Page 86 of A Love Song for Ricki Wilde

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.

And now, more than ever, she was compelled to whip up more fantastical bouquets and place them at Old Harlem hot spots. It felt like an offering. Like small thank-yous to her adopted cityfor being so welcoming, so nurturing, even if for a short time. And now Ezra accompanied her on these early-morning missions. Hand clasping hers, he’d divulge insider anecdotes about each place, small details that made her captions pulse with vibrancy, making the Harlem Renaissance feelalive. It was manna for Insta history buffs.

When they were home, they talked and talked, stories spilling from each other in an ecstatic tumble as time folded in on them. They often realized they had the same thoughts in their brains, or Ricki would articulate something out loud that Ezra’d once thought,verbatim, and vice versa. There was an energetic crackle between them, and the charge never abated.

The other thing they did a lot of? Fucking. They’d discovered that truly transformative, life-altering sex made them feel like everything would be fine. It was a heady drug, lulling them into a sweet sense of security. So they kept doing it. They did it on every surface, in increasingly creative positions. They did it half-asleep. They did it after downing two bottles of dry white. They did it in the 145th Street Community Garden at 2:45 p.m. They did it, perhaps, a bit too much.

When they awoke on the twenty-fifth, they were tapped out. So Ricki closed the shop for the day. And the two declared they were taking a sex break. They were enjoying a languid, lazy morning all tangled up in her rumpled linen sheets, warmed by the sunrays beaming in through the window, a porcelain tray of half-eaten croissants and coffee cast aside on the nightstand.

“I don’t know why I wasted so much time hating hugs,” murmured Ezra drowsily. Ricki was little-spooned in his strong arms, her legs tangled with his. Save for panties and boxer briefs, they were in their preferred state: naked. He buried his face in her hair, inhaling the minty scent of her shampoo. “What’s not to love? Hugging is the cat’s meow.”

Ricki smiled widely, burrowing into his embrace. “It’s extremely the cat’s meow.”

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