Chapter 53
Chapter
“Ruby. Hey,” Greg says, nudging my shoulder. “We’re here.”
I straighten up in the passenger seat and rub my sleep-swollen eyes. Outside it’s the golden hour, and we’re parked in front of my house. Jacaranda petals litter the sidewalk, shocking violet against the gray concrete.
“I really passed out there,” I say, flipping down the visor mirror and checking my wild hair. I shook it out of its bun sometime before we crossed back into California.
“Yeah,” Greg says. “Your snoring was cute.”
Everything that happened today rushes back—especially how Greg stopped me when I tried to kiss him.
We’re so close now, in this small space, and he’s looking at me in a way that’s hard to read.
There’s affection there, maybe? I’m so full of nervous energy, I’m practically vibrating.
And I’m suddenly very aware of how gross I am in this rumpled dress, after so much running and sweating and the long car ride in the desert heat.
“I’ll help you with your bags,” he says finally.
“What bags?” I have to laugh. RIP to my favorite sundress and expensive Korean night cream.
“Oh!” A smile spreads over his face. “Uh.”
“Do you want to just…come in?”
A terrifying few seconds pass while he considers it. But he shakes his head like he’s judging himself, opens the door, and gets out.
“After you,” he says, extending one arm toward the front door. I fumble with my keys in the lock and step inside, toes flexing with relief once I slip off my sneakers.
He follows me in, and then we’re standing there staring at each other, air thick with all the memories living in this house—the confidences and false starts and old versions of both of us that we shed as the years went by.
I don’t quite know where we stand. If I lost his trust in a way I can’t get back. But here he is, anyway.
Greg gathers me up in a tight hug, and tears quiver at the edge of my vision again.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” he says into my shoulder. “I was scared there for a minute.”
I give him a squeeze. “Could you…stay and sit with me for a bit?” I croak out.
“Okay!” He sounds relieved. “Twist my arm.”
“I’m disgusting.” I take a step back, out of his hug. “I should get cleaned up. Want to watch TV?”
“Yeah.” Greg gives me a tired smile. “Sure.”
I hurry to the bathroom, ridiculous train of this gown trailing after me, and turn on the shower as hot as I can. While the steam builds, I wrench off this cursed dress and toss it in the hamper.
It’s a relief, getting under the hot water. Somehow even after that deep sleep in the car, the sensation of running lingers in my body. The anguish before it, and the adrenaline during, and the crash after—it’s like I felt the whole range of human emotions today.
I dry off and put on a big T-shirt and shorts, the ones I usually sleep in, and tie my hair up in a loose scrunchie.
And I pad my way back to the living room, stopping short at the end of the hall, where I have a view of Greg in profile—sitting on the couch, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, chain out today.
He’s got one leg pulled up underneath him, at home here, a socked foot peeking out.
Maybe I was testing him—giving him an opening to change his mind and walk out the door without direct confrontation.
But there he is, still waiting. He notices me hovering, glances over.
And there’s something complicated in the way he’s looking at me, in my new change of clothes. Like he has a lot going on under the surface, but he’s trying his best to be restrained.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey.” I sit on the couch next to him, tucking my feet up under me. “Thanks for staying.”
It still feels like a barrier is raised between us. All those years of fighting how we felt, bad timing, missing each other. All that time we wasted, disciplining ourselves not to think about it, mutually misunderstanding.
A pang of longing hits me, but I’m scared to move—especially since I already tried to kiss him once today.
The corner of Greg’s mouth tilts up. “Why are you staring at me like that?”
“I’m just glad to see you.”
I close my eyes, breathe in and out. I already did some scary things today. Might as well keep up my streak.
I lower my head onto his shoulder, tense all over, wondering how he’ll respond.
At first it seems like Greg is holding his breath. And then he relaxes into it, shifts his weight on the couch to give me a more comfortable resting place, and throws an arm over my shoulders.
For a long moment, we stay like that, pretending to watch TV.
“What’ll you do with that dress?” he asks after a while.
“Burn it, probably.”
He laughs, jostling my head.
“I just couldn’t stop thinking about how I was failing,” I say, staring at the ad playing on the screen. “And then suddenly there was something I could do to fix it.”
“Mm.” Greg’s finger traces the ridge of my ear, and somehow this touch reverberates through my entire body.
“But I was wrong. I totally lost my bearings. And…” I nestle against his side. “I couldn’t do it.”
“Why’s that?” His voice is taut, but he keeps tracing the shape of my ear.
“My heart’s been somewhere else.” I put a hand on his chest and feel his own heart beating, fast and forceful. “So I slept on it, like you said. You heard me snoring.”
I’m still not looking at him, but I can feel him swallow. “And?”
“Greg…I never would have cracked the door open for him to begin with, if I’d known how you felt. But you seemed unavailable. And uninterested. And my undying crush on you had gone well past the point of being sad, like, several years ago already. I felt like I was delusional, clinging to that.”
A strained laugh escapes from him, so breathy it sounds like a wheeze. “I can relate. The delusional, undying crush part.”
My chest warms at those words, and I cross my arms, tucking myself into his side. “We should form a support group.”
He caresses my ear. “When you came back, I thought you hated me.”
“Oh, I do hate you. You ruined me for kissing.”
“Oh yeah?”
“It probably sounds stupid, but…” There’s a prickling in my gut, the sensation of crossing a threshold by admitting this. “Every time I kiss someone new, I still compare it to our first one.”
We’re quiet again, just the low sounds of the TV filling the room. And after a while, I take the remote out of his hand and turn it off.
I tilt my head up toward him, and he’s already staring at me. A rush of déjà vu hits me. The memory I pushed down, that surged up when I didn’t call for it, that I couldn’t escape—now it’s like we’re living it a second time.
Greg’s head lowers and his lips touch mine, a gentle brush that makes all my nerves pay attention, blows out my center of gravity, stomach weightless. My eyes close, and all my muscles relax with that full-body sigh: This is what you’ve been missing.
His tongue slips into my mouth, and I breathe in lemon zest softened by the scent of him underneath, sun-warmed skin and a hint of salt.
All the years I avoided him tumble through my mind—the uncomfortable conversations I was scared to have, the times I thought I could grit down and plow through it.
And now I’m here with Greg, not running from myself anymore, coming home after years of aimless wandering.
It’s such a relief, I want to cry—oh no, I am crying—and he pulls back and catches the tears with his fingers.
“That bad?” He cracks a smile, even though his eyes are concerned. “My technique’s gone downhill over the past decade?”
It makes me laugh, like he wanted.
“I’m sad for all the years we weren’t doing that,” I manage to get out. “All that lost time.”
He gazes at me protectively, like he’s been feeling the same way but wants to cheer me up. “When you lose something…don’t they say to retrace your steps?”
Greg cups my face in his hands—the way he did the second time we kissed, sitting on this same couch—and presses his lips to mine. Without breaking the kiss, I shift so I’m straddling him, and he laughs into my mouth.
“Oh hi,” Greg murmurs, blinking up at me. “Am I dreaming right now?”
I pinch his earlobe. “I don’t think so.”
Greg kisses me again, deeper this time, and I can feel him getting hard beneath me. Suddenly I’ve never been so turned on in my life.
He reaches up and undoes my bun, and my damp hair tumbles down over my shoulders as his fingers rake my scalp. It feels so good, I let out a soft moan, and his other hand drifts down to my neck, my pulse pushing into his palm, meeting it like it’s saying, Hi, I’ve been waiting for you.
“It’s my fault,” he says between kisses. “I should have talked to you. Back then. Instead of assuming.”
“Shh,” I murmur as Greg’s hands slide up the back of my shirt and his weightlifting calluses scratch my bare skin. “It’s okay now. I forgive you.”
“This is all I could think about,” he says breathlessly. “The whole drive back.”
I let out a shaky laugh and lean back, his hands cradling my waist.
He smiles softly. “What’s funny?”
“I just…spent so long believing you didn’t think about me like that.”
“Ruby.” He scoffs like I’m ridiculous and kisses me under my jaw, tilting my head and arching my back while his hands keep me in place. “I think about you so much it hurts.”
I tug my shirt off, and he brushes his lips over the tops of my breasts. We’re straying off script now, hurtling away from where we started, forward in time together. Then he takes a nipple into his mouth and sucks, and the feeling is so intense, I have to grip the back of the couch.
Greg glances up at me. “Too much?”
“No.” I run my fingers through his hair, messing up the top. “This is perfect.”
I push my hands up the front of his shirt, palms soaking in his warmth, and he pulls it off too. And damn, it is quite a sight—the lunchtime gym trips are working for him.
“Show-off,” I say, and my hand strays down his stomach, dipping into his jeans, but he tugs it back upward and kisses my wrist.
“You’ve been through it today,” he says. “You first.”
Greg shifts me off him and presses me backward into the cushions as he kisses his way down my torso.
His fingers hook beneath both of my waistbands, and his eyebrows lift, a question.
When I nod, he slides off my shorts and underwear together, and I’m completely naked, prone before him.
It’s a little terrifying, after so many years of hiding from each other—but his lips part, overcome at the sight of me as he settles between my legs, hands on my hips.
Outside the sun is setting, and the light slanting through the blinds catches the flecks of gold in Greg’s irises that I’d memorized long ago.
And seeing him there—face framed by my thighs, and the lips I’ve thought so much about, hovering by the most sensitive part of me—is almost enough to send me over the edge on its own.
“Tell me if you like this,” he says, peering at me like he’s trying to read my expression, “and I’ll keep going.”
His eyes lock with mine as he plants a kiss on the spot that aches for him the most. It’s whisper-light but it feels so overwhelming, and my head flops back against the pillows as I moan yes.
He drops more kisses there, teasing, ratcheting my want higher. It’s a touch like a question, the opening of a conversation. And in reply, the pulse between my legs gets more insistent, and I whisper, Yes, I like this.
Greg traces the contours of that pulse with his tongue, and for a long, luxurious moment, all I am is that point of contact, the whole of me engulfed in warm velvet.
My thighs tighten, and he gradually speeds up, going at it so fervently, like he’s trying to make up for all the years he wasn’t lavishing me with attention.
I’ve never felt like this before—never experienced such an adoring, methodical undoing of all my defenses.
He builds me up, nudging me higher and higher while I’m panting, falling apart, hands in his hair, whispering yes, yes yes Greg yes, until the feeling crests and I’m crying out, hips jerking.
Relief courses through me, and he laps at me gently while I drift back down.
I open my eyes and see him resting his head against my raised knee, gaze full of affection—like he knows me so well, all my failings included, and still wants the whole thing.
“I love seeing you like this,” he says.
I have to laugh. “Like what?”
“Losing it like that.” He kisses my knee absentmindedly. “You’re always wound so tight, trying to keep it together.”
I hit the couch cushion with my open palm and throw my head back for the drama. “Well, you sure unwound me there, fuck!”
That gets a real belly laugh out of him, shaking the couch. It’s contagious. And laughing together like this, I don’t feel like I’ve been washed out to sea, or like I forgot my own name. I feel like exactly who I am, exactly where I’m supposed to be.
Then he stands and scoops me up, one arm under my knees, and I cling to him, squealing, legs kicking, as he carries me to my bed.
It’s surprising how forceful he can be, after years of being so tentative. The shock of it fizzes through me as he flips me over and fills me up and relentlessly, energetically undoes the rest of that knot inside me while I scream into my pillow.
Afterward, we’re lying together, my head on his chest, his hand running through my hair, tucked into my grown-up bed in my childhood bedroom. Our feet touch under the covers, his warm toes against my cold ones, and it feels like a small miracle.
And as waves of intense calm wash over me, a small voice inside adds: This must be the famous “following your heart” I’ve heard so much about.