Fireflies (Double Love Series Part 2)

Some Call It My Nightmare

Penn Castle
Dorset, United Kingdom
Saturday, December 31, 2022
(10:00 am)
********************

"I think all five of us can get a group rate at the angioplasty place when this vacation is over!"

Mick stood at the kitchen counter and shoveled in the last of his pancakes, everyone else seated around the kitchen island and doing the same. Christine had taken over most of the cooking duties as the week had gone on, and this morning's pancakes and bacon and sausage breakfast was her way - she'd explained about an hour ago when everyone had come downstairs in varying stages of dress to find her cooking - of starting out the New Years Eve celebration. The aroma of coffee had dragged Mick down first at eight o'clock, followed by John, and it hadn't been until a little bit after nine when Stevie and Lindsey had finally come down, Stevie's hair a tangle of mermaid waves that spilled over the shoulders of her black silk robe, Lindsey trailing behind her and yawning in jogging pants and a t-shirt of The Sex Pistols: Never Mind The Bollocks. They had giggled their way through two stacks of pancakes and fed each other bacon, Stevie half-sitting in Lindsey's lap until the collective audience's response of, "Get a room" had made Stevie take up her own barstool chair and Mick had volunteered to stand at the counter, almost done eating anyway, he said. He concentrated on his pancakes and the last bite of sausage, which he dipped in maple syrup...anything to avoid looking at Lindsey Buckingham live out his dream.

He'd been doing fine since Christmas night when Lindsey had proposed. He'd forced himself to be happy for them and look at things another way - If they are getting married, it's official; she will be off the market for real and I can just put my feelings aside. He'd been doing just fine...

...until his late-night trip down the hallway on the second floor back to his room after a conversation with John had led him towards the sounds coming from the bedroom Lindsey was sharing with the woman he'd been in love with since 1975.

Mick had been alone in his bedroom with the TV on, ignoring the rerun of Keeping Up Appearances on the BBC comedy channel he always missed when he wasn't in the U.K., scrolling through old emails on his phone and deleting the ones he didn't need. John had texted from his bedroom that Christine was asleep, and he wanted him to come to their room so they could talk. John had beaten around the bush for what seemed like forever, his ex-and-soon-to-be wife sound asleep beside him and buried under a mountain of blankets up to her ears, until he'd finally told him he had decided that if everyone else wanted to go out on a farewell tour after the weddings, he'd find a way to be fit enough to tour because they had to do it, owed it to the fans.

Mick had been sure John wasn't telling him everything as he'd left the bedroom a little bit after two in the morning, and he was on his way back to his own room to sleep when he'd gotten distracted by the sound of muffled voices outside Stevie and Lindsey's door. He had known it was just masochism, self-sabotage...and anything else of the sort...that had led him to lean into the door and try to hear what they were saying. He couldn't stop himself.

"That's what happens to a dirty girl," he heard Lindsey say in a panting voice. "Good girls get eaten...they get eaten aaaaaaaall up...but dirty girls have to beg first."

Mick knew he should just keep walking. Instead, he heard Stevie's reply in a whimper, "Please, baby...I'm being good, I promise...can't you just taste me, please?"

"Mmmm...maybe just a little taste...you know I love the taste of my sweet girl..."

Then there was quiet, or at least that's how Mick heard it, until he heard sounds - very familiar ones - indicating that Stevie was very happy with what was happening that he couldn't see.