Chapter 22 Ruth
Chapter twenty-two
Ruth
Flying home has always been the best part of any trip for me. For all my independence, I’m a homebody. I love being in London: the city that raised me, the streets I could navigate in my sleep.
But leaving Austin—or, more accurately, leaving Everett—might be the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.
We both shed a tear or two at the airport before I had to go through security.
And once I was alone, I shed a few more.
I spent most of my flight home curled up in my seat, under a blanket, tears soaking my shirt as I tried to hold it together.
Much like I’m doing now, four days later, already in my pyjamas and on the sofa at four in the afternoon. My thoughts lately consist either of Everett, or a sense of dread. A sense of being irrationally upset or angered by just about everything, and a crippling inability to snap myself out of it.
“I didn’t think it would be so hard to miss you.”
“I’m right there with you, baby girl.” His voice is a low rumble through the tiny speakers of my phone, propped against a stack of law textbooks on my coffee table.
“I miss you so much it’s crazy.” I tuck my legs beneath me on the sofa, sniffling and swiping at my face with the back of my left hand.
I tilt my head and close my eyes, wrapping my arms around my torso in a bid to fool myself into believing I’m wrapped in Everett’s embrace.
“I don’t know how we get through this.”
“We just do, baby girl,” he says. “What other choice do we have?” His voice is thick with emotion as he rubs a hand down his face.
He’s out on the ridge where we shared our second kiss, and where I dry-humped his leg until I came in my pants, fully-clothed and desperate for him.
It would be funny if it weren’t quite so embarrassing.
He turns into the shade of a cluster of trees and I spot Della behind him, enjoying the scenery.
“I just miss you so much.”
Tears pour down my cheeks of their own volition, spilling over my eyelids and rolling unbidden to my chin, before making the leap and landing on my hands in my lap. My shoulders shake with the sobs I hold back.
“I wish I could hold you right now, baby,” he sighs.
“Fuck, I wish—I miss you so damn much, Ruth.” His grey eyes close against the emotion rapidly choking him, and his throat bobs as he swallows repeatedly.
I don’t know what he’s done to me in such a short space of time.
I don’t know what he’s done with Ruth Bevan, because I’m sure as hell not a boring, pragmatic problem-solver anymore.
I’m a sex-crazed cougar in love with the younger man I met in an airport lounge barely six weeks ago.
And I miss him so much it’s fucking killing me.
“I think…” I whisper, and then trail off. There’s no think about it. I know it as sure as I know my own name, I am as certain of this as I am that the sun rises in the east. “I’m falling for you, Ev.”
A heavy exhale rushes from his chest as his face splits in two, a wide, damp-eyed grin filling the screen.
“Oh, baby girl,” he says, a wry chuckle lifting the words. “I’ve already fallen.”
“I might not ever stop.” The admission takes me by surprise, my mouth running away and leaving my brain behind to pick up the pieces. Typical Ruth.
“That’s okay,” he murmurs. “I’ll be here, falling with you.”
We’re quiet for a long moment. I listen to the sound of him breathing, Della’s quiet chuffs, the birds, and the distant rumble of engines working on the ranch.
“I’m wild about you, Ruth Bevan,” he says, breaking the silence. “I am drop-down fucking crazy about you, and I’m going insane without you, here. When do I get to see you, baby?”
My lips curl into a small smile as I reach for my diary on the coffee table. I flip through it quickly, not caring about the tiny tear I make in the paper as two pages get caught together.
“I have to be in New York again in a couple of weeks.”
“You want me to come to New York? I’ll come to New York, Ruth. I’ll come to London, if—”
“No,” I say, interrupting his thoughts. “I was thinking I could come and see you on the ranch again, instead of flying straight home.”
Another heart-stopping, dazzling grin breaks out on Everett’s face. God, that man. He could heal the world with that smile, I’m sure of it.
“You just tell me when, baby girl,” he says, eyes scrunched almost closed with the enormity of his grin. “You tell me when, and I’ll be there at the airport to meet you.”
This man knows all there is to know about me. He knows secrets I’ve never dared tell anyone else, the fears I’ve been too afraid to give a voice to… and still, he stays. There’s no think about the way I feel for him. I’m not sure there ever was.
“I love you, Ev.”
“Good. Because I will never stop loving you, Ruth.”