When I feel I’m able to breathe again, like my soul has been satisfied, I pull back and stare into those whisky eyes… my whisky eyes. He stares into my blue ones… his blue ones and I smile.
“So you love me, huh?” I say and he kisses my nose.
“Yep. I kinda do… A lot. More than friends.” I smile. He smiles.
“And you want me to marry you?” He smirks. I smirk.
“Yep. A lot.” Sigh… sigh…
“Then I’ll marry you. But there’s a stipulation.”
“Name it.” I love a man of few words.
“We leave today. We’re married tonight.” I watch closely for his tells of fear.
“And?” Like what I’ve just said is no big thing.
“And? That’s it. Is that not enough?” I laugh. He laughs.
“I thought you were going to make it something crazy. That’s easy.” He gets up to leave.
“Where are you going? I’m not done with you yet.” I point down under the covers to the business end of things. “Get back under here.”
“Oh. Well one of us has to be mature here. If we’re flying to Vegas tonight I’ve got to make flight arrangements. We need to pack. Call your brother. Oh shit, he’s going to kill me.” He’s kind of frantic now, it’s cute. He scoops up the puppy. “We need to find a place for this little girl. I bet Connor and Liddy will watch her. I like her, by the way. Liddy, she’s a cool chick. Also, I heard about your business. Really cool.” He’s nervous. My Ashton is nervous after all. I love him. I love him. I love him…
“Get up woman. We need to stop the mail. Are we going to live at your place? Your place is way nice, I say we stay here for now, at least until we have those babies (is his clock ticking?). Then we’ll really need a house, especially if you need a work room or whatever.” This rambling goes on for a while as I get dressed, make the necessary phone calls and pack my bags. We’re walking out the front door when he stops and looks over his shoulder at me.
“What?” I say, stopping before I slam into him with my body and roller bag.
“What did your letter say? You never said.” He’s smiling, waiting.
“It just said “Say yes.” A sort of ‘go for it,’ if you will.” We’re both smiling.
“You know? This is the first time we’ve stepped out this door together in three years. This is pretty exciting. Are you ready?”
I grab the door from him and push him aside. “Let me,” I throw it open and… break the wall… “Seriously?” I groan as he starts laughing and I can’t help but laugh along. Hole forgotten.
“Well, at least I can go to The Depot now. So there’s that.”
“I don’t know what I’m doing with a girl as weird as you.” Slap. “Come on, let’s go get married, you beast.” Still laughing, he holds the door open above my head and gives me the universal sign of ‘after you, my lady’ with his free arm.
“I’ll give you weird, you douche,” I whisper as I walk past him, head down, grinning to myself.
“Douche? Let’s get something straight here. I looked up douching years ago when you started calling me one and you know what? It means to clean a vagina so I’m not going to argue anymore about it. I’m a douche.” I turn and look at him with my eyes the size of saucers.
“You’re disgusting.” He’s totally right though. Plus, he’s way more thorough than the boxed junk, just sayin’.
“You love my douche.” He whispers behind me while locking our door. Our door!
We get to the Bus and as I open the lock he says, “So we’re taking the VW? Awesome.” I climb in the passenger seat and throw him the keys. He throws my bag in the back and climbs behind the wheel.
“Remember the day we brought Master home in this guy? He threw up for the whole ten minutes it took to get here. That was disgusting.” We both laugh at the memory and then we’re quiet. Sad.
“God I miss him. I’m sorry about how things were between us. I’m sorry you didn’t get to see him. Forgive me.”
“Always. I had to go, Cee, you know that, right? I was your crutch, and unless I left, you were never going to heal; we never could’ve been this as long as I stayed. That’s the only real reason. You have to know that. I had to go to save us. Maybe it was the wrong thing to do, but I had nothing left. I got desperate. I had to save us. We had to save us. Forgive me.”
“Always,” I say. I know he’s right. Maybe, deep down, I always knew what he was up to.
He looks over into my watery, sad eyes and puts his hands on either side of my face. “There’s one more thing I have to tell you about your new little girl.” Huh? I pull back so I can see his face better. “Remember a couple months back when I had Master with me at my place for a couple of days?” Nod. “Well, I studded him.”
“YOU WHAT?” How dare him! He didn’t even ask me!
“Good God, he loved it! Poor guy. You didn’t see him all the times I took him to the dog park. He wanted some lovin’ and that was back when I thought I should spend more time at my place away from you. I wanted a Master Chief of my own. So I studded him.”
“So you studded him.” I pinch my lips to the side and cross my arms trying to decide if I’m mad or not as I glare at him. “Why are you telling me this now?”
“Because we were talking about him and because I got caught up with all the funny business going on in there earlier,” he says pointing to the house, more specifically to my bedroom window, “I didn’t have a chance to tell you something like that. It’s kind of a big deal.”
“Okay. Tell me now. Oh please don’t tell me it’s about rocker chick, I’ll kill you if it is.”
“Nope. She’s gone. Off in California with her new band. Turns out, she was crazy. I’ll tell you more about it later but right now I was hoping to tell you where Birdie came from.” My light bulb comes on. Yep, there it is and there are the tears.
“Oh my God.”
“Yeah. Oh my God. She looks just like him, don’t you think?”
“I do think.” More tears. I can’t…
“I love you.”
“Back at ya, Hotpants. Come on, stop all that whiney-baby crying and let’s go get ourselves hitched.”
“One more thing. About Birdie,” I start.
“What about her,” he asks, his face starting to show a little worry.
“I don’t think we should call her Birdie. Especially if she’s Master’s… you know… uh, daughter.”
“Um, okay? What do you want to call her?”
“Duh! Have you not paid any attention to what I do?” I prod, teasing. “Her name should be Cortana. You know, from Halo. She’s Master Chief’s conscience. Actually she’s an artificial intelligence chip implanted...”
“Okay, I got it. Cortana it is. You could use an artificial intelligence chip. And yes, I always pay attention to what you do. I love you, forever, always. You and your hot pants.”
And that’s the day we became one. His words became mine and mine became his. He and I became an us and a we. She and He became them. There are so many new words you can use to describe what happened to the collective both that day, but the ones I remember the most are FOREVER & MINE & YOURS…
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life you were only waiting for this moment to arise
Blackbird fly…
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jamie Nicole is well on her way to a degree in what appears to be a lot of things according to her college transcripts. Unable to pick a major in college, she essentially studied the entire course catalog, which included everything from Jazz dance, Scuba (no joke, this was a college class) and aerobic sciences. While she’s accumulated all of the required general education credits one needs to graduate, her real major is life, for which she should probably be a doctoral candidate.
What was obvious from her choice of classes was one thing… she was curious. This curiosity served her well in becoming both a mother and a wife, which has proven to be way tougher than eith
er the scuba diving or the Jazz dancing. She considers herself an honorary nurse after raising 3 kids, as well as an unofficial part time psychologist, (again – 3 kids!). Her steadfast curiosity, along with living a life full of surprises and her love of reading are all what led to the creation of her first full length now novel Flighty and now Single Player.
Her mind is chalk full of characters she’s excited to explore and dying to introduce you to. There will be more books full of quirky characters who struggle through some of life’s greatest challenges, all the while hoping desperately to find some peace and with a little luck that elusive beast: LOVE.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Writing is tricky. Writing an acknowledgement is trickier. The thought of forgetting to mention or to thank even one person who’s inspired me can be debilitating. Finding the unique words of gratitude for each and every friend, family member and stranger who’s made a difference in my life story is imperative because they are the ones who have given me the material I need to create a story.
This means that if we’ve ever spoken, be it in the spoken or written, word you deserve an acknowledgement. Every book I’ve read, every friend who’s shared, every hug received deserves an acknowledgement because these are the things that inspire me.
The tears I’ve cried, the hurts I’ve felt, these deserve an acknowledgement; they inspired me.
The great joys I’ve experienced, the laughter laced with tears I have to acknowledge, because they inspired me.
Heartbreak. Inspired. Me.
The words thank and you coupled together seem too shallow and small to express my dense gratitude for each and every one of you who have supported my writing. Maybe if I make them bigger:
THANK YOU!
You’ve all inspired me and I am grateful.
Read Flighty by Jamie Nicole:
What does an airplane - aka “death trap in the sky” - have to do with true love? If you like flying and you’ve never been dumped, well, nothing. Lucky you! But, if you were Elliott James Hallowell, the answer to that question would be easy…that tube of death hurtling through the sky at 600 miles per hour means…Everything.
This is the story of what love looks like when it’s been sucker punched by the boy of your dreams. The same boy you’ve given the last six years of your life to, only to be played the fool in the end. What happens when you feel like there is absolutely no other choice but to face your greatest fear in order to put the image of that boy - THE boy - out of your mind for good? Maybe in the end you’ll see yourself in a way that surprises you. Maybe you’ll see that all along you’ve been the arm candy to his Thor and not much more, but no longer. Maybe, just maybe, you learn to follow your dreams, and even make a few come true along the way.
Get Flighty on Kindle today!
Connect with Jamie at her website.
Follow Jamie on twitter
Single Player: Humor, Love, Breast Cancer and a Gaming Girl... Page 31