10 Months Later…

Rebuilding a life isn’t all that easy.

I open my ranch slider of the cozy one-bedroom house that me, Landon and our sweetheart baby Daisy now call our home. It’s not quite Baddock, but Westminster, California is still a coastal town thirty minutes from Jethrow with plenty of nearby hiking trails, open roads and pre-schools. A place where we can be our real selves.

I’m Lucy Palermo and I’m in love with Landon Ellers, the best man to ever crash into my life.

I rest a big bowl of potato salad on the outdoor table that Post Officer Hernandez made for us. If he was this good around the kitchen, maybe Billie didn’t make such a bad choice after all… I take a second to survey the spread of food ready to feed all the folks arriving for the special one-month birthday of our precious little baby.

“Billie! Can you bring out the punch, please?” I shout inside.

“Sure, baby!”

Billie stumbles behind me and cheekily pats me on the butt. “I can’t believe this is the same house you two bought… Landon is one talented handyman. When are you expecting him home?”

“Shouldn’t be too long,” I say. “He sometimes gets a little lost in his work.”

It was true… Now that he’d left the club, Landon had decided to open up his own workshop. With a loan from Garret and Rev, he bought an old garage five minutes away from Big Sal’s and officially opened Ellers Automotive.

“Come here, baby girl,” Billie says, taking Daisy from me.

Hernandez is working the barbecue as Landon appears from the side of the house, muscles glistening, shirt slung over his shoulder and his face dirtied in black smudges. I gawk for a minute while he shakes Hernandez’s hand. Then he walks right up to me and lands a huge kiss on my lips. I swoon in his arms just like I always did.

“You’re all sticky!” I giggle and pretend to push him away. He won’t let me, picking me up.

“Get a room!” Billie shouts.

“Maybe we will.”

“Well hurry it up, because everybody’s gonna be here soon,” Billie says.

We both move into our brand new bedroom, decorated with a forest green feature wall, black faux fur blanket and a big banana leaf plant. There’s a painting on my wall— One of the many I’ve finished since finding Landon again. It’s the girl. Well, it was the girl. She’s under there somewhere, beneath some layers of paint after I started her all over again.

“She looks good in here,” Landon says, moving in behind me and wrapping his arms around my waist. “You like her?”

“I love her.” I watch the painting’s bright eyes as she floats above a huge ship in a dress that splays out across the canvas in light blues and golds and silvers. She’s full of motion, hope, and inspiration…

My hands search for the comfort of Landon’s neck and I grip him tightly as we nuzzle each other. My shoulders relax slightly when he’s finally in my arms after each day.

He squeezes me even tighter. My fingertips brush at his stubble, building speed and ferocity as we caress each other and grow more lustful for one another. Our chemistry is desperate and electric.

“Think we have time?” Landon says with an open smile.

I can read him like a book. I need no further invitation and nod excitedly. My head falls backward so his lips can meet my neck. He picks me up so that I can wrap my legs around his torso. Our tongues encircle one another’s and I’m pressed hard to the back wall. His strong fingers frantically feel underneath my skirt to my panties. I was ready for him the second I saw him out in the yard. He shifts them aside with a low, pleasurable growl and guides the tip of his cock inside me. A deep moan escapes my own throat and I kiss him harder to stifle the cries.

“Harder,” I whisper into his mouth, my body becoming alive with his touch.

He thrusts his thickness deeper and deeper. It’s as beautiful, desperate, passionate as every other time. I can’t let this feeling go that if soul mates existed he was mine. I feel more whole with him inside of me, near me, holding me.

My eyes roll up to the ceiling and Landon lets his teeth drag roughly along my neck, tugging my hair back roughly.

“Fuck,” she breathes. “Harder, baby, harder!”

He’s filling me so roughly my whole body jolts in staccato rhythm. I collapse into the nook of his neck to take him even deeper, my fingertips penetrating deeper into his flesh so deeply I damn near draw blood — but neither of us back down. Landon’s strength, his knowledge of what turns me on, builds me higher and higher pounding me rhythmically toward a height we can’t breach too much longer.

“Oh, God! I love you so fucking much, beautiful,” he breaths warmly into my ear.

I crash beneath the feeling.

Waves of my orgasm pulse around Landon’s length and he releases his load into me. He fills me, holds me, kisses me, and whispers sweet nothings into my ear. I rag-doll into his arms as he lands us carefully onto the edge of the bed. My cheeks blush to a soft rose as my climax subsides and we laugh nervously at each other. It’s like that with us sometimes— We wonder why we were allowed to find this connection.

“Lucy, I have something to ask,” Landon says climbing off the mattress to crouch in front of me and lift his pants up.

“What’s up?”

A gentle caress pushes some sweaty hair from my forehead then he cups my cheek. “You are so damn gorgeous, darlin’.”

“Baby, if this is about you getting that new TV, I told you we have to wait a few…”

Then he falls to one knee.

“Lucienne Palermo,” he starts.

“N—No…” I start crying. Then I look away then back at his most sincere stare on me.

“Lucienne Rose Palermo. You are my strength, my constant, my every good memory. I’d relive all the pain in my life if it meant spending one more second with you by my side.”

Then he pulls a green velvet box from his jean pocket. I forget how to breath.

“I want to be there for you, to protect you, to promise you truthfully, from the bottom of my heart that you will always be safe while I exist and it’s my one wish to live out that existence with you by my side, helping each other through the good, the bad, and whatever else we have yet to face. Lucienne Palermo, will you do me the honor of marrying me?”

There’s a long pause as I hold my hand up to stop him for a minute. I inhale. I need to remember this feeling.

Everything is good.

Too good.

I’m okay. We’re okay. We’re okay forever.

I fall into him, convulsing with happy tears, our faces damp from more than just the afternoon heat. I’m in awe, speechless, screaming ‘YES, YES, YES!’ in my head but I can’t let it out. All I can do is suck in air in disbelief and gasp like an idiot.

“Is that a yes?” Landon asks through a chortle.

I nod ferociously and hold out my hand to him. He somehow manages to slip the ring onto my shaking finger. I never knew this much joy could be possible. I look down at my hand, at the beautiful purple crystal that looks to have all the stars contained within it from the light of our room’s chandelier being refracted within it.

“I love you, Lucy.” He catches my face and kisses me deeply until I soar so high I don’t think there’s a possibility of coming back down.

“I love you. I love you!”

I never knew life could be this good. More than that, I never felt like I deserved it.

Me and Landon make it back outside. Billie brings Daisy over to us but before we take her, I hold up my left hand up. Billie’s eyes go wide until she shrieks then Jessa does too. Daisy looks at them in awe and giggles herself. Landon takes his daughter in his arms to receive the rest of the congratulations from the party attendees.

It’s hard to feel okay being this happy, I think as I watch my world now; This life, these people, my girl, that boy.

Growing up you come to realize that people make mistakes so huge you don’t know how you’ll ever get through them. I’d made plenty of my own and resigned myself to the fact that I couldn’t be forgiven for them, that I deserved to be punished. But us humans are blessed with a beautiful toolbox of how to find hope again; Time, courage and forgiveness, brothers in arms when it comes to matters of freeing ourselves of heavy hearts.

The rest of the group give me and Landon their blessings. We shed happy tears. We drink champagne. Our sweet little Daisy keeps giving us that cute, gummy smile she always does. We bask in this random, loving support system we’ve all found together here somehow. Each one of us have all made our mistakes but, as much as we shouldn’t forget them, we can be forgiven of them when time allows.

Landon and I hold our baby between us, desperately squeezing each other, laughing through the kisses, knowing how we both feel.

I feel this lightness that surrounds me…

Now I’m safe…

Now I’m happy…

And here I stand…

Saved by the bad boy and him saved by me too.

Thanks so much for reading!

-nikki