Page 48 of Love Song, Take Two

She held a hand out, blush rising up her neck and cheeks. “Come with me.”

Fingers linked, palms pressed together, they headed down the boardwalk and towards the section of the beach where the concrete vanished into sand. As much as he loved living in Sirena Beach, Fletcher did not enjoy finding sand in all his clothes. So he was about to protest, when she directed them away from the beach itself and towards a set of picnic tables.

“Ta da!” She set the basket on the table and gestured towards the area with a wide grin. “I used to come here on hard days when I needed a distraction from life and all the chaos of it.”

He nodded and sat down, their hands still linked. “Seems like a good place to be distracted.”

She stepped between his spread legs and smiled, squeezing his hand. “This table has seen more than a few of my tears.”

He had so many questions, but Micah released his hand to unpack the basket. Fletcher watched her, taking in the way her smile was authentic and her excitement palpable. There were obviously lots of dark parts of her life that she didn’t like talking about, but he hoped that one day she would be open to sharing some of that with him.

“Okay, we’ve got smoothies and cookies for all the sugar rush,” she started, ignoring his silent pleas to share everything about her past. “And we’ve got sandwiches if you want something a little more substantial.”

He tugged Micah back towards him, gently pulling her into his lap, one arm snaking around her waist. “Cookies and smoothies, always.”

“Man after my own heart.” She grinned and kissed the side of his head, lifting off his lap briefly to grab the smoothies. Without asking him, because she already knew what he’d pick, she handed him the pink one and kept the purple one for herself.

He took a sip of his drink, the tarty goodness of the strawberry hitting him instantly. Smiling, he enjoyed the feel of her leaning against him and let his eyes wander over her exposed arms.

“Tell me about these tattoos.”

“Which ones?”

“All of them.”

She laughed and stretched her left arm out, twisting it slightly as she examined the random smattering of ink. “I saw this flower band at the shop when I went to get my mermaid tail and loved it so much. So a few years later, I got someone else to do it for me,” she said as she pointed at the flowers that wrapped around her arm below the elbow. Smiling, she dragged her finger down to the one that read Emery in a messy font. “When she was six, Emery told me that I should get a tattoo of her. We settled on her name and handwriting instead.”

“What about these two?” Fletcher traced the speech bubbles and then the safety pin.

“The speech bubbles are in honor of my job and working through my own stutter. Some days can be harder than others, but we push through. The pin is about solidarity, about standing by those who are marginalized and providing support no matter what.”

Soon after Brandy went through her transition, she’d gotten a similar tattoo as well, but he’d never thought to ask. But now it made sense. Micah wanted to support those like herself who were often mistreated and pushed aside because they were different, the same way Brandy felt about the world today.

“The origami elephants are also for Emery. I’ve got a couple more on this arm too,” she said, holding out her right arm to show him the cute little stick figures of a mother and daughter.

“You made a special kid, Mick.”

She grinned, leaning against him as she nodded. “I take full credit for how fantastic she turned out, but she did get some of my ex’s genetics and I’m sort of grateful for that.”

“She’s all you, baby,” he added softly and then arched an eyebrow when she turned to him with the most adorable glower.

“Absolutely not.”

“She’s not all you?”

“Baby.” Micah shook her head and took a long sip of her smoothie. “Geoffrey used to call me that. Always sounded so condescending.”

Fletcher couldn’t even stop the growl that slipped out. “Maybe I can reclaim it.”

“Maybe.”

He hated that her asshole ex had ruined so many things. Sure baby was a little silly of a term of endearment, but it rolled off the tongue easily. Fletcher would call Micah whatever she wanted. Hell, she could stay Mick for the rest of eternity if she didn’t want to be called anything else.

She pulled out her phone, typing furiously with one hand while Fletcher looked over her shoulder: terms of endearment for your partner that are not baby. “Okay, here we go… beau, flame, love bug, hunk, stallion, my man or my girl, bubba.”

“I would like to be known as your stallion.” She shook her head and he grinned, pressing a kiss to her shoulder. Dropping his voice to a whisper, he added, “Come on, love bug. We both know how much you like to ride me.”

“Do we? I don’t remember this.”

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