Say You Love Me (Double Love Trilogy Conclusion)

Prologue: Until The Sun Comes Up

Maui, Hawaii
Saturday, February 4, 2023
(6:15 am)
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Something told them they were about to miss seeing the sunrise again.

Stevie and Lindsey were lying together in the hammock for two that hung over the sand at the end of the deck attached to Mick's house. It had been Stevie's idea to recreate one of the most intimate and romantic moments they had ever shared - lying together in a two-person hammock on the beach to watch the sunrise over the Pacific Ocean - but it had also been Stevie who'd remarked that somehow climbing into the hammock had seemed a lot easier on the joints back in 2016 when they'd done it, nearly seven years younger then. It had taken some effort as well as a lot of holding hands for support, but they'd done it...but it seemed that they were about to do the same thing they'd done the last time they'd climbed into the hammock with the best of intentions...

They were so engrossed in each other that they were moments away from missing the sunrise again, nuzzling and caressing and stealing occasional little kisses, whispering little secrets and words of love against each other's lips and lying so close together in the small space of the hammock that even their heartbeats had fallen into sync. Stevie could sense the world slowly becoming brighter around them even as her eyes fluttered closed again to the softness of Lindsey's fingers tracing a gentle, deliberate path along the outline of her face, and she felt it only fair to mention they were about to miss out on seeing the sunrise for a second time.

"Sweetheart..." Her voice was a whisper that barely sounded above the crashing waves of the early morning on the shore. She kissed his index finger as it grazed her lips. "Love is...the touch of your fingertips," she thought. "We're going to miss it...again...the sunrise."

Lindsey's finger had taken its path down her jawline and along the curve her neck, and she leaned into it, moaning just a little as it tickled her skin. He bent in to replace his finger with his lips for a series of tiny kisses to her neck, whispering back, "Mmmm...what sunrise, angel?" Even with his face in her neck and shielded by a mass of golden silk that was her hair, he could feel her smiling when he said that. He kissed his way down to her shoulder, gently moving aside the cashmere blanket she'd brought along from their bedroom to wrap themselves up in against the February wind.

"The sunrise, baby...we missed it the first time." But she had to admit, missing it again was perfectly fine with her because he was kissing his way up her neck from where he'd come and then brought his lips to hers. He kissed her gently at first, soft pecks that, when their lips met, made the only sound they could hear between them as closely as they lay together under the blanket in each other's arms. They had become oblivious to the sound of the ocean and were focused only on each other, on the electric attraction but also the comfort of the closeness, as if they were wrapped up in a safety net, and they couldn't imagine needing anything else in this moment.

"The sun rises every day," Lindsey said, now looking down into her eyes and brushing his fingers along her bangs and then down her cheek. "How often am I in a hammock on the beach looking at my sweet girl?" And his mouth descended upon hers again, this time for much longer.

The trip to Maui had been a well-planned one, and part of what Stevie lumped under the category of "pre-wedding events" leading up to the Big Day. They'd taken Lindsey's three adult children out to dinner shortly after the New Year as the first event related to the wedding; it had been at the dinner that Lindsey had asked his son Will to be his Best Man, and Stevie had asked LeeLee and Stella to be bridesmaids. Then had come the phone call to her brother Christopher in Arizona, who'd been out of touch for awhile and had no idea that they were even back together after four years of not speaking, and another big family dinner had ensued, in which Christopher and Lori, long divorced but finding it impossible not to still be close with the birth of their first grandchild almost six years before, had agreed to the invitation that Stevie had extended for them to all spend the three-day Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend with them at her home in the Pacific Palisades. The entire remaining Nicks family - Christopher, Lori, Jessi, her husband Alec and her son Roman - combined with the Anderson clan that was Matthew, Amanda and Little Robin, who, at age eight had begun to plead with Stevie to drop the "little" - had all converged on Stevie's home and created havoc and chaos and laughter an too much food and dancing and cross-conversations and love. The Buckingham children had come over that Saturday night to join in the family fun, and their two lives had really melded together as one.