I’m about to step toward her when I notice Billy is standing behind her. He grabs Bailey by the elbow, halting her. He leans toward her, his eyes are locked on me and he says, loud enough for me to hear, “Are you sure you want to go with him?” He emphasizes the word him.
Bailey’s eyes are locked on me, she nods her head and whispers, “Yes, it will always be yes when it comes to Nate.” She spins toward Billy. “Billy, I can’t explain it, but Nate is my everything. I don’t exist without him, he’s my other half. He always has been and he always will be.” She steps toward him, kisses his cheek, when she pulls back, she adds, “Billy, I really hope you find your other half one of these days.” He shakes his head, turns around, and storms back aboard the boat.
Bailey stares at the empty doorway for a few moments. I notice her shoulders hunch in sadness, but then she turns around. Her eyes lock on mine and she smiles. She reaches for the gangway railing and starts walking to me. And as usual with Bailey, I’m compelled to come to her, and I put one foot in front of the other and walk toward her.
We stand facing one another, both of us breathing deeply. We stare at one another and she smiles at me. Reaching up, she cups my cheek and whispers, “It really is you.”
Lifting my hand, I cup her cheek and my thumb gently strokes her silky soft skin. “And it's really you,” I softly murmur back.
A force beyond my control overtakes me and I slide my hand behind her head and pull her to me. I grip her cheeks in my palms, and I slam my lips to hers, for our millionth first kiss. My tongue seeks access to her mouth and this kiss is just like I remember. It’s full of passion, heat, and desire. It’s Bailey and me from my dreams, from our past.
We pull apart and she whispers, “Wow, so much better in real life.”
We both laugh. And her laugh is just as I remember.
Lacing our fingers together, we walk along the jetty back up to dry land. “Bai, do you, ummm, errr, wa—”
“Yes, a thousand times yes,” she says.
“You don't even know what I was going to say.”
She shrugs her shoulders. “It doesn’t matter, I just want to be with you. Nate, I can’t explain it, but I just know that you and I are meant to be together. And I know that I don’t know you, but I do know you. If that makes sense.”
Nodding my head in agreement, I smile because I agree with her one hundred and fifty percent. “It makes perfect sense to me, Bailey. Come on, let’s go.”
Bailey and I hail a taxi and we head back to her place, since she lives by herself. This night started out with me alone, but it ends with the woman of my dreams, literally and figuratively, and I could not be happier.
Epilogue
Bailey and Nate are fated to meet in every life.
Their souls deeply entwined.
No hurdle to great to climb. No ocean too deep. No concert too wild.
Their destiny is written in the stars—the past, the present, and in the future.
No matter where they are or what they are doing, they will always find each other; their antecedent love.
* * *
THE END
DL Gallie is a coffee drinking, wine loving romance author who currently lives in Central Queensland, Australia with her husband and two munchkins. She writes romance with a shot of suspense, a dash of comedy and a whole lotta steam.
You can check out her other books here.
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BLUE ENDINGS
Erin Lee
Copyright © 2020 by Erin Lee
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Blue Endings
Something old.
Something new.
Something borrowed.
Something blue?
1
2003
* * *
How am I supposed to know what a hippie is? I’m eight years old. I have to pee. I squirm, trying to hold it in as I follow Pappy up a windy gravel path toward the Lazy Lodge, past trees and hand-carved wooden signs that read “This Way to the Lodge,” and “Rock Stars Stay for Free.” He grumbles about flamingos and “nonsense, Callalily.” He tells me, for the hundredth time, that my grand momma, Francine, has “lost her God-dammed mind.” “Woman’s madder than a wet hen.” He tells us that we best be on our top behavior, as though we’d have the nerve to argue.
I lower my eyes when I spot another sign in the shape of a big, ugly leaf that says “Bear’s Place, No Trespassing.” I imagine an angry brown bear hibernating behind the rusty trailer door. I think that bears are herbivores. I can’t be sure, and I’m glad we aren’t staying in a tent.
Pappy grunts and tells my brother “only cowards dodge the draft.” I have no idea what that has to do with bears. I keep my mouth shut as Pappy goes on and on and on. “We’re not cowards, son. I lied about my age to go to war.” He turns to me, “and don’t you dare think about dating one. I don’t care how much like your momma ya are. Ain’t no Johnson never been a coward. No way, no how. ‘Cept your dammed momma.”
My brother, John, rolls his eyes and tells Pappy there is no draft anymore. Pappy grunts again and puffs on his third cigarette, blowing smoke rings to the sky. They float, like bubbles, toward a massive peace sign that hangs above a plum-crazy-purple door. I want to catch them, trap them in my hands, and remind Pappy that smoking causes cancer. I say nothing, wrinkling my nose at a burst of patchouli that seeps through the Lodge door. It reminds me of Grandma.
A hippie, it seems, is a lady with Strawberry Shortcake hair from a rock band named after a jet-powered bomber. Or, it’s who she wants to be, at the very least. This one calls herself an impersonator. I’ll have to look that up if we ever get out of here. A hippie has a “partner”—which Pappy says “isn’t natural, Callalily”—and a giant bulldog named Stinky who snores, louder than Grandma, on a polka-dot pleather couch.
A hippie, this one anyway, calls herself Rainbow and has a smile brighter than the fluorescent green Lodge walls. I love her tall boots, speckled with yellow butterflies. I forget I have to pee and wonder if she’ll let me pet Stinky. I don’t ask. I reckon it would make Pappy mad. He’s always grumpy lately. He says it’s Momma’s fault—“making us raise her God-dammed kids. Acting like we don’t have anything better to do while she runs off with you-know-who. Useless as tits on a bull.”
Pappy mumbles through paperwork, telling us Grandma’s “off her rocker, sending us to a place like this.” I don’t look at him. I shrug. It’s just how Pappy is. I can’t keep my eyes off Rainbow. She winks at me with glittery eyelashes so thick I’m sure they’re butterfly wings. I want to ask her if she blinks hard enough, can she fly? I bet she can.