Page 31 of Loving Her

In moments, he had her settled into her new window seat so far in the back of the plane, she couldn’t see Ruby at all. Deftly, he supplied her with a snack packet and a Dr. Pepper. “Can I get you anything else?” he asked, sympathy in his eyes.

“Double vodka on the rocks and a pack of tissues?” she asked, somehow able to muster up a meager half-smile.

“Done.” He paused, his face thoughtful, and then he squeezed her shoulder. “It’s going to be okay. I’ll be right back with your drink and your tissues.”

She didn’t wait for him to return before she gave in to silent, intense sobs and more hurt than she’d ever thought possible.

13

Sasha was not answering her calls.

Okay, Ruby admitted that she couldn’t be too surprised by that. Not after she’d seen so much hurt in Sasha’s eyes that day on the plane. The unanswered texts, too, were only to be expected. Same for the way knocks on Sasha’s apartment door went seemingly unheard.

Ignoring her at the Indigo Lounge, though, that… Ruby hadn’t thought that was possible.

She’d never once felt lonely in the Lounge. From the first day she walked through the door, it had felt like a second home and a found family had dropped right into her lap. But now, tucked away into a booth far in a shadowy back corner of the Lounge, she felt isolated and alone.

Part of that was purposeful. She wasn’t really in a mood to talk to anyone until she’d straightened things out with Sasha, so she was avoiding everyone as much as possible. And the rest of it was that her book was coming due, and she was stuck on how to finish it, so a lot of her time was spent staring blankly at her laptop screen and eating snacks.

So, she was either not leaving her house, or she was slinking and skulking her way into the far dark reaches of the Lounge with her laptop, knowing Esme at least saw her, but was taking the unspoken cue to leave her be. Natalie came by to take her food orders and kept conversation to a blissful minimum both at the Lounge and at home.

Ruby was currently eating smoked salmon and pesto on toast, with a plain Diet Coke on the side. She hadn’t thought about it when she ordered the appetizer, but tasting the pesto took her right back to that afternoon at Villa Primavera, to the moment that Sasha had revealed her tree nut allergy, the reason why the pesto tasted a little different than what Ruby had been used to all her life.

She flushed with shame now to remember it. To remember that she hadn’t known something that was a fairly important detail to know about someone she cared about, who she called her best friend… and there was so much she hadn’t known! Sasha had known so much about her in contrast, had paid attention and remembered things. Her family, where she went to high school, what she liked to drink and eat.

Speaking of eating…Ruby surveyed her meal soberly. It was delicious, of course, because Sasha had made it. Everything Sasha made was exquisite, thoughtfully crafted and composed of high-quality ingredients. She had no complaints about her perfect little meal.

But it wasn’t personal, it wasn’t something off menu made especially and only for her. She hadn’t realized how accustomed she’d gotten to the special little touches, the treats and gifts, the twists on a menu-listed dish that made it uniquely made for Ruby. Nothing was made with her in mind, and she missed that, the knowing that someone was thinking about her, taking care of her.

Had she ever properly thanked Sasha for any of that? Or had she simply taken her entirely for granted? Every little gesture of love—and she was certain now that they had been exactly that—had they gone by without Ruby acknowledging them? A flush of shame heated up her face.

Still. For all of the things she was coming to realize in the time she and Sasha weren’t speaking, she still felt she was right to put the brakes on Sasha’s headlong race towards a committed relationship. She owed Sasha an apology for not thinking and talking things through before dragging her into bed, for sure. But that lack of thought was exactly what got them into this mess, and she just wished Sasha would let her explain it better. She blushed again to think how clumsily she’d handled things that day on the plane. How mean and snappish she’d been, how she hadn’t adequately adjusted in time to keep herself from hurting the kindest, most loving and generous person she’d ever known.

She had been right, but she had not been kind, and her clumsy panic might have lost her the best thing she could have ever had.

A tall glass full of mango-passionfruit milkshake slid onto the table in front of her, and Ruby’s heart leapt into her throat with hope to see it. She jerked her head upwards, an apology already filling her mouth.

But only Natalie’s sorrowful gaze met hers. “Sorry,” her roommate said, sliding into the seat on the other side of the booth. “It’s just from me. I wanted to give you something that might cheer you up.”

“I don’t deserve it.” Ruby shoved the glass back across the table. “Thank you, though.”

“Drink it, Rubes. I don’t like mango, it’ll just go to waste.” Natalie pushed the glass back. “How are you doing?”

“Haven’t written a word in days, my best friend isn’t talking to me, and I am a selfish, self-centered bitch,” Ruby replied, sucking the whipped cream topping off of the milkshake. “So, you know. Great.”

“I don’t think you’re any more selfish than any of the rest of us, but you’ll have to take that up with a therapist. The writing will come back once you stop stressing about Sasha. And that—” she held up a hand to forestall Ruby’s next protest. “That will come, too. Sasha is too nice to be mad at you forever.”

“I really hurt her feelings, Nat. She has every right to hate me.”

“Okay, I’m sure she doesn’t hate you. But yeah, okay, maybe it will take time for her to come around. She will, though, Ruby.” Natalie leaned across the table to grab her hand. “Something like what you two have can’t be broken apart that easily.”

“Well, I don’t know what we have, or what I want us to have, Nat. Which is also part of the problem.” Ruby sighed. “For a romance writer, I am absolutecrapat the love game myself.”

“You’ve never been faced with a serious contender before,” Natalie pointed out wryly. “You write fantasies; nobody’s love life isreallylike that! Of course you’re not an expert at real actual love.”

“Ouch.” The point made sense, but still hurt. “I mean, I thought I was writing the kind of relationship I wanted?”

“Were you?” Natalie sat back, eyes wide. “Scotsmen sexily abducting their barely-legal brides to get married in the night? Lesbians who argue-fuck their way through life? Oh, that one experimental sci-fi-slash-literary one you wrote with the two guys who were soulmates that kept meeting in different lives at the wrong time? These are the relationships you want?”

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