“Not from a fall,” Kyle assured.
“Can we just talk for a minute?” Stevie asked when she and Kellen were face-to-face.
“Sure, what’s on your mind?” Kellen asked between clenched teeth.
“We’re both strong-willed women, and when we’re challenged, we rise to it. If the spikes were reversed, I have no doubt you’d be tied upside down to this tree, too. In view of that, I feel like you should cut me some slack, and I think you’re gonna have to do that literally.”
“We agreed you would not climb over fifteen feet,” Kellen said hotly.
“No, you told me not to go over fifteen feet. I don’t take orders well when I feel like they don’t have merit. You’re being overprotective.”
Kellen’s jaw sagged for a second. “Are you really gonna hang there and tell me that? When I’m not playing mayor, this is what I do for a living. Everything I tell you about climbing has merit. I’ll tell you what, technical writer, the next time I write a letter, you can tell me where I should put the commas, and I’m gonna sprinkle them everywhere!”
“Aw, is this the first fight, I wonder?” Christine asked with a smile.
Kyle nodded. “I would say they are fighting, based on the way their helmets are bobbing back and forth. This may take a while. We should’ve brought beer.”
“Can’t you just cut all the ropes except for the safety line?” Stevie asked as Kellen tried to figure out the mess she’d made.
“I don’t know yet.”
“I’m sorry.” Stevie blew out a breath. “I should’ve listened to you.”
“I think that’s something I’m gonna have to get used to hearing out of you.” Kellen sighed. “Life with you won’t be boring, that’s for sure.”
Stevie smiled. “You still want to share it with me?”
“Always.”
“Kellen, I love—”
“No! You do not get to say that to me right now. I have a special night planned, and that is part of the itinerary. When I hear those words come out of your mouth, I want the memory of it to be filled with rose petals, a crackling fire, and champagne, not you twenty feet up a tree tied to it upside down! So you hold it.”
“Hey! You don’t get to tell me when I can tell you how I feel. If I’m feeling it, I’m telling it, Kellen! I love you!”
“I love you, too! Damn it!”
“Aw,” the group said collectively below.
Epilogue
“The definition of the moment is love at first sight,” Stevie said resolutely. “I was struck when she walked into that diner and flashed me with that bare knee when she crossed her legs. She had me in the palm of her hand right there.”
Kellen shook her head. “Her GPS told her she’d arrived at her person, she just didn’t realize it. While I won’t deny we fell quick, it wasn’t at first sight. The moment is not love at first sight.”
Mr. Sealy stared out of the closet at them while they sat in the hallway on the floor sharing a bowl of cereal. Stevie frowned at him. “He sucks as a mediator.”
“He’s better than Trent, who just agrees with both of us. Everyone else thinks our points are ridiculous, but here we are one year later.”
“Happy and in love,” Stevie said with a nod.
“That’s right, and we haven’t tried to smother each other with a pillow once.”
“Uh-huh,” Stevie said as she began eating faster.
“That didn’t sound like…uh…it lacked conviction.” Kellen pulled the bowl away. “Have you tried to smother me or contemplated it?”
“All right, it did cross my mind when I found my duckie suit, as you call it, stuffed under the cushion of your old couch.”
Kellen laughed. “Oh, baby, that was an accident.” She clamped her lips together when Stevie cocked her head. “I wasn’t thinking clearly because you had just hit number thirty-nine on the ‘I should’ve listened to you’ chart. I think we’re clear on the point that you don’t cut plywood with a chainsaw now.”
“It doesn’t work well on PVC pipe, either, just so you know.”
Kellen’s bottom jaw jutted out as she shook her head slowly. “Oh, I love you so much.”
“I love you, too,” Stevie said with a smile and kissed Kellen. “I got another email from my mother.”
“Is she still pretending you’re living in Belle Chasse and dating a successful businessman?”
“That’s what she’s telling people, according to Christine. When Chris calls her on it, she says Mom breaks into a medley of Fleetwood Mac songs that now includes the Tusk album. Her latest email leads me to believe she might be taking a peek at reality, wanna hear it?”
“Sure,” Kellen said and fed Stevie another bite of cereal.
Stevie took out her phone and read. “Dear Stevie, your father and I have realized our love for the sea. I have learned a few things in our travels around the world.” Stevie grinned at Kellen. “Chris says they’ve only been to the eastern Caribbean, and they don’t get off the ship at any ports.”
Kellen chuckled. “You’ve gotta give them a point at least for getting on the boat.”
“Right. I’m gonna skip her ramblings about the waves and the occasional anger of the sea that causes her and Dad distress. She tends to rhyme some and sounds a little bit like Dr. Seuss. She says, ‘I have made a friend, her name is Paula, and I estimate her age to be somewhere in the mid-eighties. While sipping a drink called maniac mermaid, we ventured into personal topics in the tropics. She’s upset with one of her sons, whom she’s had to bail out of failed financial ventures several times. Now, he is facing charges for embezzlement and other crimes. That made me consider that perhaps you are not that bad of a child—’”
Kellen laughed and choked on her cereal.
“That was my reaction too. Hold on, it gets better,” Stevie said with a smile and began reading again. “After one or two of the mermaids, I found myself divulging, as well. I told Paula about your sexual rebellion with an enemy of our family. As it turns out, I can’t escape homosexuals because Paula is one, too. She and the mermaids forced me to consider that you may very well have legitimate feelings for Kellen. Linden and Christine swear you do. While I’m doing my best to understand this, your father will not see it as anything other than rebellion. When you commit your life to someone else, their fight becomes your fight, and I must stand at his side on this, but I do love you and will be waiting for the day you come to your senses.”
“Hmm.” Kellen set their bowl aside and gazed at Stevie. “Well, I guess that email was better than the others with her demands for you to see a therapist to help you understand why you’re really drawn to me. Did you write her back?”
“It was short and sweet. I told her she should understand why I must stand at your side and sniff your armpit.”
“You did not,” Kellen said with a laugh.
“Yes, I did. Now let’s get back to our debate, the moment is love at first sight.”
“It is not.” Kellen shook her head and gazed at Mr. Sealy. “Do you see what I mean? She’s stubborn.”
“You’re neurotic, that’s why we’re talking to a statue.”
Kellen laughed and kissed Stevie’s hand. “It’s like journaling, we’re expressing our inner thoughts.”
“But we can’t do it with each other on the couch, we have to sit in the hallway and look at a seal.”
“You make me smell your armpit every morning and tell you I love you.” Kellen wagged a finger. “Now that’s neurotic.”
Stevie grinned. “We get each other’s weird.”
“Yes, we do,” Kellen agreed with a nod.
Stevie scooped up the bowl and got up off the floor. “Now come teach me to spit like a llama.”
Kellen watched her walk away, then whispered to Mr. Sealy, “The moment is not love at first sight, and she is the most stubborn woman I have ever met. I’ve never been happier.”
About the Author
Robin Alexander is the author of the Goldie Award-wi
nning Gloria’s Secret and other novels for Intaglio Publications, including Gloria’s Inn, Gift of Time, The Taking of Eden, Love’s Someday, Pitifully Ugly, Undeniable, A Devil in Disguise, Half to Death, Gloria’s Legacy, A Kiss Doesn’t Lie, The Secret of St. Claire, Magnetic, The Lure of White Oak Lake, The Summer of Our Discontent, Just Jorie, Scaredy Cat, The Magic of White Oak Lake, Always Alex, The Fall, Ticket 1207, Next Time, The Trip, Rusty Logic, Dear Me, The Last of the Loudens, Patty’s Potent Potion, and Fearless.
She was also a 2013 winner of the Alice B Readers Appreciation Award, which she considers a true feather in her cap.
You can reach her at [email protected]. You can visit her website at www.robinalexanderbooks.com and find her on Facebook.
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