Chapter 5

5

“ D o you kids have extra chargers? Did you remember your toothbrushes? Condoms?”

“Esme!” Sasha went hot and, she was sure, red from her neck up to the roots of her hair. Next to her in the back seat of Esme’s car, Ruby could only cackle. Since Esme had met and married her wife Nora and since Holly had returned from Australia, her sweetly dry sense of humor had taken on a slightly bawdier twist. Ruby loved it, but Sasha was still having a hard time adjusting to it.

Ruby patted Sasha on the head. “You better develop a higher tolerance to dirty jokes in the next few hours, Sash. Esme is super tame compared to my brothers. And it doesn’t even compare to my mom after two glasses of red!”

“Oh, God,” Sasha groaned, slapping her forehead.

Esme giggled as she pulled over at LAX. “Get her airplane tipsy, that’ll give her a head start on courage, maybe.” She pressed the button to unlock the car doors. “Right, out, there’s a skycap already looking like he wants to call the cops on me for being here.”

Ruby scrambled to let herself out and run to the trunk, which opened as she arrived. Sasha came around from her side of the car, and they hauled their bags out together.

“No time for hugs,” Esme called out. “Go on, go!”

They’d barely cleared the curb when Esme screeched off. The skycap she’d noted walked up to Ruby and Sasha with a scowl. “You’re not supposed to park and drop here.”

“Sorry,” Ruby cooed, batting her eyelashes at him.

To Sasha’s surprise, the blatantly fake flirtation actually seemed to work, as the man actually blushed and ducked his head. “Well, you just make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

“It won’t,” Ruby sang back over her shoulder as she turned towards the airport doors.

“Lies,” Sasha mumbled as they scooted off and away from the grumpy attendant. “We’ll do it again next week when Esme picks us up.”

“They don’t have to know that.” Briskly, Ruby headed for the American Airlines check-in kiosks. “Now come here. Give me your ID, hold my bag, I’ll check us in.”

It felt very couple-ish, the way they easily swapped the items and Ruby handled their check-in. Sasha liked it. But don’t get used to it , she reminded herself. This wasn’t real, and it had a time limit.

It was still nice, though.

Ruby pulled a pair of boarding passes off of the machine and pointed towards the bag drop. “Let’s get those bags off your hands.” Then, to Sasha’s surprise, Ruby leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.

She didn’t know how to react to that. Speechless, she could only stare at Ruby, whose face flushed a very pretty shade of pink. “Sorry,” she whispered, pulling her messenger bag out of Sasha’s suddenly limp hands. “I was watching a bunch of rom- coms this week. And I remembered something we haven’t gone over. Or practiced.”

Sasha’s mouth was dry. She was pretty sure she knew where this was going. “What’s that?” she rasped out.

“PDAs,” Ruby replied, her cheeks turning even rosier. “I definitely should have remembered earlier. I mean, we’ve both been in relationships, I write romance… but in a real relationship you don’t have to think about those things. They just happen.”

“Right.” She could still feel the impression of Ruby’s lips on her cheek. Would there be a lipstick print if she looked in the mirror? She’d really, really like that.

“So we should practice a little on the way to New York,” Ruby concluded, biting her bottom lip. “If that’s okay?”

“It’s okay,” Sasha squeaked, then cleared her throat. “It’s okay,” she repeated, more normally.

Surviving this week with her heart intact was looking more impossible by the minute.

Ruby picked up her messenger bag from the utilitarian gray TSA tray and slung it across her chest. One conveyer belt over, Sasha was busy zipping her little folder full of charging cables and battery banks back into her backpack. Taking a deep breath, Ruby grabbed her boots out of another tray and walked over to touch Sasha on the shoulder. “I’ll get your sneakers, hon.”

“Hon?” Sasha went pink, which was too cute for words. Ruby loved how flustered her friend kept getting when she tried out her little couple-ish tricks on her. With a wink, she snatched Sasha’s beat up black sneakers and went to find a bench so they could put their shoes back on.

She was zipping her second boot on when Sasha padded over in her sock feet and dropped her backpack on the bench. Ruby peered up through her bangs as Sasha sat down. The woman was still flushed faintly pink a full minute and a half later. Ruby ducked her head back down to adjust her boot laces and to hide her grin.

This almost, almost made up for how she was still blushing at the sight of a motorcycle…

Well, that wasn’t Sasha’s fault, exactly. And Ruby definitely had never mentioned a single breath of her orgasmic afternoon on the back of Sasha’s Kawasaki. Never even mind the hours of pleasure she’d derived from her Hitachi at home afterward.

All hail the geniuses of Japanese technology, she thought now, and was immediately glad that she’d decided to wear her long hair down today, as her face burned hot as a tea kettle going full boil.

Next to her, Sasha was busily tying her own shoelaces. “Our boarding passes say our gate is 43.”

“Good. That’s not at the very far end of the terminal, it’s pretty close to this end, actually.” Ruby took slow breaths, still feeling a bit warm. When she lifted her head, she hoped that any residual redness could be attributed to bending over and putting shoes on. She put on a bright smile. “Ooh, and there’s a bookstore next to it.”

“Do you need more books?” Sasha stood up and held out a hand to help Ruby up.

Ruby tsked. “What kind of question is that to ask an author? And an author you’re supposed to be dating! I’m going to forget you even said such a ridiculous thing. Of course, I always need more books.”

“Point taken. All right, sweetheart. Let me make it up to you, I’ll buy you a book myself. Any book you want.” Sasha winked and started off down the concourse. She still held Ruby’s hand, so Ruby had no choice but to tag along. Sweetheart? A riot of butterflies began to dance in her stomach.

It had been so long since anyone had called her any kind of pet name. Or held her hand. And nobody had ever held her hand to walk through an airport or offered to buy her an overpriced airport paperback. A girl could get used to this.

She shouldn’t, but she could.

Ruby’s hand in hers was warm, and Sasha was dying on the inside at the feel of it, and amazed at how smoothly she’d managed to toss off that sweetheart . The casual little touches that made their relationship feel real seemed to come easily to Ruby, enviably so. Getting sweetheart through her teeth felt like a miracle.

Altogether, Sasha was pretty sure she was coming off way more smoothly than she actually felt, and that also felt like a miracle. Although in reality, it was just that Sasha had a lifetime of practice at suppressing her feelings and putting on a great act. “Minnesota nice” was a real thing, after all.

She walked on, squeezing Ruby’s hand. Their gate was indeed quite close to the TSA screening area, and the bookstore was right next door. Playfully, she pulled Ruby in after her and pushed her forward as if they were dancing. “M’lady. All the books your heart could desire.”

“It’s no Powell’s, but it’ll do.” Ruby freed her hand to go darting forward to the romance section, and Sasha flexed her fingers. They already felt empty. What was she going to do when this whole movie plot of a week was over and she couldn’t hold Ruby’s hand again?

Better to get in all the handholding she could. And if not hands, then other touchy-feely girlfriendy things. Sasha drew her shoulders back, adjusted her backpack straps, and stepped up to join Ruby at the romances. It looked like Ruby wanted her hands free so she could pull books down and flip through them, so Sasha just touched her lower back. Her shining reward was a sweet, happy smile tossed over Ruby’s shoulder before she went back to the book in her hands.

Nope, nope, nope. It was too much, actually. Maybe she needed to do this in small doses. “Hey, you browse, I’ll go next door and get us some overpriced snacks. Cheez-Its and a Diet Coke?”

“You know me so well.” Ruby looked up from the book she was thumbing through. “Can I have a pack of Twizzlers, too?”

“You got it.” With a salute, Sasha backed off and fled to the little newsstand and snack shop next door. I can do this. I can do this. I can totally, totally do this. Slowly.

She ignored the little voice that wanted to remind her that time was of the essence and that slow wasn’t really an option anymore.