Chapter 35 - Bee

My entire life can be summed up in one sentence, ‘well that didn’t go as fucking planned.’

~Phoibe Cupid

“Hurry up,” Mac whisper hissed.

She’d been using her power for twenty minutes now to keep the small crowds in this area diverted elsewhere. I knew first hand it was draining to use your powers this way, but within an hour of finishing my defiant act of vandalism, she’d been back at optimum level. I was finishing off the bright pink nail polish on Zeus’s nails . . . well, it was actually Jupiter, because this was a Roman display, but in my mind, it was Zeus. This was going to piss him off big time. I’d slapped some red lipstick on him, painted his beard green, hung a loop and chain from one nipple to the other, and finally, painted his fingernails. Standing back, I took stock of my work.

“He looks pretty. He should wear colors like this more often; they soften that cranky I-hate-the-world look he’s always wearing.”

“You done?” Mac asked.

I was done, but now that my concentration was off the task at hand, my thoughts began flooding with images of Austin. It hurt so much to think about him, the twenty minute reprieve was simply a blink of calm in what was going to be a never ending torrential storm.

“Yeah, I’m done,” I whispered, climbing down from the fountain.

I jumped, and let my feet land in the knee deep water, uncaring that I was getting wet.

“Water fight,” Mac sang, suddenly equipped with a water pistol, pointing it at my face and letting the water squirt out. It hit my chin and chest, while she laughed her ass off. I so wasn’t in the mood for this. She had really caught me on a bad day. The dimming of her smile told me she knew I wasn’t in a playful mood and the water pistol disappeared.

“Okay, girlfriend, if you need to fight this out, let’s do it.”

She parted her legs slightly and signaled with both hands to come at her. Right when I would have charged, a familiar voice sliced through the tension.

“Did you miss me, baby?”

Walker strode towards Mac and threw her easily over his shoulder, giving her a quick slap on the ass.

“Put me down, you dork,” Mac chuckled, hanging limply in his fireman’s hold.

“I think I like you right here,” said Walker, his hand on her ass again.

“What about you, Sugar? You in the mood for a little spanking?”

That voice, gravelly, sexy, so sure, and so missed, had me slowly turning.  I found Austin standing just outside the fountain, his hands in his pockets and a smirk on his devilishly handsome face. That’s when I noticed the difference, his aura had changed. It was subtle, but there nonetheless. The red glow of love, accompanied by his own soft blue hue, now had a gold tinge around the edge.

“Immortal,” I breathed out, somewhat in awe. “What did you do?”

“This isn’t on me, Sugar. It's your daddy’s doing.”

“But our bond is broken,” I continued, completely confused, and a little hurt that such a monumental moment had been taken away from me. I would have liked to have been there for him, for his death and rebirth.

“Daddy gave you immortality? Why? So you could follow me around for all eternity, rubbing the loss of our bond in my face? Is this his way of keeping me in line?” Anger swirled around, whipping up the tornado of sadness I had been living within. “Has he not paid attention to my work for the last three weeks? Has he not watched me tirelessly try to right my wrongs? Is the damage so severe that he would punish me for all eternity? How could you hate me so much to go through with this?” I shouted the last part, and Austin’s smirk disappeared.

“This is an ‘oh crap’ moment,” I heard Mac say to Walker. “We should move back a little.”

“That’s not what this is, Bee. He came to me, we talked, he gave me my options, and I took this one.”

“The one that inflicts the most pain on me?” I screeched, trying hard to repress the tears that threatened to fall. I refused to allow Austin to have that power over me. I didn’t cry.

Austin watched me with a contemplative look on his face, his head tilted slightly and that gaze roaming my face as if in search of something. Just when I thought he might admit his part in my father’s scheme, he pressed his shoulders back before stepping over the short wall of the fountain and sloshing through the water towards me.

“Stay back,” I growled out. “I have no problem with taking you down, you heartless douche-nozzle.”

He didn’t stay back. In fact, he stormed right up to me until my trembling hand was pressed against the warm heat of his chest, holding him at bay.

“This is not some form of punishment, Bee. This is me, telling you, that I get it, you made mistakes and I forgive you for them.” You could have heard a pin drop in the silence that enveloped us. “And when you ran, I shouldn’t have given up, I should have tracked your ass down because you are worth the chase, Sugar.”

“What?” I breathed out.

“Someone pointed out to me recently that I may have made the odd mistake in my past, and I realized there is probably no man or woman, even god or goddess, in existence who hasn’t. You made mistakes, I forgive you, with all my heart, Sugar. And I’m sorry I didn’t try harder to track you down when you ran.”

His finger gently pulled the necklace from under my top, and as the keyring sat in plain view, a satisfied smile tugged at Austin’s full lips.

“You do know that running has consequences, the spanking kind.”

“That’s cheating. I’m mad at you,” I confessed, hating the way his green, penetrating gaze was full of such patience and understanding. “You yelled at me, you flipped you’re A-hole switch.”

“It was called a disagreement, Sugar. I’m sorry I yelled at you though, I said some shitty things that you didn’t deserve, and I’m truly sorry. Arguments will happen from time to time, but being an adult in a healthy, working relationship means we hang around and deal with it. We yell a little, we listen to each other, we compromise, then apologize, and then we have makeup sex. You blinked out before we got to the fun part.”

 Makeup sex? Heck, I liked the sound of that.

Austin slowly sank to his knees, he seemed to ignore the water seeping into his jeans. His eyes remained on mine and his big hands wrapped around my hips.

“Come on, Sugar, no more running. It’s you and me against the world now, forever.”

Those words scared me, yet they felt right. Him and me, forever.  Nothing had ever been so damn right. Falling in love had been the single most terrifying experience of my life, but it had also been the single most exhilarating moment of my life. Never had I felt as alive as I did in this man’s arms. Was the inevitable fall from love worth it? There was no denying it absolutely was. And maybe, just maybe, I could pick myself up from the fall and fly again.

“What do you say?”

His eyes were full of so much hope, a hope that was no doubt mirrored in my own.

“I say I want to hear more about this makeup sex,” I confessed.

Austin’s grin was sublime. He was such a beautifully flawed mortal, but he was my mortal who had wormed his way into my heart. My wormy mortal.

“I love you, Sugar,” he whispered.

I sighed and ran my hand through his thick hair.

“And, I love you . . . bitch.”

His glorious smile drew me in like a junkie craving her next hit. I leaned forward and pressed my lips to his. We kissed, our lips sipped, our tongues tasted, and I felt our bond begin to reform.

“Holy Shatner, she cursed!” Mac’s giddy voice almost broke through the kiss . . . almost. “She cursed, she said bitch. She owes me a decade of foot massages! You heard it, right?” she went on, obviously asking Walker for confirmation.

Austin drew away, his cheeks filled with color, his eyes sparkling with life. He was mine, my dreaded soul mate, and I was stuck with him for eternity . . . and I’d never been happier.

The warm breeze whispered over my skin as I turned to glance out across the golden sand to the ocean beyond. It was peak holiday season in Thailand and the place was literally busting at the seams with mortals.

I was wearing a black bikini, with tiny rhinestones decorating the edges, and a pair of sunglasses perched on my nose. Sipping from the straw that brought the cool, refreshing cocktail to my parched throat, I cast Mac a sideways glance. She was wearing a white bikini with tiny skulls and crossbones on it, and her dark hair was tossed in a low bun under a trucker’s cap that read ‘My Boyfriend Is Hotter Than Yours’. She was sipping on a margarita, and when she caught me staring, she raised a questioning brow my way.

“What? Am I showing a bit of nip?” she asked, checking her bikini top to make sure her nipple was covered.

“No, you obliviot, I found her.”

Mac sat up a little straighter and began searching the crowd around us. I knew the moment she laid eyes on the woman, her smile arching slow and a wicked gleam growing in her eye.

“She looks beautiful,” Mac whispered.

She did. Her long, shining brunette hair hung down her back. Her soft, feminine curves were once again hidden behind a sun dress, but it was such a pale, soft fabric that you could see the two piece swimsuit beneath it. The woman laughed, but it was fake. Her aura was dull. She was depressed, and I knew exactly why. A year ago she’d come to this beach looking for a romantic getaway, hoping to find a man who would whisk her off her feet and make all her dreams come true. Instead, she found herself having a one night stand with a pin-peen asshole that slipped out of the room before she even woke up then pretended he didn’t know her when she confronted him the next day. That was on me, but I was here to fix it.

“Ladies, you look like you’re up to no good.”

The familiar voice of Cabana Guy made me smile.

“No more than usual, you see. I’m going to shoot that woman,” I pointed to the beautiful brunette, her gaze occasionally finding the hot Cabana Guy, her true potential, “then I’m going to shoot you with an arrow of love, and you are going to live happily ever after.”

Cabana Guy laughed and delivered our drinks.

“Well, shoot away, because I’d be lucky to live the rest of my life with a beauty like that.”

So, I did. With a little press of my power I stepped outside my body and shot the handsome, tanned man beside me before shifting my position to draw back the bow and shoot a second arrow into the woman. Then I sat back down into my body and smiled.

“Okay, the rest is up to you. And, Cabana Guy, a piece of advice.” He only had eyes for the woman who had suddenly noticed his interest in her with a shy return smile. “Treat her like a queen, be kind to her, love her, and forgive her when she makes mistakes, and if she runs . . . chase her!”

He was already walking away, heading straight for the voluptuous beauty.

Mac sighed. “I love shooting pooptentials. It’s like writing once upon a time, and then leaving them to write the rest of their story.”

I looked at my soul sister and my brow rose in surprise. It was probably the single most prophetic thing she had ever said.

“I can’t believe my little girl is growing up,” I said, with a hitch to my voice and pretended to wipe away a tear. “Mac, that was so . . . adult of you.”

She rolled her eyes and would have collapsed back in her chair if Walker hadn’t taken that moment to rush in and scoop her into his arms. Throwing a screaming, pissed off immortal over his shoulder he ran for the water, while Austin slipped into the place Mac had just been sitting.

“This seat taken?” he asked, a twinkle in his eye and a slutty smirk on his lips.

“Actually, it belongs to my soul mate.”

“Hmmmm,” Austin hummed. “Damn shame, I had wicked, wild things planned for you, Sugar.”

Well, that perked my interest. “Cut the cutesy crap. What kind of wicked, wild things?”

“Nothing fancy, just my lips on yours.” Ummmm, yeah, that was seriously nothing fancy. Not that I didn’t love his lips on mine. I’d actually become one of those obnoxiously annoying people who liked a little PDA. We kissed, often . . . everywhere. But, I was hoping for something a little more wicked and a lot more wild. 

Austin gave me a sideways glance and winked. “Oh, Sugar, not those lips.” He ran a finger along the top edge of my bikini bottom. “Those lips.” My thighs clenched and my heart leaped. “I want you wet, Bee. Soaking, sopping, wet.”

And with that, the bastard scooped me up, threw me over his shoulder, and slapped my ass before heading for the water.

“Music Man, you are so going to regret that,” I screamed.

“Sugar, I regret nothing.”

And strangely enough, neither did I. Well, there was a little lingering guilt over the heart ache and misery I had caused in my mission to protect the world from love. I’d learned my lesson though and there might have been a few people standing in line to say ‘I told you so’. I’d ignore them of course, maybe slap a few of them around a little, but I was adult enough to deal. Mostly. My own mistaken ideals about how stupid love was had inevitably led me to my soul mate. I’d experienced the free fall that is love, and I’d flown.

In the wise words of both my dad and The Beatles, I’d learned that all you really did need, was love.

Cue the credit music