Ben was my final destination.
We weren’t always perfect. We both had flaws and quirks. I was pretty sure he worried about my passion for shopping and spent sleepless nights debating how he could hide my credit card. I worried about his OCD induced cleaning habits and his obsession with cleaning products. But we worked. We had found a connection. Flaws were accepted, understood, and adored.
My experience before Ben was my own learning curve, my battle scars and my truth.
‘I know you describe Luke as being your first, but in many ways, he wasn’t,’ he whispered, kissing my neck. ‘I was the first person to let you in and the first person to fall in love with you,’ he said as he pushed me down onto the bed. ‘I was the first person to make love to you.’
‘Let me be your first.’
He pulled back and looked into my eyes, stroking my face with his fingers. I moved my head towards his mouth and brushed my lips against his as I silently gave him permission to be my first and my only.
Epilogue
fifteen months later
It should be illegal for an alarm clock to sound at four in the morning.
Elle Davis, what a bright and breezy morning creature was a sentence that would never be uttered.
What made it slightly easier to crack my eyes open were the tender kisses to my shoulder blades and the strong arm wrapped around my waist. He often traced the scar with his fingertips. His hard stare and contemplative frown always accompanied his touch. It was almost like he could see how the scar became part of me through a series of images or vivid daydreams that were difficult for him to watch.
‘Good morning, princess,’ he muttered between kisses, kisses that led to his fingers wandering closer to places that would make us late.
‘Stop! We have a plane to catch,’ I sighed sleepily, full of regret.
‘I like waking up with you. Can we do this every day?’ he asked as his fingers teasingly grazed my breasts. ‘Morning sex! Now there’s something I could get used to.’
‘The mortgage kind of ties us down to waking up together every morning,’ I laughed, still not quite believing that although we were lying on a mattress on the floor of a bedroom with no curtains hanging at the window in a house that contained not a scrap of furniture, it was ours.
Mine and Ben’s.
Our own space.
Our first home.
It’s strange to look back and reflect on how much things can change. Less than two years ago, I was questioning everything about myself, wondering if I was good enough, over thinking life, and seriously negotiating my way around a relationship I wasn’t sure I was worthy of. Now, as I felt the warmth of this beautiful man surround me, I couldn’t have felt more different. This man completed me. He made me whole and accepted all of me.
Every night before we went to sleep, he read to me. He always chose a romantic verse of love found, claimed, and totally indulged. The book could be anything. He could have read the phone book and I would still have hung on to every word. When he saw my eyes start to drop and could hear my yawns, he’d close the book before pulling me into his arms, holding me, whispering softly into my ear that I was his destiny. Slowly, tentatively, like a bird learning to fly for the first time, I believed him.
I pushed myself away from him and pulled the t-shirt I had found in his rucksack, the same one that smelled like him and lulled me to sleep the nights we weren’t together. He watched me with an appreciative glance, his head resting on his elbow and a wide smile across his handsome face.
‘Tell me again why we waited so long to move in together?’
‘Abi’s rent was cheap?’ I laughed.
I had moved in to her spare room just before Ben and I spent our first Christmas together. Despite pretty stellar attempts at flat hunting, I’d managed to stay with her for the last year. We were inseparable. Ben knew that my friends freed me. I needed them as much as I needed him. I’d rarely stay overnight at his place, not since his roommate banged on the wall during a particular rowdy night of passion, causing a blush of mortification to appear across my face that Ben found so irresistible.
Secretly, I think he liked the camaraderie of our friendships. They also totally fell for him. Abi’s sarcasm and dry humour meant they bonded immediately. Gem mothered him and kept him stocked up on hand gel. While Kate offered her opinions on the latest films and books they seemed to mutually favour.
I could already imagine Abi sitting in our kitchen after letting herself in with an emergency key and helping herself to a beer. She was so much happier now, but that’s another story…
‘Maybe it was my fear of failure, but don’t worry, if it all falls apart, we can always section the house off down the middle with gaffer tape and keep to separate sides.’ I smiled and turned to him, feeling anxious when I wasn’t met with a familiar smile.
‘Don’t do that,’ he said as he got up from the bed.
‘What have I done?’ I asked tentatively, testing the temperature of the argument.
‘Don’t keep waiting for a fall.’
The habit of second-guessing and over analysing was harder for me to let go of than I was willing to admit. It was a natural response at times, despite his love covering the tiny fractures. I didn’t know how to be anyone else, but he was teaching me, coaching me with his words and his love, slowly chipping away at my resolve, making me believe I was worth it. The weeks after we had declared our love for each other allowed time for some necessary soul-searching and rumination. My journey had allowed me to develop and grow.
Like a flower after the rain, I bloomed, transcended, and surpassed what I ever thought I could achieve. My confidence had grown. Most of the time, I felt like I was finally becoming the person I was meant to be. When I left my parents to move in with Abi, I left my room exactly as it was. In the months we waited to secure the house, I de-cluttered and let go of the past, allowing myself to move forward and make new memories. I sifted through childhood toys, school projects, keepsakes I had clung on to because I was afraid that if I threw them away, they wouldn’t stay in my subconscious, ultimately making me forget what made me so typically me.
I didn’t want to take them with me to the home I would share with Ben. We had new memories to make. The important keepsakes that I couldn’t part with now filled a shoebox and were one of the first things to be securely placed in the loft of our new home.
As we shut the door to our parents, Ben presented me with a brightly coloured tin. Inside was a note.
For new memories to be shared and cherished.
I couldn’t hide my smile when he followed me into the shower and skilfully washed my hair. When we both got out, we dried each other, taking advantage of our state of undress while we traced the lines of our bodies with our fingers. My daily ritual of applying body cream took an interesting turn when he picked up the bottle out of my wash bag and crouched down to rub it into my skin, skimming the tops of my legs with his fingers, teasing me cruelly. If it weren’t for the early-o’clock flight, we probably wouldn’t have left the bedroom.
He had told me to pack light but warm. I chose jeans and cashmere jumpers that could be rolled up into the size of a postage stamp. I pretended not to notice the black, lace slip he had sneaked into the front pocket of my holdall.
Although he had given me plenty of instructions on what to pack, he hadn’t actually got round to telling me where we were going, only saying I needed a passport and that we would be getting on a plane.
We double, triple and quadruple checked that we had secured the house. Not that there was anything to steal, but it made us feel like responsible adults.
The taxi got us to the airport in record time. Bloody hell, the guy had no thought for the safety of his passengers. I watched my life flash before my eyes and almost cried when I contemplated failing to survive an epic crash and never being able to pick out the lino for the bathroom floor. Who in their right mind goes on holiday the day after moving into their first house?
&n
bsp; Us. We did. And it was awesome.
Thankfully, we arrived in one piece. Ben’s hands covered my eyes as we walked towards the check in desk. I took the British stance and protested, pretending to be annoyed and repeating I don’t like this when secretly, I was so freaking excited I was about to pass out.
‘Open your eyes and tell me I’m not the best boyfriend in the history of best boyfriends,’ he said as he stood behind me and removed his hands.
The light punched my eyes and it took me a minute to take in the words in yellow against the backdrop of black on the monitor hanging over the desk.
New York.
‘You didn’t!’ I squealed.
‘I did,’ he smiled, waving the boarding cards in front of me. ‘Your mum said you would kill me because apparently we need to buy stupid adult things like towel racks and dining chairs, but I thought it over for all of ten seconds before I reasoned that we could spend a few months sitting on the floor and drying towels on radiators. So here we bloody are!’
‘Thank God for your reasoning!’ I laughed, kissing him madly against his lips. I was angry for a fraction of a second until he told me we were staying at the Four Seasons Hotel. I agreed that essentials like furniture and curtains could wait, therefore fully resigning myself to eating beans on toast for the next six months.
I wasn’t a good flyer. The spring of the surprise had taken off the edge of my nerves. I did, however, come fully prepared for the knot in my stomach to tighten as I stepped on the plane. I carried travel sickness tablets, my Kindle, blankets, and pillows. All I was missing was a sedative.
Ben clung on to my hand throughout the seven-hour journey and provided a comfortable place to sleep. His hands stroking my head and twisting my hair were sure-fire ways of getting me to drift off peacefully.
Before I could even assess my surroundings when I opened my eyes, we had landed in New York.
It was true what all the travel guides said. New York really was a magical place. It pulsed and pulled and moved at a pace that couldn’t help but carry you along with it.
Ben was talking to the cab driver and helping him put the suitcases in the boot when I felt the familiar rustle of paper as I put my hand in the pocket of my jacket. I pulled out a Tiffany Blue envelope with my name across the front.
Dear Elle,
When I saw your picture for the first time, it was like slamming the brakes on a car, or diving into the sea when all the noise of the world suddenly disappears into a distant silence.
The world came to a stop.
I had never wanted to be such a big part of another person’s life before.
I think I started falling for you then.
Happiness, for me, revolves around just one person.
Happiness is the air that you breathe and the words that you speak.
I’m more proud of you than any other achievement I’ve ever made.
You were made for me.
Love Ben
I put the envelope back in my pocket and brushed the tear that had fallen onto my cheek as Ben got in and sat down beside me. ‘Just making a slight detour before we get to the hotel,’ he said, avoiding eye contact.
New York flashed by like a cartoon or picture book. Familiar scenes, landmarks and tourist spots made me feel like we were on a film set.
‘Have you found my letter?’ he asked, raising an eyebrow and smirking, knowing full well from my red eyes and blotchy complexion that I had. ‘I felt it was good timing,’ he smiled.
‘Good timing for what?’ I asked, perplexed with where this was going. The taxi stopped and we were left on the sidewalk holding on to our cases looking slightly lost and very British-tourist. ‘You didn’t answer my question,’ I shouted over the noise of car horns, music, and the hustle and bustle of people filling my ears as I trailed behind him.
‘It was good timing for this.’ He pointed up and I took in the Tiffany Blue flags outside the famous jewellery store on Fifth Avenue. ‘I couldn’t wait any longer,’ he said, turning to me and smiling widely. ‘Elle Davis, for the first time in my life, I feel whole. You’ve turned on the lights, turned up the volume of the music, and started my heart. I’m a better person since you came along. I want it all when I’m with you. You give me everything.’
He got down on one knee and took my hand. My whole body juddered and stirred.
‘Marry me. Say yes and I’ll take you through those doors and you can choose whatever ring you want.’
I held on to my mouth and my chest. Everything around me was on full speed.
‘Within reason,’ he added. ‘I am on a budget here.’
I laughed and clamped my hands to my face. We had drawn quite a crowd, but we could have been in the middle of nowhere.
There was just Ben on one knee and me standing before him.
‘Yes! Yes. Of course I’ll marry you.’
Acknowledgments
If someone said to me a year ago that I would be writing the acknowledgments for my first book, I would have told them to calm themselves down. What started as an idea for a cute anniversary gift, turned into this book. Our story. I couldn’t have done it without you, SJW. I love you more than words can possibly express.
I have had so much support, acceptance, and guidance from some phenomenal authors, bloggers and readers. All of whom I’ve never met, but I feel like I know them through social media. Even if you’ve left me a comment on Facebook or a like on Instagram, I am so grateful for the connection you decided to make.
I want to say a huge thanks to Abbie Lee at Duckman Proofreading. You’ve been an exceptional editor and amazingly supportive in this journey with me so far. You’ve gone above and beyond. You’ve kept me calm and kicked me when I’ve needed it!
Beta readers are superheroes. All I can say is thank you for your comments. My book was made better because of you.
April Wilson, author of the McIntyre Series. You were the reason I started this journey. Your books are an inspiration and I cannot thank you enough for all the guidance you have offered me. Thank you for all of your continued support.
Heather Guimond, author of The Perfection Series. You are one of the kindest people on this planet. Thank you for everything. You have given me so much of your time and so many pep talks!
Audrey Randall, author of Playing Her Game. Thanks for all your guidance on punctuation! Thank you for taking the time out to beta read for me, and thank you for the idea I added when Elle joined the dating website. ‘You get what you get…’
Nicola Rendell, author of Professed, Confessed, and Hail Mary. Your talent amazes and inspires me every day. I am so thankful for your support. I have really taken on board everything you’ve been willing to share with me about this crazy writing world.
Special thanks to Facebook friends who offered their ideas when I was stuck for names of dating sites. Gemma Newey, Abbie Lee, Caitlyn Kraska and Mia Hudson.
Thank you to the person reading this book! I’m so glad you took a chance on a new author.
Finally, to all the Abis, Gems and Kates in the world. We couldn’t do this thing called life without you!
About the Author
Lynsey M. Stewart is a UK based writer. She lives with her husband, also known as her soul mate and muse, and their gorgeous, precious, ridiculously independent baby girl.
She began writing after being inspired by great books, amazing writers, and wonderful stories that left their fingerprints on her heart.
Her background revolves around helping, advocating and supporting children, young people, and their families. Her Monday morning mantra is: ‘If no one likes my books, I can always continue with the day job.’
@authorlynseym
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Let Me Be Your First (Music and Letters #1) Page 31
