You May Be The One

Then There Was The Kiss

Santa Monica, California
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
(10:00 pm)
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"She got me a cake with blue icing on the top that said Happy Birthday Daddy. I felt like a fraud."

Lindsey was lying beneath the covers, his head against the pillows, and Stevie was lying in his arms with her head on his chest. It was a scene so familiar he had to stop himself from crying again. He was home.

Tears and muttered apologies and clinging to each other and pawing at each other like lion cubs had eventually given way to exhaustion, both Lindsey and Stevie completely emotionally spent, and somehow they'd crawled beneath the covers together and simply assumed the position. There was no discussion, no promises or talk of what they were doing or what it meant.

They knew exactly what was happening between them tonight.

"You're not a fraud, baby, you're a good father," Stevie assured him, and she placed a tender kiss against his t-shirt right over his heart. "Your kids love you and you love them."

Lindsey sighed out into the darkness. "I know. It's just that I couldn't believe I was back there, wrapped up in it again...when the only kind of wrapped up I wanted to be was in your arms, angel. I even used my wish on it."

"What do you mean, baby?" She looked up at him, and he brought his fingers beneath her chin to pull her into a gentle kiss.

"My birthday wish," he explained. "There was a five candle and a four candle, and I blew them out, and I wished that somehow, some way, I would be able to be back home again...where I belong." He picked her her tiny hand from where it lay on his chest and kissed it. "Tonight my wish came true."

They had no idea how long they had been lying together in her bed, Sulamith at their feet as always, but one thing they both knew was that this was it. They were never leaving each other's sides again. Lindsey had already told Kristen it would either be a one-night or two-night situation, and he was in no hurry to get home. He knew what waited for him there, and he was not in a hurry to begin the long, painful process of breaking up his marriage, his family, going through divorce and custody battles and all of the various legal and personal wars he'd seen almost every man his age go through at least once since he'd known them.

That was what made tonight different, he thought, lying there in bed with Stevie...hours earlier than even he went to bed at night...quietly holding her as they recovered from the tears and sobbing and the highly-charged emotions of the night and made up for all the lost nights, six years of not being able to just hold her in bed and stroke her beautiful hair and listen to her breathing and know he was exactly where he was supposed to be. Except for the little kiss they'd shared just now and a few soft pecks of their lips earlier as they'd comforted each other in crying, this was as far as they'd gone, physically speaking. He was in heaven, stroking her hair and feeling the soft hand that rested on his chest, his arms around her just as he'd wished on his birthday that terrible year...and with every birthday cake after that...and neither of them needed to say a word.

It was Stevie who broke the silence after awhile. She dared herself to ask, "You're not going home tomorrow morning, are you? I mean, I understand it if you are, but..."

Lindsey shifted in bed towards her. "Stevie! My God, don't you understand what's happening here?" He looked into her eyes in the near-darkness. They were big and brown and hopeful and a lot sadder than he'd expected to see. She looked like a baby deer who'd lost its mother. "You have to know, angel, you have to!"

"I mean..." Stevie struggled to find the right words. "I know we cleared it all up tonight...I totally get it and I love you and I'm sorry I didn't know until now...but you came here to work out guitar parts of a song, Linds...not to rehash the past with some old lady, and..."