Page 134 of Must Have Been Love

Look at the beach. – Hudson x

We got here an hour ago. Luckily most of the pebbles from yesterday were still here, though the ocean made a good try at moving them around. Ayda spent the first twenty minutes piling them all up and making me wait until she chose exactly the ones she wanted to use.

And then I wrote out the words. This time they’re about me.

I love you. I love you. I love you.

Last night, after she’d told me about the baby, we spent the next few hours on the beach. I’d found a blanket in my car because she really was shivering by that point, but neither of us wanted to go back to the bar. We walked and talked along the coast.

She told me about the extra pill she’d counted. That she thinks we conceived the baby in New York. I told her that I may have missed the first couple of weeks of her pregnancy, but I’ll be at every damn appointment she has. I’ll make her drinks and food and rub her feet whenever they feel swollen.

“I’m all in. So all in it’s gonna take your breath away,” I told her. And I meant every word.

“So you’re happy? Even though this wasn’t planned and it took us by surprise?”

“So damn happy you wouldn’t believe. I’m all about surprises. And taking life how it comes. Plans are…” I shook my head. “They’re not needed. I like discovering my way with you better.”

The bar door opens and she walks out, wearing a pair of short pajamas and nothing else. Her hair is blowing in the breeze, a dark curtain that dances against her shoulders.

And I love her. I love her. I love her.

She reads the words and puts her hand on her heart, then runs down onto the sand toward us both, a huge grin on her face.

Ayda jumps up and down when she sees her. And when Skyler is almost here, my daughter runs into her arms. Skyler swings her around and Ayda giggles.Out loud. It’s not a word but it’s close.

Every day we’re getting closer.

Then I walk toward them. My girls. The beat of my heart, the reason I breathe.

My life.

I put my arms around them, and Ayda links one arm around my neck, the other still clinging to Skyler.

“Good morning.”

“You’re up early again,” Skyler tells me.

“I’m an early riser.”

“That’s good because I’m a late one. And I need my coffee decaffeinated these days.”

“Already done.” I point at the picnic we made behind us. The same blanket I’d kept her warm with last night is laid out on the sand. On top are pastries and coffees and a hot chocolate for Ayda.

“I was joking,” Skyler laughs. “Kinda.”

Ayda runs over to the blanket and takes another sip of her hot chocolate, kneeling on the cotton. I slide my arm around Skyler’s shoulders and she curls hers around my waist.

And together we watch the sun as she rises up from the ocean to take her place in the sky.

epilogue

SKYLER

Meet me at the fishermen’s cottages. – Hudson.

I turn off my phone and smile, because this man has become so very unexpected over the past few weeks. For a start, today he told me he’d be on the mainland all day, but he very clearly isn’t. Even though he knocked at my door early – the way he does every morning – with an insulated cup of decaffeinated cappuccino and a blueberry bagel, because he knows I have a thing for them right now.

I love the way he does this, even though it’s out of his way most mornings. He’s already asked me a dozen times to move in with him. And I will, eventually. But I need to know Ayda’s okay with it.

---