“Okay. Well, let me help you out. Let’s think of a good ending.”
“What, like, help me think of a line?” I ask.
“Yeah. Every book needs a great last line.”
“Okay, then. Give it to me. What d’you got?” I am fully expecting a horrible idea.
He looks up like he’s pondering. “Oh, okay. What about this. The last line isn’t actually dialogue because they’re too busy snogging. So, there’d be the start of dialogue but then it’s cut off by—”
I tip my head back and cackle. “First, ‘daft’ and now ‘snogging’? Do you have a confession to make about reading strictly British romance books?”
He just grins at me in answer, and I laugh a disbelieving laugh.
“Kissing instead of talking is probably more realistic in real life,” I say, side-eyeing him.
“Trust me. I know,” he replies, with a blinding, heart-clenching, freckle-emphasizing smile.
“But in romance novels it’s nice when they tie everything together.”
“Okay, then. You’re the writer. Show me how it’s done.”
I bite the inside of my cheek in thought. “Oh. Here’s a good example. Like in your letter to me, there was a line you wrote at the end. Do you remember it?”
His mouth parts, closes. “Say it for me.”
I puff out a breathless chuckle. “It was something like, I miss you, Little Bird. If you can find it within yourself to forgive me, fly back to me.”
“And you did.” His eyes soften.
“And I did.”
I see relief flood Declan’s face and my heart keens. We both forget to think about my romance book’s ending because ours is just beginning. And I’m here to stay, I will my face to say. But I think he knows. He pulls me down and wraps his arms around me, tight like he’s imagining when he didn’t have me. And to think, grief and pride almost kept us apart. The pride of having to grieve especially. He moves the hair that’s fallen over my forehead and places a gentle kiss there. And finally, I don’t think. I just feel the steady beating of his heart beneath his chest.
Being his feels like coming home.
Six Months Later
Declan!” I shout from my cottage’s living room. He comes sprinting in from the garden, face sweaty and gloves dirty from building the deck out there. “Look at this.” I point at my mom’s first Facebook post in thirteen years. It’s a photo of her in a red minidress holding a bright orange drink on a white sand beach. Sunset colors paint the sky behind the massive smile parting her face.
It reads:
You are looking at a retired woman! Woohoo!
And look at my baby! She wrote her first book! That’s right! My baby wrote a book!
LINK TO BUY MY BABY’S BOOK!
GO BUY THAT SUCKER SO I CAN KEEP BEING RETIRED!
Text or call me, because like I said, I’M A RETIRED WOMAN! WOOHOO!
“Oh my gosh,” he laughs while absentmindedly rubbing my shoulders. “Does that link even work?”
“I have no idea, but I am not gonna check. It’s the sentiment that counts.”
Managing all the convenience stores quickly switched to trying to sell them. So, with Declan and his father’s connections, we sold them to a sweet Korean family from San Francisco who moved down to Seabrook to run them. I still maintain a part-time consulting position, and in my free time, I shop my currently self-published book around to literary agents.
“Are you ready for our date tonight?” Declan asks from above me.
