Chapter Ten #2
Celeste's laugh was bright and surprised, musical in a way that made Ruby want to keep talking just to hear it again. “What did you do?”
“I waited it out. Eventually it got full and sleepy, and I was able to relocate it to a park. But not before it stole an egg roll for the road. Just grabbed it and waddled off into the night like some kind of bandit.”
She told more stories after that, ranging from a possum that had somehow gotten stuck in a drainpipe to the hawk that had attacked her while she was trying to help it.
Time moved differently like this, measured not in minutes but in shared laughter and the thrill of their physical contact. Ruby liked the way Celeste’s eyes sparkled as she paid attention to the best parts of a story, the way she used her free hand to gesture as she asked curious questions.
The door swung open again. Dr. Zimmerman had changed out of his surgical gear, and he was smiling.
Ruby's heart gave a hopeful lurch. A smile was good.
“The surgery was a success,” he announced.
Ruby and Celeste were on their feet in an instant.
“She'll need time to recover,” Dr. Zimmerman continued, but Ruby barely heard the words over the rushing in her ears. “At least a week, maybe two. But the wing should heal. With proper rehabilitation, there's a good chance she'll fly again.”
“Yes!” Ruby threw her arms up, pumping her fists in the air. “Sparkle's going to make it!”
Celeste let out a whoop that was so uncharacteristically loud and joyful that both Ruby and Dr. Zimmerman stared at her. She pressed a hand to her mouth, eyes wide, like she'd surprised herself with the sound.
Then she did it again, louder this time, her face breaking into a grin so wide it hurt.
Ruby joined in, and suddenly they were both whooping in the middle of a veterinary waiting room, jumping and laughing like kids who'd just won something important. Dr. Zimmerman watched them with bemused affection, his smile growing.
“I'll need your contact information,” he said once they'd calmed down enough to hear him. “For when she's ready to be picked up.”
Ruby scribbled down her number and email with shaking hands, her whole body still thrumming with relief and joy. “I'll come back for her. I promise. I don't care where I am, I'll come back.”
“I believe you.” Dr. Zimmerman shook both their hands with a firm grip. “It's rare to see people care this much about a wild bird. Sparkle's lucky you found her.”
“I’m lucky too, to have found her,” Ruby said, and meant it.
Outside, the afternoon sun was warm on her face. She felt lighter than she had in months, as if something heavy had been lifted from her chest and she could float away if she wasn't careful.
They headed toward the car, still giddy with relief. Ruby couldn't stop smiling, bursts of contentment fizzing through her veins like champagne bubbles.
“I can't believe that worked,” Celeste said. “Given the way he was talking, for a moment there I imagined the worst.”
“I know. Me too. But Sparkle’s going to be okay and she’ll fly again.”
Celeste suppressed a smile. “You're ridiculous. The detours through this trip so far, the antique store, the bird, all of it—it’s completely insane.”
“Good insane or bad insane?”
“I don't know yet.” She stopped walking, turning to face Ruby. The sunlight caught in her dark hair, turning the brown strands auburn. “I didn't expect any of this. I certainly didn't expect going to a veterinarian to be so exhilarating.”
She was looking at Ruby with something like wonder, her expression open in a way Ruby had never seen before. Unguarded and open. It was as though she'd forgotten to put her walls back up and was just... present.
Beautiful.
“Celeste—”
But before Ruby could finish, Celeste closed the distance between them and kissed her.
It wasn't a tentative or questioning kiss. It was firm and purposeful, Celeste's lips deft and sure against Ruby's. Her hand came up to cup Ruby's cheek, thumb brushing her jawline with a tenderness that made Ruby’s knees weak.
Her brain short-circuited. She barely had time to register what was happening—Celeste is kissing me, oh my goodness, she is kissing me—to feel the softness of Celeste's mouth and the simultaneous racing of her own heart threatening to break through her ribs.
She started to respond, melting into it further, her hands lifting to—
Celeste pulled back.
They stared at each other for a moment. Ruby could see panic flooding into Celeste's eyes and glimpsed the moment reality crashed back in.
“I—I'm sorry. I shouldn't have—”
She turned and practically ran toward the car, leaving Ruby standing on the sidewalk in a daze.
Ruby touched her lips, half-convinced she'd imagined it. But no. She could still feel the ghost of Celeste's mouth on hers and the pulsating sensation of her hand on her cheek.
Celeste Russo had just kissed her in the parking lot of a Tennessee veterinary clinic.
Ruby stood there, rooted to the spot, watching Celeste fumble with the car keys. Her heart was still racing and her lips still tingled.
She'd been kissed before and had kissed plenty of women. But nothing had ever felt like that. Like coming home and jumping off a cliff at the same time.
Ruby's legs finally remembered how to move. She walked toward the car in slow steps, everything around her slightly unreal. The sun was too bright, the air felt thick and time had gone strange and elastic.
She climbed into the passenger seat, and the silence was deafening.
Ruby wanted to say something, to reach over to take Celeste's hand and to ask her what that meant. Or just to kiss her again.
But Celeste looked like she might shatter if Ruby so much as breathed wrong.