Say You Love Me (Double Love Trilogy Conclusion)

How Can I Ever Change Things That I Feel

Penn Castle
Dorset, United Kingdom
Valentine's Day ❤️
Tuesday, February 14, 2023
(7:30 am)
********************

The next time I'll be in this bed next to this beautiful man, he'll be my husband.

Stevie had been awake for about half an hour, lying on her side in bed and staring over at Lindsey. They had decided to forgo the old superstition of not seeing each other on their wedding day because of bad luck, joking to everyone at the rehearsal dinner last night that with over fifty years of bad luck behind them, they'd take their chances. Christine and John had decided the same, and as the evening had gone on and the liquor had flowed more freely, they'd been making jokes about how they were so old that by the time the "bad luck" caught up with them they'd all be dead anyway.

Stevie hadn't found those jokes the least bit funny.

She was lying in bed that morning with Lily sleeping against her shins, in between Lindsey and herself over the covers. Lindsey was sound asleep, a smile on his face, and she wondered what he dreaming about. Stevie had shared a bed with Lindsey off and on for decades, and one thing she'd always noticed about him was that he always looked so happy and peaceful in his sleep, probably the only time of the day when he wasn't so intense, so consumed with overthinking. She lay with her cheek against the edge of her pillow, clutching it in both hands, and trying not to focus on lost time. So many years had gone by when the sight of Lindsey sleeping was denied to her - much of it her own doing, she knew - but this morning she felt suddenly very aware of how much time had passed. In three months, she would be seventy-five. This year, Lindsey would turn seventy-four. The fact that they were getting married today at their ages seemed at once like the most romantic and yet the saddest thing in the world.

She remembered a morning many years before, in their apartment before Fleetwood Mac, when she'd woken up early to rain pounding against the windows, the fact that she had to get up and go to work - both her waitressing job and cleaning Keith Olsen's house - and she'd been considering her father's offer to pay for her to go back to school if she decided to quit the music business - and by association, Lindsey. She'd gone through her day thinking about it a lot, really considering giving up for the first time since they'd begun, and things had gone from bad to worse when she'd had to repack the trash at Keith's which had rolled down the hill after being torn apart by raccoons. She'd picked up the garbage and bagged it all up again and rolled it down to the street for pickup in the dark and the cold, bitter, pouring rain, crying after awhile because the rain had soaked her from head to toe and she couldn't see in the dark because the rain had hit her glasses. Years later, while on the road with Dave Stewart to promote their In Your Dreams film, she'd recounted that story, but stopped just short of what had happened at home later on, after she'd called to tell him what time she'd be home.

Lindsey had heard in her voice that she was not okay, and she'd come home to a hot lavender bubble bath and a warm dinner of grilled cheese and tomato soup.

"You smell like lavender, angel," Lindsey said as he held her from behind. He placed a gentle kiss to her neck. "So beautiful...clean and fresh and beautiful. How are you feeling, baby? Are you okay? Are you warm enough?"

"I'm warm enough." She smiled; he could feel it as he held her. "Thank you for taking care of me...the food...everything."

"I love you," he said, as if he had to remind her. "I will always take care of you, angel...always."

Stevie turned around then and they shifted so that he held her by the waist as she faced him in bed. "Even when we're old?" He nodded. "Even in forty years when we're big, famous rock stars and we're singing all the old favorites for the millionth time and your hair is gray and I'm an old eccentric with a shawl and I forget the words to our greatest hits?"