Last Chance to Fall

by Kelsey Kingsley

  I was still the floor manager in the furniture department at Harold’s. But, I was considering the possibility that maybe that’s not what I wanted to do forever. When I thought about my life, thought about really living it, the idea of spending my days in a retail hell seemed a little more like settling, than a dream come true.

  And that’s why I took the entire month of August off. I scheduled the time right after Lindsey decided she was going to stay. I booked our trip for two to Ireland, and while Lindsey got her passport, I was making a list of all the places I needed to take her. With help from Mitch Molloy, of course—her father who I was feeling pretty feckin’ lucky to know.

  “Oh my God, this weather,” Lindsey gushed, leaning back on her forearms to tip her face toward the open blue sky. Not a cloud in sight and a high of 60 degrees.

  Just a light breeze, Goats-beard, and her. A rare, and perfect day in Balbriggan, Ireland.

  I nodded. “Mm-hmm. A hell of a lot better than the 87 degrees they’re dealin’ with in River Canyon, that’s for damn sure.”

  “And they’re having a barbeque,” she said, sympathy laced around her words. “Poor Axel and Alanna. They’re probably miserable, being out in that heat.”

  Kinsey had given birth to little Alanna in June, and Axel was born to Ryan and Snow in July. Mam and Da were over the moon with two brand-new grandbabies to fawn over. I knew it was only a matter of time before they started pelting me with remarks of being “next in line.”

  I was looking forward to it.

  My eyes glanced over to Lindsey. She was barefoot, hair in loose waves brushing over the earth we sat on. She wore that long, flowered dress I loved so much. The wildflowers surrounded us, tickling our arms and legs as the wind swayed them in this direction and that. Their sweet floral scent clouded my senses and I couldn’t help but close my eyes, lying myself back against the grass to feel the sun on my face, and folding my arms under my head.

  “When are your aunt and uncle coming back?” she asked. I heard rustling beside me, and then there was the telltale tickle of her hair against my arm as she laid her head against me. I smiled at the comfortable weight, wrapped my arm around her shoulders and pulled her into me. She kissed me just below my ear.

  “Couldn’t say,” I said, sleepy. “Enough time to nap, I’m sure.”

  She groaned. “Oh, come on, Romeo. We’re alone for the first time in two weeks. You’re telling me you’re not going to take this opportunity to seduce me?”

  “We’re beyond the seduction, darlin’. You give it up too willingly now.”

  “You’re saying I’m already old news?” she teased, rubbing her hand over my bearded chin.

  “So old.” She knew that was a lie. Every day I woke up and found something new to love about her most.

  Today, it was her freckles. The way they dusted over her high cheekbones, the way they added just an extra touch of playful beauty to her face.

  Tomorrow? Who the hell knows, but I couldn’t wait to find out.

  Lindsey laughed, her hand sliding over my neck and chest and stomach. She paused at the waist of my jeans, and I gritted my teeth. “We’ll have to find some way to breathe new life into this thing then,” she said against my ear, and her fingers wiggled against my side. Immediately bursting with laughter I couldn’t control if I tried, I defensively rolled out of the way, leaving her on the ground.

  “Go fuck yourself,” I growled, eyes open and glaring at her.

  “I’m gonna have to,” she said, settling onto her back and pulling the length of her dress up to her waist. “Since my boyfriend isn’t gonna help me out.”

  “I was … waitin’,” I said, my voice gruff. I watched one of her hands slowly move between her thighs. Not quite touching, but … there.

  “Waiting for what?”

  “To ask you somethin’.”

  Her hand stopped edging toward the pink of her underwear, and she lifted back up onto her elbows. “What?” she asked with an urgent need to know.

  I shook my head. “Nah, moment’s passed. Please, continue what ya were doin’.”

  But much to my wandering eyes’ disappointment, she pulled herself to her knees. She knelt, looking down at me on the Irish grass, in the field behind my aunt and uncle’s house in Balbriggan. Her long blonde hair glittered pink-gold, yellow, and an almost-white in the mid-morning sun, against a backdrop of Goats-beard, goldenrod, and daisies, and nothing—absolutely nothing—could have competed with her. She was life, she was beautiful. She was forever, and goddammit, she was home.

  “Marry me, Sean.”

  In two seconds, my face hurt from smiling, a blend of happiness and amusement flooding my soul. “Did you just propose to me?”

  “Yes,” she said, hands flattened against her knees.

  “Why would ya propose to me?” I laughed.

  “Because I asked myself what I would do if I wasn’t afraid,” she said, and I moved slowly with intent to my knees, and knelt before her.

  “But you’re not supposed to,” I teased and tackled her, knocking her down to the grass, kissing her hard on the mouth.

  She squealed. “Says who?” she asked against my mouth. “I can do what I want.”

  “Okay, She-Ra.”

  “Who?”

  I sighed. “Never mind. So, if I accept your proposal, does this mean I’m takin’ your last name?”

  Lindsey bit her lip, contemplating, and then shook her head. “I actually really like yours.”

  “Then, I’m sorry. I’ll have to politely decline,” I said, exaggerating a pout as I shoved a hand into the pocket of my jeans. “But if you’d agree to marry me, we might be able to work somethin’ out.”

  I pulled out the ring. Da had given it to me before the trip: my grandmother’s ring. A gold band with a single, small diamond. Celtic knotwork etched into its surface set it apart from other rings I had looked at.

  Well, that, and the history. A history that closely related to my present, with a rapid-fire relationship that took us both by surprise. A future mother-in-law who had yet to talk to her daughter in the months since she had made her decision to stay. A modern day Romeo and Juliet, minus the tragic end.

  “Sean,” she said, taking the ring from me to closely examine it. “How long have you been carrying this around?”

  “Since we got here,” I laughed, tucking a few flyaway strands of hair behind her ear. “What do ya say?”

  She smiled, and pressed her lips against mine. “If I say yes, will you write a poem about it?”

  “Still workin’ on that book,” I said.

  “Good,” she said as she pushed the ring onto her finger.

  “So, wait, that’s a yes?” I asked, cocking a brow.

  She grinned. “Sean Kinney, I was never going to say no.” And she pressed her hands to my cheeks and kissed me.

  “Can we get married here? Now?” she asked, looking hopeful and excited.

  “Here, absolutely. Now, sorry, no can do,” I said apologetically. “I promised your dad we’d visit, and then I promised him and my family and Jules they could be there when we sealed the deal.”

  Her eyes opened wide, startled. “You talked to my dad?”

  “Of course I did,” I said, incredulously. “Had to ask his permission.”

  With cheeks beaming and eyes watering, Lindsey sighed. “I love you,” she said.

  “I love you too.”

  And it was hard to believe she had ever considered leaving.

  She laughed, wrapping her arms around my neck. “What’s so funny?” I asked, resting my weight comfortably over her, pinning her down.

  “I’m just thinking …” She shook her head, rolling her eyes to the sky. “All I wanted was a fucking mattress.”

  “And look what ya got instead,” I said, leaning in to kiss her, to press my brow to her forehead. To encase myself in her breath and love and all that made us … us.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I got everything else.”

  We made l
ove in that field behind my aunt and uncle’s cottage in Balbriggan. A slow, lazy enjoyment of each other on the grass among the daisies and Goats-beard. The wind kissed our skin, the sun wrapped us in its warm embrace. Our hearts spoke in their ventricular Morse code, in poems about pancakes and ice cream.

  I was happy, and I had never felt more alive.

  Because the future was open, with possibilities strewn about like scattered pages in the wind. Plans could be made, and plans could be broken, but I wasn’t afraid.

  How could I be?

  I was home.

  THE END

  A NOTE FROM ME TO YOU |

  So, Dearie, now that we’re here, together, at the end, I’m going to present you with a question: What would you do if you weren’t afraid?

  I dare you to answer that question. I dare you to challenge yourself. I dare you to do it.

  Because, while life is scary, life is short.

  Thank you for reading. Thank you for visiting River Canyon again, the town where everything means everything. I can’t wait for the next trip into that tiny town in Connecticut. I hope you’ll come along for the ride.

  For exclusive excerpts and to just hang out and be my pal, join my Facebook group: Kelsey Kingsley's Dear Readers.

  The Kinney Brothers will be returning in Fall 2018. Continue reading for a sneak peek into my upcoming novel, Daisies & Devin.

  DAISIES

  &

  DEVIN

  COMING

  SUMMER 2018

  Most people would say her hair was purple.

  I guess they wouldn’t have been wrong in that assessment, and at first glance, that’s exactly what first crossed my mind: That chick has purple hair.

  But the longer I stared at her, clutching the neck of my untouched bottle of beer, the more I saw the complexity of the color. Shimmering violets, illustrious indigos. Royal and dark. Purple Mountain’s Majesty. It glimmered in gemstones every time her head turned under that old wagon-wheel chandelier in whoever-the-fuck’s house, and my mouth quirked at the side as Mr. Polo kept trying to grab her attention. Failing every single time.

  Could I really blame him? No. Not really. She was the type of girl you wanted the attention of. The type that makes you wonder if she’s daring in ways other than choice of hair color.

  But then, there was his type—Mr. Polo, with his perfectly gelled hair and pressed pants. A piece of Ivy League trash, waving around a wad of his daddy’s money. Okay, now, Ivy League? That was up for debate. I couldn’t discern his intelligence at first glance, but I could tell from that little alligator embroidered on his shirt that he had money. I could tell from that fancy watch on his wrist.

  Guys like that looked down on the blue collar guys like me, and they didn’t have a real interest in girls like her. Guys like that only wanted another notch poked through their belt. Guys like that didn’t pick up on the complexity of hair color. Those strands of glistening purple-hued sapphires.

  They couldn't.

  That was my job.

  My cousin, Trent—the reason I was even at this fucking party in the first place—nudged my arm with the back of his hand. “So, uh … are you just going to eye-fuck her all night and let that douchebag have a crack at it, or are you gonna go over there?”

  “She’s not leaving with him,” I snickered, tightening my fist around the bottle of my now-warm beer.

  Trent shrugged, bringing the mouth of his to his lips. “Sure, she isn’t.” He rolled his eyes as he tipped it back, swallowing half of it down in one gulp. He sighed his satisfaction and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “She’s pretty hot.”

  “Mm,” I mumbled my reply with a slow nod of my head.

  God, she really was, but … it went beyond hot. I was too far away from her to see the fine details, the light was too dim and shitty, but I could tell from where I stood that she was of unusual beauty.

  Unusual, in that she held my attention for the twenty minutes since we arrived.

  She was too polite to give Mr. Polo the cold shoulder, but her disinterest in whatever he was saying was laughable. “Can’t he take a hint,” I muttered to Trent, but mostly to myself, and he shrugged again, downing the other half of his third beer.

  “Maybe you could go give him one, you fucking pussy.”

  My eyes rolled in his direction. “You and I both know I’m not a pussy.”

  “Which is why I don’t understand why you’re standing over here and not talking to this fucking chick you’ve been eyeballing all night.”

  “All night,” I echoed. “You act like we’ve been here for hours.”

  I shifted my gaze back to her. She was rummaging in a black bag for something. The bag was emblazoned with patches and buttons, a few from bands I recognized, and my dick stiffened in a way that almost embarrassed me.

  What the fuck was my problem, anyway? I was perfectly capable of playing the game. Find a chick at a party, a bar, wherever. Whisk her away. Show her a good time. I mean, I wasn’t what I’d call a man-whore, I didn’t sleep around on a weekly basis like my jackass of a cousin, but I wasn’t a stranger to a one-night stand, is what I’m saying. So, what the fuck was keeping me from walking over there and working my magic on her?

  I was asking myself the question, as I swallowed around the tightly knotted ball of nerves, but I already knew the answer. She wasn’t the type of girl you bag and run. She was the type you settle into. The type you let rock your world for a few weeks, a few months—hell, maybe even forever, but what the fuck did I know? But, what I did know was, she would swallow me up and she’d have to expel me from her own body to make me want to leave.

  And I didn’t do that shit. I was too young, too disinterested, too … too …

  But then, just as I was about to shrug the whole thing off and walk away, Mr. Polo went ahead and put his hand on her shoulder while she was busy reaching into her bag. She shrugged him off once with what looked like a nervous giggle, and then again with irritation. Her brow had crumpled, her shoulders had tensed, and when he took a hold of her arm and tried to lead her away from the wall she stood against, she tugged back, shaking her head.

  “Holy shit. What an asshole,” Trent muttered from next to me, and I glared with narrowed eyes at all of the other assholes in the room surrounding her. They were milling around, completely oblivious of this guy trying to take advantage of this poor girl.

  Fuck them all.

  “Dev, you should go kick that guy’s fucking ass.”

  I nodded affirmatively and plonked the forgotten beer onto a table as I shoved my way through the living room and into the kitchen where the offending asshole was continuing to tug her along, deaf to her protests.

  “Hey, Nicole, I’ve been looking all over for you,” I said, spitting out the first name that popped into my mind. I glared hard at Mr. Polo, daring him with my eyes to keep a grip on her arm. “Who the fuck are you?” I growled through gritted teeth.

  He didn’t let go, but he wasn’t pulling her anymore. “Nice try, buddy. She’s with a girl. I saw her come in.”

  “I was meeting her here.” The muscle in my jaw ticked, one hand curled into a fist. I had never gotten into a fight over a girl I didn’t know but I wasn’t opposed to the idea.

  To prove my point, I slid my arm around her shoulders, not oblivious to the way she tensed under my blanketed touch. Two guys over a foot taller than her, staking claim when they didn’t even know her name. I was almost no better than him, except my intentions weren’t to strip her of her dignity.

  I was trying to save her from losing it.

  I glanced down at her and saw that she was looking up at me with the most startling blue eyes I had ever seen before in my fucking life. A canvas of patchworked blues. Lapis and azure. Sky and a touch of turquoise. Her hair wasn’t the only multi-faceted attribute, and my lips parted with my silent gasp.

  I had never noticed how fucking dull and gray my life had been before. Before her.

  “Jason, it’s about
time you got here,” she finally said in a smooth voice, relaxing against my side. I released a satisfactory sigh and slid my eyes back over to Mr. Polo, challenging him, and he dropped her arm.

  “Whatever,” he grumbled, shaking his head. “Asshole.”

  He skulked away to nurse his wounds, but I was pretty certain he’d get over it. There were other girls there, and I hoped someone else would find it in them to stop him. There were only so many heroic moments I could muster, and now, I was captivated. Thoroughly entranced by the girl I just saved.

  “Did he just call me the asshole?” I asked, and my lips curled into an amused grin.

  She let out a laugh. Still tightly wound, still shaken from her brush with non-consent. “Uh, yeah, I think so,” she said, hoisting her black bag onto her shoulder. She inched away from my arm, and I took her cue, letting it fall back at my side. “Thanks, by the way.”

  “Yeah, no problem,” I said with a nod. I surveyed the rest of the room. Drunk assholes, oblivious to their surroundings. “I can’t believe nobody else saw what was happening.”

  “I can,” she muttered. “I’ve been to enough of these things to know nobody gives a shit about anybody else. All they care about is the booze and the sex, and when you’re not into either, well …” She shrugged and pat her bag. “I bring a book with me.”

  Oh God. She was a reader too. I begged my groin to behave as I chuckled. “What book?”

  “Oh, uh …” She shifted her feet awkwardly against the tile floor. “It’s pretty lame and boring.”

  “Try me.”

  Glancing back at me, her blue eyes shimmering in the dim kitchen light. “It’s a book of Edgar Allan Poe’s poetry.”

  Cocking my head, my breath hitched in my throat and I hope she hadn’t noticed.

  “So, you’re a poet?”

  Her giggle was tight and shrill, her eyes flitted awkwardly to the side. As though nervous someone might overhear. “I don’t write poetry; I read it.”

  I cleared my throat, feeling like an instant ass for making assumptions. My gaze dodged around the room of moronic college kids, and I felt too old to be there. Twenty-three going on eighty.