A Love Song for Ricki Wilde (83)
Ricki had been holding it together until this point, but now the floodgates were open. She had to face the reality that this was the end. Of everything. God, she wasn’t ready to go.
And she wasn’t ready to lose Ezra. All she wanted was him. His touch, his arms, his heart, his everything. Blinded by her tears, she kept going—heading uptown or downtown, she had no idea—until she felt herself being swept into a powerful embrace.
Without opening her eyes, she knew it was him. She could smell him. Feel him.
Ezra. Of course it was Ezra. They gravitated toward each other, the magnetic pull they couldn’t fight, even if they wanted to.
“You’re here.” She wept into his chest, gripping his coat in her fists.
“I’m here—you’re safe,” he said, kissing the top of her head. “Just cry. Let it out.”
Ezra walked her to a nearby bench in front of a café. There, he held her and let her sob against him for however long she needed. He didn’t ask any questions or prod or say that he’d magically fix anything. There were no easy answers, just emotions.
Time was stretchy. Several lattes and hot cocoas later, the sky had turned dusky. The sun was setting. Finally, after endless silence, Ricki spoke. They were sitting side by side, her head leaning on his shoulder.
“I thought you hated hugs,” she said.
“I do hate hugs. But I like you.”
Despite her tears, Ricki smiled. “You like me, huh?”
Ezra pulled away a bit and then cupped her cheeks in his hands, tilting her face up to his. His expression was beatific, radiant with adoration.
“I love you,” he said.
Ricki gasped softly. “You do?”
He nodded, his gaze vulnerable.
“I love you, too,” she whispered.
In the grand scheme of things, they’d known each other for only a blip in time. But for Ezra and Ricki, there was no point in playing hard to get or pretending that their feelings weren’t as intense as they were. They didn’t have time, but they had each other. And all they could do was cling to this one, extremely obvious truth.
Ezra’s face split into a wondrous grin. “I wanted to say it in Starbucks.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“You can’t tell a woman you love her for the first time in Starbucks!”
“How would you know what’s appropriate Starbucks behavior; you’ve never…”
Ezra interrupted her with a knee-buckling, soul-stirring, dizzying kiss. He kissed her till her lips were puffy and her skin was raw from the scruff of his five-o’clock shadow. He kissed her like he had all the time in the world, until the truth felt fake, dark was light, and their looming fate was all a terrible, terrible dream.
CHAPTER 20
SEX BREAK
February 21–25, 2024
If everything was going to fall apart, there was nothing Ricki and Ezra could do about it. So, together, they made a mature, adult decision. They decided to throw themselves into each other, no safety net, no hesitation, just full-blown, unfiltered passion. Really, what other option did they have? Were they going to waste the precious days they had left together shaking their fists at the gods and bemoaning their fate? No. There was no point or time.
Most importantly, they certainly weren’t going to commit murder in order to break Ezra’s curse. So for now, they’d make every moment together count.
But the blind panic, anger, and fear were never far. The reality of Ricki’s death sentence—including the knowledge that Ezra would continue to live forever after the bittersweet agony of loving and then losing her—simmered just below the surface. It threatened to explode whenever things got a bit too still, too quiet. Like in the few breaths before dozing off, or the pauses between conversation.
The only way to drown the Bad Thoughts? Fill up every moment with an experience! Ezra and Ricki ran around the city together, hungry to find new ways to entertain themselves, to delight in each other. Together, they did more in the next week than they ever had apart. (Well, Ricki, at least. When it came to lived experience, there was no competing with a Perennial.) If this was the end, they were going to go out on top.
They took a mixology class at Apotheke in Chinatown and delighted in tasting a secret “Dining in the Dark” menu at Leuca restaurant in Williamsburg while blindfolded. They dropped by the Comedy Cellar one night, where they had the honor of being roasted by a famous comic (and occasional Oscar host) for making out during his act. They spent too long driving dangerously at the bumper cars in Coney Island and were gently asked to let the actual children in line get a turn. They watched the sun set over the harbor from the Staten Island Ferry. They broke into the breathtaking, partially hidden, and quite exclusive Gramercy Park for a pizza picnic with Focaccia the dog (historically, entrance was granted to only a few elite neighborhood residents, but thanks to a short-lived 1962 dalliance with the frisky wife of a publishing tycoon, Ezra had a key). They spontaneously joined several out-of-towners on a Doughnut Walking Tour of the Upper West Side, and afterward, on a sugar high, Ricki convinced Ezra to teach her how to play “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” on his old piano.
In the interest of not wasting a moment apart, Ezra unofficially moved in with Ricki. Yes, her studio was a mere fraction of the size of his house, but his place was more of a petrified museum than a home. And besides, she was still running Wilde Things. She couldn’t give it up.