TALIA : ANGEL QUEEN (STORY ONE)

NEW BEGINNINGS

For Talia, the ride back to the shore was refreshing. She learned Jason was the only child of a father who enjoyed fishing and a mother who was told she would never be able to bear children. When he came along, he was deemed a miracle and his parents doted on him endlessly. 

According to him, that love made him a self-proclaimed softy. He declared with pride that he fell in love with his middle school girlfriend and married her right after college. The happy couple were together for six years when his wife, Charity, became pregnant with Amber. He scrolled to the last picture they took during her pregnancy. Her face was glowing.

"She's beautiful, Jason." Talia proclaimed as she stared at the excited couple.

"Yeah." He cleared his throat. "I was the luckiest man alive."

"Is she--"

He grinned and nodded. "Her father's white. Her mother, well, you can see it."

"Wow... okay." She chuckled. "So, I wasn't  imagining your interest in brown skin on the beach that day."

Jason laughed as he blushed, then shifted in the driver's seat. "No, you weren't."

Talia cleared her throat, blushing before staring at the road ahead. "I take it Amber didn't interact much with her mother's side of the family?"

"Charity had a congenital heart defect, and knew the risk of getting pregnant. But she needed a child more than she wanted to breathe. So, when she passed during childbirth, they blamed me for her death, and in doing so, never ever laid their eyes on our beautiful daughter. I was too consumed with grieving to really care, and had my family for support. Amber, she became everyone's baby in our unique, tight-knit community. Which meant, beside Brittany,  she rarely interacted with others outside of our group."

"That's a shame."

"Yeah, it was, but my baby girl had love in her heart for everyone, so much so that she would wander up to perfect strangers and engage in enlightening conversations."

Talia chuckled. "I can attest to that." Drifting into a light daydream, she sighed, then added, "I wish I would've been able to get to know her better."

Sorrowfully, Jason replied. "Yeah, me too."

They traveled a few miles in silence until he asked. "What about you? What's your taste in men?"

An image of Noah flashed in her head. She smirked as she responded. "Bitter."

"Come on." Jason urged. "Spill it."

She chuckled. "I did. My last boyfriend and I were together three years before he turned into a total douche for the latter part of that experience."

Jason perked up and replied. "Do tell."

"Are we supposed to gossip like girlfriends?"

"Oh, men gossip too." He confessed. "Females do not have a monopoly in that department."

"Well, I'm not about to share my entire life with a near stranger."

"Not yet." He winked.

Back on the shore, Jason pulled alongside Talia's car, then asked for the keys. Once inside, the car started immediately. Talia huffed with annoyance. Jason laughed as he switched off the ignition, handed her the keys, then replied. "It seems like someone or something  wants us to spend time together."

Talia mumbled. "If you only knew the half of it."

Inside the cottage, K-jack raced through the house. It was hard for Talia to believe he was actually happy to be home. When he found her giving Jason the house tour with his bathing suit in his mouth, she understood why."