one side of themselves.
Would Alix still be so sweet and patient when Grace worked nights and weekends and couldn’t give her the attention she deserved?
When she had to cancel last-minute plans because her firm was hired to show up in court on a brand-new case in the morning and she had to forgo sleep to get prepared?
It wasn’t so noticeable when Grace was always available by text, but if they were ever in person, Alix would get tired of waiting around for her.
Her fear of not being enough was only outmatched by her fear of being too much.
So far, Alix seemed to not just tolerate her high-intensity nature, but enjoy it.
But experience had made it very clear to Grace that once the newness of it all wore off, things that began as cute curdled into irritating.
She didn’t want to feel it. She’d been outrunning the encroaching dread since the moment her lips touched Alix’s. Since she fell a little bit in love with her family and where she’d grown up. Despite her best efforts, fear and doubt had come together to form a mega storm of nausea in her gut.
Why had she let her affection for Alix get away from her? What did that say about her? She petted Icarus and wondered if Alix was the only emotionally available lesbian over thirty-five in the country.
She laughed before questioning herself. Was Alix available? She’d been so hung up on her ex just a couple of months earlier. Icarus chattered as if to say, So were you, dummy.
Looking down at her cat, she wondered if she was flying straight into the sun with wax wings.
Maybe the problem wasn’t Alix’s availability or the distance.
Maybe the problem was Grace, who only knew how to love things that were destined to burn her.
Maybe she could only have things that couldn’t last.
Grace stood. She didn’t want to waste precious time worrying about it. Plus it wasn’t like she was going to California to make unbreakable vows. She was just going to celebrate New Year’s. Not everything had to have a future to enjoy the present.
Nope. She wasn’t setting herself up for guaranteed heartbreak. Long-distance relationships between people with well-established careers totally worked out all time. Grace avoided looking in the mirror while packing her toiletries.
As if sensing her anxiety, Alix’s personalized text tone pinged.
Alix
Please tell them again how sorry I am.
Grace sat at the edge of her bed and gave Alix every drop of her attention. Since Colorado, she hadn’t been able to tamp down the bright weightlessness that expanded in her chest when they spoke.
She replied with a photo of two snobby, irate cats sitting in her suitcase. Even without the ability to speak, their guilt trip rivaled the Olympic heights of a disappointed mother.
Grace
You might have to convince them yourself.
Alix
noooo look at them. Okay. Cancel your flight. I’m heading to the airport. I’ll be there later.
Grace laughed and then looked at the time.
Grace
It’s three in the morning. What are you doing awake? Did you end up at the Hollow?
Alix
Oh, sweet summer beauty. Do you think I’ve been able to sleep? I’m like a kid the night before a field trip. And not one of those educational ones either. Like a whitewater rafting trip or paint ball or something.
Laughing, Grace dropped back onto her bed. It only took seconds for the cats to follow.
Grace
What the hell kind of field trips did your school take you on???
Alix
lol what? Did the nuns never take you to laser tag?
Grace
We once went to the Everglades, but my mom wouldn’t sign the extra permission slip to let me go on an airboat ride. I did learn that it’s a very slow moving river, not a swamp, and it has nine different habitats. Also, a metric fuckton of mosquitos.
Alix
I’ve never been more turned on.
Grace
Maybe because you worked thirteen hours today and have apparently yet to sleep.
Alix
I don’t need sleep.
Grace bit her bottom lip, but it didn’t help her absorb the rush of giddy heat that raced over her warming skin. It was so unfair how quickly Alix could change her mood. Unreasonable how good it always felt to talk to her.
Grace
No? What do you need then?
Alix
DON’T SAY IT LIKE THAT!
Grace
We’re texting! How do you know how I’m saying anything?
Alix
I can hear that sexy voice you used.
Grace
Sure it’s not wishful thinking?
Alix
Oh, I’m wishing alright…
Grace laughed, but the warmth in her body had changed character. It filtered through her skin and concentrated at her core. She couldn’t help indulging in it, especially if it had no hope of lasting.
Grace
What are you wishing for?
Alix
A dangerous question.
Grace
If you don’t want to tell me, I have packing to do before my ride for the airport arrives.
Alix
You know I love it when you drive a hard bargain.
A series of heart-eye emoji flooded Grace’s screen before Alix’s chat bubbles appeared and reappeared.
Alix
I was thinking this could use a touch up. It’s fading a little faster than I’d like.
A moment later, a picture that should’ve come with a warning materialized on her phone. If Grace hadn’t already been lying down, she might have flung herself dramatically onto the bed and screamed into her pillow.
In the low light of her bedroom, Alix was lying with her hand behind her head. With the buttons of a flannel shirt undone, Alix wasn’t just showing Grace the fading hickey on her neck, she was giving her a mouth-watering view of her cleavage and the snake tattoo Grace could recreate from memory.
Alix
Hurry. I need you.
Grace jumped to her feet and rushed to finish packing. She was a mere mortal trying to mimic a Greek God in flight. But as she tossed folded clothes into the suitcase, she couldn’t convince herself that the high of flying wasn’t worth the risk of drowning if she crashed.
Grace arrived in LA at mid-morning thanks to a disorienting but favorable time change. This time, she’d packed everything in a carry-on so she could bolt out of the airport. So that she’d spend the trip in her own clothes because she was tired of provoking the God of Mild Inconvenience.
The day was foggy and cool and mercifully free from humidity without being an actual dehydration chamber like Colorado.
She’d managed to figure out the maze of an unfamiliar airport but ended up in the car rental shuttle pickup section.
Grace was about to pull her phone out of her backpack when she heard honking and shouting.
Looking up at the bright blue subcompact covered in stickers well beyond the bumper, Grace was sure she’d spotted Alix driving Phyllis’s car. She couldn’t help grinning at the sight of Alix looking like a stilts-walker in the toy car. She’d never been happier to run toward a vehicle.
Alix pulled over in the wrong place, judging by the chorus of honks that echoed around them, but Grace didn’t care.
Didn’t care about who was watching or judging when she dropped her bag and tackled Alix in a hug.
Didn’t hesitate to wrap her legs around Alix when she grabbed her by the thighs and lifted her up without warning.
“You’re here.” Alix sighed like she couldn’t believe it.
“I’m here,” Grace confirmed with her arms around Alix’s neck.
When they kissed, it was like breathing for the first time in a week. Like seeing the sun after a volcanic eruption blotted out the light. Like life and joy and home. God, she was really fucked.
“Let me get that,” Alix said after putting her down. “I got you coffee,” she added when opening the hatch trunk, which the carry-on and backpack filled completely. “Or if your stomach was still iffy, also ginger ale.” Alix opened the passenger-side door for her. “Phyllis has a little cooler—”
Instead of getting in, Grace stopped Alix with both hands cupping her perfect face. “Wolf, are you nervous?”
Alix grinned, displaying her heart-stopping dimples. “What? You think you’ve got the market cornered on a little neurosis?”