Their Freefall At Last by Julie Olivia
58
Bennett
One Week Later
Ruby & Bennett are Thirty Years Old
It’s funny how things work out.
Though not really a ha-ha kind of funny.
I’m not laughing at the fact that my bride and I bailed on our wedding. It’s far from humorous that we had to pay expensive vendors for an event that never happened.
But it’s also kind of funny that the pastor told me he wouldn’t bless me to marry in that white chapel again. Once again, not a ha-ha funny. But still funny.
Two days after the not-wedding, I came home to find Jolene had moved her stuff out of the house. There was a note on the coffee table that said, I sold the engagement ring and kept the money as compensation for playing matchmaker with you and your best friend. You’re welcome. Love, Cupid.
Kind of ha-ha funny.
Now, after I’ve called every vendor, apologized to every relative, and dotted the last i and crossed the last t on our apologetic yet sincere thank-you notes with returned gifts, I finally drive over to a different house.
Finally.
To her.
Looking through the kitchen and then the living room, I eventually find her in her backyard, splayed out on the grass. I smile, sliding open the glass back door and shutting it behind me.
I crunch my way across the lawn and lie down beside her.
Ruby is staring up at the stars. The moon illuminates her freckles like constellations in the sky. It’s a beautiful sight I can’t believe I almost lost forever.
We’ve texted all week. Little life updates. Little jokes. But this is the first time I’m seeing her again, and it’s like seeing a guardian angel in person. It’s like being in a dream.
She turns her head to the side, smiling at me with those pink lips.
It’s exactly like a dream.
“Hey,” I breathe.
“Hi.”
I reach for her hand, but our knuckles knock together. She was already reaching for mine.
“What are you doing out here?” I ask.
“Looking at the stars.”
“And what do they look like?”
“Psht, I don’t know,” she responds with a laugh. “Stars.”
“Of course. What was I possibly thinking?”
“You thought I was an astronomer.”
“You aren’t?”
“Amelia might be.”
“You know, we dog on Amelia a lot, but she actually sounds kind of cool.”
“Does she?”
“I’d date her.”
She blinks at me with a slow, growing smile.
One week.
I told her one week, but in reality, it’s been six days. I busted my ass this week, trying to tie up every single loose thread I could because I wouldn’t make my girl wait any longer.
We’ve waited long enough.
“Hey, Rubes?”
“Yeah?”
“Did you know I’ve looked up every single thing about us?”
“Everything?”
“Everything. Every silly little compatibility test I could find, hoping to find how horrible we were for each other. Moon cycles, astrological signs, complimentary eye colors, stupid online quizzes, where you can find your cartoon equivalent—”
“You took personality quizzes?”
“Yeah. And guess what. You and me? We’re inescapable, friend.”
She blinks, but I see the tug in her heart as clear as day. I nod in confirmation of her unspoken question.
“Yeah, Rubes. You and I are the reason people think soul mates are real. We’re that annoying type of perfect—the kind that even the happy couples hate. We’re not just cut from the same cloth. We were molded from the same damn clay. Bit by bit. Piece by piece.”
The crickets chirp around us, the wind blows, but the warmth between the two of us remains.
“Dang,” she finally says, a grin plastered on her face like a beaming sun. “What a speech.”
I chuckle. “You like that?”
“A little dramatic, but, y’know …” Her words fade off.
I’m grinning, and so is she. It doesn’t take a compatibility test for me to know just how much I need that smile.
Ruby Sullivan is my destiny.
I trace her freckles with the back of my knuckles.
“I like dramatic though,” she whispers.
And there’s a clicking in my soul, a locking piece that comes together, like a final cog in the machine of my heart.
I lean down, tucking a strand of her beautiful ginger hair behind her ear, kissing the tops of my best friend’s cheeks, the area beside her eyes, over her freckles, and then to the divot where her neck meets her ear. And then, finally—Christ, finally—I get to kiss her lips once more.
I draw in a sharp breath at the same time she pulls in a gasp of her own. The heat between us, the sheer magnitude of need, is almost unbearable.
What starts slow goes faster until we’re kissing like our lives are at stake, like our very souls fear being ripped apart once more. I wish I knew how to tell my terrified heart that this is permanent—that we can calm down now. We can rest. She’s ours.
My Ruby. My Ruby. My Ruby.
Slowly, our kisses get gentler, calmer, happier. I love how her lips leave behind little thank-yous in their wake, like tiny crackles of sparks after the fireworks should have already fizzled out.
We pull apart just long enough for me to whisper, “I love you, Ruby.”
She leans over, nuzzling her head closer, and whispers, “I love you too, Bennett. I really, really do.”
“Good, Rubes.”
She squints at me. “We can do better than that.”
“Better than what?”
“I’m thinking honey. What do you think?”
I grin and kiss her again.
“You want a better nickname,” I murmur against her mouth.
She flushes red and nods.
“Okay then. Sweetheart maybe?” I suggest.
Her face scrunches up. “Ew. Absolutely not. I feel like you should have bowls of Werther’s butterscotch to pull that one off.”
“I can go out and buy some.”
She clicks her tongue. “How about darling?”
I shake my head. “We’re not nearly British enough.”
“True. Too fancy. Okay then. Bubba?”
“Bubba?” I chuckle. “Am I your fishing buddy?”
“Close enough.”
“I don’t see how that’s close at all.”
“Well, you’re my best friend, so maybe you should get a best-friend pet name.”
Her hand squeezes mine, and I squeeze back. Now that I have her, I never want to let go.
“I like that reasoning, pal.”
“Chum,” she continues.
“Comrade.”
“Commander.”
“Colonel.”
“Hmm,” she muses. “What about … bumblebee?”
“Peaches?”
She giggles. “I’m a fruit?”
“When you blush, you look like one. See? Like now.”
Even under the stars, I see Ruby’s face is a beautiful shade of pink.
“You’re the worst.”
“I’m just spitballing here, peaches.”
“Ooh. Spitball,” she says. “Now, that’s a good one.”
I laugh. “I swear if I’m called spitball for the rest of my life …”
The sentence fades off once I realize what I said out loud. But Ruby simply smiles.
“Rest of our lives, huh?” she asks.
I bite my lip and say,“We were always inevitable, spitball.”
She leans her head on my chest. I rest my chin on her forehead.
Always inevitable.
“What’s going on in that mind of yours, Pirate?”
“Only good things,” I confess.
“Filthy things?”
“Amelia Sullivan.”
She grins. “No, that was definitely a Ruby thought.”
“God, I like you.”
“Stay over tonight, Bennett.”
“At your house?”
She scoffs, sarcastically replying, “No. In my backyard.”
I chuckle. “With thoughts like that? Should we?”
“Apprehensive now, Mr. We’re Written In The Stars?”
“I never said that.”
“You implied it.”
I scoff. “I’m just trying to see what our limits are, you know?”
Ruby laughs. It’s so much louder nowadays, more confident. Easy.
“We have no limits.”
I run my hand through her hair, little ginger strands, soft and delicate, falling through my rough fingers.
“That’s cute and all, but seriously. I want to do this right.”
“I’m being serious too,” she counters. “I don’t know if we have rules.”
“Well, when you start dating someone, there’re first-date rules, second-date …”
“I think, at this point, we’re on our thousandth.”
“Oh, wow. Well, happy thousandth date, Rubes.”
She giggles. “Happy thousandth.”
“So, what’s a thousandth date look like?”
“Well, we’ve been to all the bases.”
“All?” I ask.
“Every single one. And fun fact …” Ruby turns onto her chest, crawling closer to me. She places a small kiss on my neck and whispers in my ear, “I put out on the thousandth date.”
I suck in a breath that is more like a groan. She laughs in response.
Sweet yet persistent.
I let out a strained chuckle. “Is that right?”
“Absolutely.”
“Well, lucky for you, so do I.”
“What a happy coincidence.”
Leaning in, she places a kiss directly on my lips.
She pulls away, tilting her head to the side and into the palm of my hand. I trace my thumb over her cheek and pull her up so I can kiss the top of her nose.
“Well then, you know what I absolutely love to do on my thousandth date?” I whisper.
“What’s that?”
“I love to eat pussy.”
Her face turns a wonderful tint of bright red. I wonder if I’ve beaten her at her own game. She’s never been one for crude words.
“Oh, really?” she stammers out.
“Yeah,” I growl out, placing a hand on her hip and running my palm down her side and to the hem of her dress, where I flip part of it up her thigh. “And I like to make it a multicourse kind of meal.”
Her eyes dart to my lips and back up. “You like it that much?”
“I really”—I gently roll her over—“really”—rise to my forearms—“really”—she’s splayed out before me, and she looks too perfect for words—“do.”
“On the grass?”
“The grass. The concrete. The back of a car …” I kiss a line down her stomach, nearing the outside of her thigh. “I don’t care as long as it’s you I’m eating.”
I lift the skirt of her dress up, kissing along the inside, going up, up, up. I slide the edge of her panties down. And there’s that beautiful strawberry.
“Hello, old friend.”
“I love it when you say that,” Ruby whispers with a small laugh.
“I love that you love it.”
I look up at her and smile, placing a kiss directly on the tattoo.
“Hey, Bennett?”
“Hmm?”
“You’re my very best friend.”
I pause, resting my chin on her hip and smiling. The words flow like water through me, giving me a type of relief I didn’t know I needed.
“You’re mine too.”
“Hmm. Mine,” she muses. “I like that a little bit too much.”
“I think I do too.”
I crawl up her body and plant a kiss on her lips. We continue savoring each other like that, possibly making up for lost time—I don’t know. But the kissing turns from sweet to heated faster than I can keep up. Ruby is insistent against me, and when she finally arches into my chest, I let out a small groan, which she returns.
Her hand travels down to my waist, tugging at my belt. She loosens it through the belt loops, the sound of clinking and the hiss of my zipper echoing through the empty yard. I shuck my pants down, and when I do, she takes me in her hand.
I groan at the feel of her soft hand around me, her palm running over me in long strokes.
I place my forehead against hers, breathing heavy before capturing her mouth again. She tightens her grip, stroking harder and faster. I choke out a laugh.
“Christ, Ruby …”
Then, I peel her hand from me.
“Wait, what are you doing?” she asks. “I was having fun.”
I kiss down to her chest and stomach, finally between her thighs.
“And so am I. Now, spread these legs for me, sweet girl.”
She smiles. “I think I like that pet name the most.”