Cheaper Than Free: An Anniversary Story (The Dance A/U Sequel)

Prologue: When Love Is Real

Pacific Palisades, California
Sunday, November 27, 2022
(7:30 am)
********************

It was the rain pelting against the windows and the force of the wind that came with it that woke Stevie up long before she would ever have thought of getting out of bed on a Sunday morning.

Her husband's wandering hands as he held close from behind was the other thing that woke her up.

"Sweet girl..." she heard him whisper into her ear before he began to place tiny, delicate kisses along her neck. She couldn't help but smile as she sunk deeper into her pillow on her side, the nickname he had added to their list of terms of endearment over twenty-five years ago making her feel as warm and giddy as his kisses. "Happy anniversary, Mrs. Buckingham," he whispered next.

Stevie didn't turn over to face him. It was too early and she was too tired. But she did respond with a little giggle into her pillow because his lips on her neck tickled, and she whispered back a sleepy, "Happy anniversary, sweetheart."

Today, December 1, 2022, Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham were married twenty-five years. Their wedding had occurred with no fanfare at all and the bride had worn a pink fuzzy bathrobe over a hospital gown, as they had been married by the chaplain at a hospital in Andover, Michigan, exactly twenty-four hours after the last show of The Dance, their 1997 reunion tour with Fleetwood Mac, which had reunited them as a couple after twenty years as well. Less than twenty-four hours before their wedding, Stevie had given birth to their daughter by cesarean, complications arising from her high-risk pregnancy at forty-nine, and Amber Robin Buckingham had come into the world a few weeks premature after a terrifying ordeal that had begun with some pain during their final concert of tour and ended in Stevie bleeding and unconscious backstage and taken to the nearest hospital by paramedics.

They'd gotten married months before the wedding they'd already been planning in case the worst happened, but it had been smooth sailing for mother and baby from that day forward.

Twenty-five years later, Stevie still thought it was her prayers to Robin in heaven that did it.

Stevie was growing less certain that she'd fall back to sleep easily as Lindsey continued his light trail of kisses, which were now against the black silk of the pajama top that covered her shoulders. She finally gave up her quest for sleep in her current position and turned over to face her husband, who wrapped his arms around her immediately as she curled into him. Their lips met for a series of little kisses, and somewhere in the middle she whispered, "Baby..." Her mind flashed to a motel room in Los Angeles fifty-two years earlier, lying in Lindsey's arms and calling him baby for the first time as they kissed...the night it had all begun for them.

"Twenty-five years ago today, angel," he said when the kisses stopped and she settled into the crook of his arm, closing her eyes to try and sleep again.

"I know, baby." She nestled in closer with a sleepy sigh, and she felt his lips brush against her forehead. "I love you."

"I love you too, Stephanie Nicks Buckingham."

Stevie had remained Stevie Nicks publicly throughout her career, but at home, she had been Stephanie Buckingham since the very first moment after "I do", in a hospital bed recovering from a c-section with her five-pound baby girl two floors away in an incubator. She had been Mrs. Buckingham to the teachers and administrators at Amber's schools, counselors at the music camp Amber had begged to attend every summer from age seven to "do what you guys do, Mommy," and, once in her difficult teen years, to the fantastic art therapist Amber had gone to for awhile to combat the anxiety she'd unfortunately inherited from her mother and perfectionism she'd inherited from her father, a dangerous combination. With Amber grown up and living out of the house for years now, she had been Stevie Nicks a lot in the past few years of touring and making music...but upstairs in their bedroom on a rainy Sunday morning in Lindsey's arms, she was still Mrs. Buckingham, and even now, on this rainy December morning awake way too early, she felt like she lived in Candy Land and that Lindsey and Amber, the loves of her life, were the gatekeepers.

Now she was faced with a decision: Should she tell Lindsey she was still tired and go back to sleep, or should she give in to his not-so-subtle physical advances as he made it clear with his lips and his hands that he intended to begin celebrating their anniversary immediately? Lindsey's lips had traveled lightly from her forehead to her nose, to both cheeks, to her lips, and his hands were roaming the arms of black silk that held him close in the early morning coziness of their embrace under the down comforter. She had to admit, his argument, while not saying a word, was convincing. He was gently and playfully teasing his tongue along her bottom lip until she let him in, their mouths caressing one another's in a long, sweet, lazy kiss that put the same butterflies in her stomach that had been there fifty-two years before in a room at the Tropicana Motel, the first time he'd dared herself to kiss her, to tell her he loved her...and all the other "firsts" they'd experienced together that night. Stevie's mind wandered to that fateful night, the very beginning of their romantic relationship, and how amazing it had been to be touched by Lindsey's hands that were rough and smooth at the same time, to taste his kisses, to feel like skin on hers, to hear him whisper "Stephanie" in a way that made her shiver even now just thinking about it. Stevie had had a boyfriend named Dave Young back then that she'd been with for five years, but as she'd thought that night in 1970 under Lindsey's touch - and as she was thinking that morning fifty-two years later, she had had sex before falling for Lindsey, but that night at the Tropicana Motel was the first time she'd made love.

"Mmmm...Stephanie...Stephanie..." Lindsey was lost in the scent of her hair, the softness of her skin that still smelled like gardenia after so many years, whispering her name in between little kisses on her neck, even nibbling gently.

Stevie's decision had been rendered...she would go back to sleep later.

"Sweetheart..." She cradled his cheek in her hand to bring his mouth back up to hers for another kiss, and began to unbutton the black silk pajama top before Lindsey's fingers mingled with hers.

"Let me, angel," he said softly, taking over the unbuttoning. "I feel like I'm unwrapping the best gift Santa ever gave me whenever I get to undress you."

Stevie sucked back the tears that unexpectedly came to her eyes at his kind words.

The heavy raindrops - uncharacteristic of Southern California weather - falling against the windowpanes loudly as Lindsey undressed his wife and made slow, leisurely, almost lazy love to her beneath the covers, lying side by side in each other's arms. The sound of their soft, low moans were the only other sounds in the room besides the rain in their bedroom upstairs in the house they had been living in for almost their entire marriage, moans that grew just a bit louder as they finished together, Lindsey's ending in a whispered, almost hissed, "I love you, Stephanie..."

And she knew that he did. She had known it at the Tropicana Motel in 1970, all the years that followed when they were together and even the years that they weren't, she'd known it on the wedding day at the hospital in Andover, Michigan and at the reception in Beverly Hills that had followed some months later...and she knew it that morning, when they both settled back into position and went back to sleep, cozy and warm and curled up together just as they had been in every bed they had shared since their very first.

Even if they did nothing for the rest of the day to celebrate their silver wedding anniversary, Stevie thought as she drifted off to sleep, this morning in bed with Lindsey had been all the celebration of their loved that she needed.

********************