BB Grey–musings

The dashboard clock read 6:38 when I pulled into the gravel lot. Eight minutes late – early by my standards, when considering Luna’s habitual tardiness, but for Luna, this might as well have been standing her up entirely.

She leaned against her Honda, arms crossed, one foot tapping. Stein, her 110-pound mastiff mix, sat obediently at her feet until he saw me, then transformed into a slobbering freight train barreling my direction.

“That,” Luna announced as I dodged dog drool, “was the longest eight minutes of my life.”

I knew this routine. Ten minutes earlier she’d called: “Where are you?”
“Four minutes away,” I’d lied.

“You’re never late,” she said, scratching behind Stein’s ears. The dog leaned into her touch, nearly knocking her over. “I actually left my house on time for once because of you.”

Her lips glistened with that barely-there nude gloss she loved – the kind that made it look like she wasn’t wearing anything at all. A dangerous illusion. I reached to pull her close but she danced away, bending into her backseat.

“Wait!” she commanded, emerging with a purple gift bag spilling tissue paper. With the theatrical flourish of a Price is Right model, she arranged her offerings across the trunk: beef jerky, mixed nuts, trail mix, and – my personal weakness – a Slim Jim.

I pocketed the processed meat stick immediately.

“Really?” Her nose wrinkled in mock disgust. “Of all the snacks I brought, you go for the Slim Jim?”

“Efficient protein,” I said, just as Stein yanked the leash hard enough to realign my spine.

We set off on what Southern Californians insist on calling a “hike” – really just a dirt path with occasional pebbles. Luna’s arm slipped comfortably through mine while Stein dragged me forward like he was training for the Iditarod. The setting sun painted the foothills gold as we fell into our familiar rhythm – talking about everything and nothing in the shorthand of people who’ve shared years.

The comfortable silences between us spoke louder than words. They carried all the things we didn’t say – about how we kept finding our way back to each other only to drift apart again, about how these stolen evenings felt both timeless and fleeting.

By the time we looped back to the parking lot, darkness had settled. Stein, exhausted from his efforts to dislocate my shoulder, finally stopped pulling and instead began winding his leash around our legs like he was trying to tie us together.

Luna stood close enough that I could smell her perfume cutting through the evening chill – something floral and expensive mixed with the honest sweat from our walk. That dangerous gloss still shimmered on her lips under the parking lot lights.

Then she did it – rose up on her toes and kissed me. Soft. Certain. Or at least I think she did.

With Luna, reality always blurred at the edges. She was like the moon – constant in her cycles, luminous in her distance, impossible to hold onto.

And getting over her?

I never stood a chance.

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