Page 88 of A Love Song for Ricki Wilde

“Slut-shaming.”

“Whatever y’all call it. I’m just saying, every generation thinks they invented sex.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know what you’re saying.” Ricki propped her head on her hand. A quiet buzz of happiness thrummed through her. It made no sense. She was knocking on death’s door, staring into the barrel of a gun, but when she was with Ezra, she couldn’t shake the feeling that her demise wasn’t really real. Impassioned love never protected anyone, not really. But with Ezra, it felt like armor.

And it was a dangerous deception.

She chased the thought out of her head and instead soaked up Ezra’s utterly devastating face. How could she never have noticed how sensual the bow of a man’s upper lip could be? She swept across his mouth with her eyes.

“Tell me everything,” she said dreamily. “Were you at Studio 54 when Bianca Jagger rode in on that white horse? Where were you when MLK died?”

Ezra rolled over onto his back, tucking his hand behind his head. “I never went to Studio 54. I wasn’t a disco guy. In the ’70s, I was in London, jamming with British Jamaican reggae bands. I wasn’t in the mood for nightlife; nothing felt new. The ’20s was wilder than the ’70s.” He paused, chewing on his bottom lip. “Hmm. When Dr. King died, I found out on the carradio. I was driving my VW Bug to the Westbury Music Festival. I slammed the brakes, hard, and damn near broke my nose.” He closed his eyes, furrowing his brow a little. “I think Nina Simone dedicated her set to him at the fair. But that show’s a blur.”

“Because of the trauma?”

“No, ’cause I dropped acid,” he said. “I remember I’d just seenPlanet of the Apes. The original one, with terrible 1968 special effects. And now I’m standing in this big ole crowd; people are mourning, singing, dancing—but I’m tripping somethingterrible. My brain was stuck on the visual of apes riding horses.”

“Honestly, that’s an image from hell.”

“Point being, folks are still folks, no matter what’s going on. You don’t perceive history as it’s happening.”

Ricki nodded. “One time, I asked Ms. Della what it was like to live through World War II, and she said her most vivid memory was the nighttime, when everything was quieter, and she was alone in her bed, worrying if Dr. Bennett would come home alive. Even during the biggest thing in the world, it’s about the smaller moment.”

“You should know how that goes. You’ve lived through history, too.”

“Have I? I guess I have. Obama. Katrina. The crash of ’08.” She paused.“106 & Park.”

Ezra laughed and then paused, mulling this over. “Actually, I’ll allow it. Now it’s my turn. I got a few questions.”

“Go.”

“What’s been your favorite moment? Of all time.”

Her eyes met his, sparkling and utterly unguarded. “Other than this one?”

Ezra’s gaze somehow both softened and caught fire. Drinking her in, he rested his large palm on her cheek, lightly running his thumb along her bottom lip. A languid wave of heat rippledthrough her. Ricki’s tongue lightly touched his thumb, and his expression flared into something primal.

As if burned, Ezra snatched his hand back.

“Sex break,” he groaned, adjusting the massive bulge in his boxer briefs. “Jesus Christ. You’re gonna kill me.”

“Sex break, right.” She sat up next to him and pressed her thighs together. Suddenly hyperaware of her toplessness, she grabbed Ezra’s discarded T-shirt and slipped it on.

“My favorite moment,” she murmured, thinking. “It was my sophomore year in college, back in 2014. I was studying abroad for a semester in Seville. I don’t know how I got my dad to agree to it. I think he thought if he said yes to this one quote-unquote wild idea, I’d buckle down once I graduated. Anyway, I’d never been off on my own. One night, I went out to this nightclub, Club Catedral. It was smoky, loud, sexy. I’m sitting at the bar, nursing a sangria, all by myself. I couldn’t speak conversational Spanish yet, so there was no pressure to socialize. So I just watched. And I experienced all this life, this fucking gaiety, without the pressure to jump in. And I’d never felt so free. And it occurred to me then that no one back home knew where I was.

“I stayed till closing, around five a.m. As I’m walking home along these narrow, winding thousand-year-old cobblestone roads, I was hit with the most intoxicating scent. I followed it, till I found this tiny, hidden square surrounded by these fragrant bushes.” Ricki glanced at Ezra.

“Night-blooming jasmine?” His face lit up with delight.

Ricki grinned. “I’d never seen them in real life. Just in botanical photographs in coffee-table books at our local library. Growing up, I was obsessed with the idea of this unsuspecting bush unleashing all this secret beauty only at night… but meanwhile, no one who saw it during the day could fathom its power. Quitethe metaphor for hidden potential,” she noted. “I fell asleep in the grass.”

“Sounds euphoric,” he said, bewitched.

“It was. Till I was awoken by the Policía Nacional. They charged me with drunken vagrancy and dragged me to the station. I was sent home from the program,” she said with a rueful chuckle. “The Seville thing became my parents’ favorite piece of evidence proving that I was an unfit human. But I didn’t feel ashamed, or even sorry. I felt alive. And ever since, I’ve held on to that memory of freedom, waiting for the day I’d feel it again. The ironic thing is, I feel it now. Despite what’s waiting for us.”

“I feel it, too,” he said quietly.

He didn’t tell her what he wanted to say, which wasThis is all my fault; I ruined you. How in the everlasting fuck do I live without you? More of me belongs to you than doesn’t…

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