I Sing For The Things: A Birthday Love Story

I'll Let Down My Hair For You

Santa Monica, California
Saturday, May 27, 2023
(2:00 am)
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Somehow she had not expected for there to be a scar.

Stevie was lying in her bed, a river of blonde curls strewn about the pillows behind her, stripped down to bra and panties and reaching up to meet Lindsey's mouth with her own for a kiss as she fumbled with the buttons on his shirt. Together they managed to undo the buttons, but it wasn't until he shrugged out of the shirt and it dropped to the floor that Stevie caught a glimpse of the scar on his chest from his bypass surgery four years earlier in the glow of the light from the hallway through the open door. Her eyes filled with tears as she gently ran her fingertips over the small bump of skin, and she began to place little butterfly kisses over it, remembering the awful day four years before when Karen had come to her, iPad in hand, and shown her the post on Instagram that said Lindsey had had a heart attack and a triple bypass. She did her best not to let her tears get the better of her, but she was not very successful.

"I'm so sorry," she mumbled tearfully between kisses. "I had forgotten...baby, I'm so, so sorry." She began to cry little childlike sobs, pulling him closer and continuing to kiss his scar, and he responded by hold her tight, his hands tangling into her hair as he began covering her face with kisses. He tasted her tears.

"Oh, baby, no..." Lindsey muttered in between kisses to her cheeks, her nose, her eyelids. "I'm okay, angel, I'm okay...That was years ago, baby, and I'm all better now...Please don't cry, Stevie, please..."

"I just..." She hiccuped from crying, and then tried to catch her breath. "I just love you so much and you almost died...and you wouldn't have known, baby...you wouldn't have known how much I love you and..." She trailed off and kissed his scar again.

"Stephanie, look at me." Lindsey's serious tone as he looked down into her eyes made her stop and pay attention. She looked up at him with wet, desperate brown eyes. "I know you love me. I've always known. No matter what ever happened between us in fifty years, no matter what we ever said or did to each other that made it look any different...angel, I've always known, and if I ever gave you any reason in the last fifty-three years since the first time I told you I loved you to make you think I didn't..." He took a deep breath in and out. "...then I am the one who's sorry. You are the love of my life, Stephanie Lynn Nicks...my God...you are everything to me. And that day four years ago, when I woke up and there were tubes and beeping things all over me and they told me what had happened to me...baby..." He stopped to brush her tears away with his thumb, and then stroked her hair. "The first thing I thought was that I had to get to you somehow, just in case I didn't make it out of there...just even like a message or a note or something...I didn't know...just so you knew that I loved you." His confession made her start to cry again, but he quickly kissed away her tears and began stroking her face with his fingertips. "Sssh...my beautiful Stephanie...my sweet girl...I love you so much...I loved you when I was twenty years old, I loved you that day, I love you right now in this moment...and I will love you until it really is my time, angel...and even after that I'll work something out!" He smiled when he heard her tiny laugh despite her tears. "It's always been you, Stephanie. You...my sweet girl. And I know you love me too."

The little sob that escaped Stevie's lips at his words was swallowed up by his mouth crashing down onto hers. They kissed each other desperately as though they were starving, clinging to each other in a tangle of limbs and tears and tongues and fingers and hair, fumbling with what remained of each other's clothing until at last they lay skin to skin, everything about the moment feeling new and excited but also so warm and familiar. Any feelings of self-consciousness on Stevie's part due to her age or her size was nonexistent, feeling with every touch of Lindsey's hands or his mouth that she was beautiful, she was wanted, she was loved. She would have said she couldn't remember the last time anyone made her feel that way, but she knew exactly when - the last time she had been in bed with Lindsey this way, just before the end of their last second chance. The memory of that night was interrupted by the warm, sweet sensation of him sliding himself inside of her, and tears of relief and joy sprang to her eyes. She felt like she was finally whole again, and finally home.

"God I love you," Lindsey whispered into her ear as he began to move in and out of her slowly, cradling her in his arms and nuzzling at her neck. "I am so in love with you...my sweet girl." He was going deliberately slowly and gently but it was getting harder to do so, tasting her kisses, feeling the soft, familiar skin he'd been dreaming about for so long, hearing her little sighs turning into moans as she moved with him.

"I love you too, sweetheart," she said in a breathy whisper that went directly to his heart - as well as other places - and made him hold her closer against him. He was thrusting deeper now, faster, completely lost in her, in the sensation of warmth and pleasure and familiarity of finally being allowed to come home. Stevie was clinging to him as if she were drowning, fingernails raking through the back of his hair, and all she could think about was how perfectly he filled her. He filled every one of her senses, filled her heart, filled her soul, and, of course, her body. Feeling him so close to her, his breath warm on her skin, his heart pounding against hers, was almost too much, and when he looked down into her eyes, he saw the tears in them that glistened in the light from the open door. He bent down to kiss her lips, and then her forehead.

"My sweet girl..." He slowed down, bringing a gentle hand to her cheek as his movements became softer, a tender rocking back and forth as he looked down into her eyes. "Are you okay, baby? Is this...?" He didn't really know what he was asking, but his questions whispered into the dark caused Stevie to smile sweetly and touch his face as he watched a tear roll down the side of her face.

"It's perfect," she assured him, drawing him down to her mouth for a long, passionate kiss. Holding him close, her breath was warm at his ear as she whispered, "I love you so much."

Lindsey pressed his forehead to hers and together they moved faster, breathing together, moaning together, perfectly in sync until he could feel her beginning to clench around him, her whimpers of pleasure turning into desperate cries. She was clinging to him again, and only when he felt her trembling beneath him, her nails digging into his shoulders, did he let himself go.

"Stephanie..." He hissed her name into her hair, holding her so tight she could feel them becoming one person, completely absorbing into him as her own cries of pleasure filled the darkness. "Oh God I love you I love you I love you..."

They stayed that way for a long time, curled up together in a ball and clinging to each other, waiting for their breathing to return to normal, their heartbeats to slow down. When Lindsey finally moved over to her side, Stevie immediately curled herself around him and buried her face in his neck, where she began to nuzzle him.

"Mmmmm...best birthday ever," she murmured in between tiny kisses, tasting the salt of his skin and drinking in the scent of home. "Don't let me go yet, okay?"

"I never will again, sweet girl." His mouth found hers in the darkness and he kissed her so tenderly that she couldn't help but whimper just once against his lips. Her head dropped to his shoulder and she closed her eyes, content and exhausted and playing with his fingers as they entwined with her own. Several minutes of blissful silence ensued before he added, "You still have another surprise left, birthday girl...two, actually."

Stevie had all but forgotten the shopping bags that were sitting on her kitchen counter. "Not yet, baby," she said. "I just got you back...I'm not ready to let you go yet."

Lindsey could hear the understandable tiredness in her voice that matched his own. With a kiss to her temple he wrapped his arms tighter around her and said, "We have plenty of time, angel. I'm not going anywhere."

And as she closed her eyes and gave in to the sleepiness that was fast becoming more important than the last of her birthday surprises, she knew he was right. She had already gotten the greatest birthday gift of all.

The rest could wait until after she fell asleep in his arms.

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