Author's Chapter Notes:
'Summer love is like no other love.' As the northern summer draws to a close, I'm glad to submit a little Orlando vacation chapter for your viewing pleasure. Barbeques...yay! Strawberry filled sponge cakes...yay! Pool sex...the author of this fic does not advise unsafe or unsanitary sexual practices...yay! I hope y'all like it and I hope y'all remember to wear sunscreen. Weird little thing though, for some reason, the view count on chapter 8 is lower than the view count on chapter 9. I was wondering if some of you missed it, or you guys were avoiding some of the drama re:Justin. In case you did forget, remember to check out Chapter 8, there's burnt pancakes. Happy reading, try not to chafe yourselves, Puff.

Chapter 10 - Mamas, Don't Let Your Girls Fall In love With Cowboys

Friday, June 24th

"Mom, this is someone very special to me. This is my girlfriend, Elizabeth." JC and Ellie stood on his parents porch, arm in arm. His mother, Karen, wearing a blue tank top and linen capris, stepped forward from her place in the doorway and extended her hand to Ellie.

"Nice to meet you, come in." They followed her down the hallway to the kitchen. The house was filled with photos and trinkets: graduation photos and baseball trophies, cheerleading pendants and platinum records documenting the achievements of JC's and his siblings' lives. As she passed the living room, Ellie spotted one of JC's Grammys sitting atop of an old, battered upright piano.

"You have a very beautiful home." Ellie sat at the kitchen table, pulling down her light yellow tank top.

"Have you two eaten?" Karen asked as she poured a pitcher of water.

"We had breakfast not that long ago." Ellie tried to explain before she was cut off by JC.

"A few hours ago." Karen placed the pitcher on the table with two cups. She then went to the pantry and got out a tupperware container of sugar cookies, opening them then placing the container on top of the lid on the table. Ellie thanked her as she returned to the kitchen counter and pulled out four slices of whole wheat bread, placing them in front of her on the bench. She pulled a butter knife out of the drawer and opened a jar of peanut butter before turning around.

"You don't have any food allergies, do you, honey?"

"No," Ellie answered, looking over to JC as he shook his head, his mouth full with a large bite of sugar cookie, crumbs falling down his white t-shirt and black shorts.

"Do you like peanut butter and jelly?" Karen asked, turning back around after Ellie nodded. "Your father's downstairs. He and Tyler are thinking of going fishing tomorrow." She got a jar out of the pantry as she yelled downstairs, "ROY, JOSH IS HERE." She stood by the door down to the basement and listened, the sound of a chair scraping on concrete coming from downstairs after a hesitant pause. Roy emerged at the basement door just as Karen was placing the sandwiches on the kitchen table. He took a glass out of the cupboard and sat next to his wife, a small belly forming under his white undershirt as he slouched in his chair, letting out a long exhale through his nose in protest to the heat.

"I'm sorry I wasn't able to fly up to be with you when you settled; everything just happened so quickly." Roy poured himself a glass of water.

JC murmured in agreement, swallowing his mouthful. "Everything happened suddenly; we were preparing for trial when we got the call that Jive was willing to settle out of court. Eric was so eminent that we settle immediately that we didn't really have time to let you know. Adam was a bit disappointed that we weren't willing to negotiate a little further, but it's a fair deal. Eric really didn't want to press it. I only had to pay the original asking price for the contract buyout in exchange for an immediate dissolution of my contract. Fair's fair."

Ellie picked a piece of crust off her sandwich. "Is it really?"

"You don't think it's fair?" Roy turned to her.

"I mean, you were worth around $60 million before the suit. Jive was asking for $15 million for a buyout, a price they would put on a more valued artist on their label. They originally had no intent on supporting you as an artist, at least not fairly. They weren't promoting the album or the singles. In fact, they probably wouldn't have released the album if they had a choice. They didn't do shit until Eric found an alternative method of promoting your music, only then did they do anything, which was solely sitting on their fat asses to reap the rewards. Then when they have a chance to rid of an artist they only started turning a meagre profit from, no thanks to them, they dig their heels in and sue you only to back out last minute for the same amount they would have gotten if they just let you buyout the contract. They intentionally tried to drain you of your money. Sixty minus fifteen, plus the legal fees. You've lost around a quarter of your fortune; it's bullshit." She took a moment to collect her thoughts. "I know everyone's just trying to do what's best in such a shitty situation, but...I don't know." They sat in silence, Karen changing the subject after a few minutes.

"So, Ellie, Josh has told me a lot about you. I hear your mother breeds horses. Are you a horse person yourself? JC says you have a cat."


"I'm getting sick of constantly having to introduce myself to new people. How many more people do you know?" Ellie and JC were driving back to JC's house from his parents' place.

"You don't like my folks?" He briefly turned to her, turning his head back onto the road.

"It's not that. You just know so many people. I feel like I have to explain myself to every single one of them."

"Aren't you a reporter or something?"

"That's different. During interviews, I just go in, say my name and where I work, ask my questions, then I'm out of there. I feel like I'm constantly on the spot when I meet your friends." Ellie slouched down in her seat. "I'm just tired. That's all."

"A bit cranky as well." He intertwined his pinky finger with her pinky and ring finger. "It'll be fine. We'll get home and just have some down time."


Ellie woke up the next morning to find JC watching her as she slept, smiling as she opened her eyes. He took her hand into his and lightly squeezed it. She shuffled herself forward until her body was pressed against his, letting out a content grunt as he wrapped his arms around her.

"Morning." She wrapped the light blue sheet around his bare torso. "What time is it?"

"I wouldn't know, honey. I haven't checked." He turned over to get out of the bed, sitting up with the sheet obscuring his underwear.

"Don't." Ellie wrapped her arms around his waist. "I want to pretend you're naked." She kissed his shoulder, tasting the salt of his sweat.

"You're weird." He got up off the bed, trying to free himself from her arms and the sheet.

"Aw, come on. I just want to cuddle."

"I need to shower. I feel disgusting. I probably smell, too."

"You smell wonderful." He walked out of the bedroom, a large pastel blue room decorated with an array of antique furniture, the centerpiece being the large white cast iron bed, into the adjacent bathroom tiled with dark sandstone. She followed him in, undressing out of her nightie as he turned the water on. She entered the shower after him, wrapping her arms around his waist as they stood underneath the running water. "This is so nice."


After a while, they sat in the bathroom, JC sitting on the edge of the bathtub as Ellie shaved her legs. "You're very sexy."

"I'm not sexy. Granted, sometimes I do sexual things, but I'm not sexy." She rinsed her razor in the basin. "You on the other hand."

"You're unbelievably sexy."

"Girls like me aren't sexy; we're not even pretty. We're cute. Cute and smart, sometimes. Mostly just smart."

"You can be both. You know those movies where the girl's supposedly ugly because she wears glasses, then the pretty girls give her a makeover and then she's supposed to be all gorgeous and shit, then you complain because the actress they hired is really stunning in real life and all they did was take her glasses off and put her in a nice dress. You're as stunning as one of those actresses."

"Really now?" She looked up at him from her bent over position.

"Yeah."

"You're very sweet, but I don't believe you...SHIT!" She dropped her razor in the tub as started bleeding from the tiny, fresh cut on her ankle. He quickly tore a sheet of toilet paper and wiped the trickle of blood running down her foot, before he folded the paper and pressed it to her wound.

"Ow, it stings."

"It's fine, just a knick. I do it all the time."

"See, I would never have reacted that quickly. I'm just useless."

"You can cook." He looked up at her.

"You can sing and play music, and you can also dance. I can't do any of that shit. What can I do? Ask people other people's questions and edit. Wow."

He started to run his fingertips along the back of her ankle in an attempt to comfort her, only stopping to look at her with a devious smirk. "You suck cock really well."

"This isn't the time to be funny. You're this incredibly beautiful, sweet, talented person, and I'm just some boring old cow."

"You know how when you were a kid, you really liked English, so you joined the school newspaper, and then you liked that so much that you joined the school paper when you started middle school, then high school. Then, when you went to college, not only did you join the school newspaper as soon as you could, but you also studied journalism?"

"I actually wanted to be a doctor, but I didn't get the grades to do pre-med."

He paused for a moment with a disgruntled look. "Anyway, when you were a kid, you found something you loved so much that you kept on doing it, to the extent that you started become good at it. Everything I'm good at was the same with me. I really liked dancing, so I kept doing it. I liked singing, so I kept doing it. I liked writing songs, so I kept doing it. If I am truly good at those things, it's only because I kept practicing them, just like everyone else. It's just a case of honed skill sets. Anyone who is deluded enough to think that they're God's gift to music or whatever is fucked in the head. Are you done here?"

"I can finish later."

JC took a washcloth and ran it under hot water for a few moments. He then started wiping the shaving cream off her leg. "As for the other thing, do you think you're beautiful?"

"I don't know."

JC let out a long groan. "Why can't you just accept that I find you attractive?"

"I just don't see it."

He stood up and took her face into his hands. "You have pretty eyes and nice lips. You've got a great body with an amazing ass, and just thinking about you makes me so hard that I want to fuck your brains out." He kissed her.

With a smile she rebutted him, "I still don't see it."

"The more you contradict me, the more I'm going to have to tell you you're wrong," he said as he punctuated his last statement with a swift spank.


Around sunset that day, Ellie stood in the kitchen calling her parents' house. The kitchen was a large room taking up around half of the ground floor. It was painted a sandy yellow and had mahogany cabinets with black marble counters. The room was divided by an obtuse arm of benches and a round, six seater dining table in a wood a few shades lighter than the cabinets taking up the rest of the room near a liquor cabinet. The outside wall was lined with floor to ceiling windows and a set of French doors, leading out to a pool area and the backyard, a small slope of grass that led to a lake's edge with a small fishing dock.

After four rings, Ellie's mother Emily picked up. "Hello."

"Hey, Mom. It's me, Ellie." Ellie wore one of JC's t-shirts over a pair of shorts, her hair down.

"Hi, I was going to call you tomorrow." Emily's voice brightened.

"I'm just calling to see how you two are. That's all." Ellie made a thumbs up to JC, signifying that they would most likely be alone for her birthday. "I'm so disappointed you couldn't make it into Orlando."

"We would have loved to have come down, but one of my brood mares has colic; we have to watch her."

"I'm so sorry to hear that."

"Did you get our present?"

"Yeah, it arrived at the office the day we were leaving. Mo brought it over just as we were going to the airport. I hope it's a book; it looks like a book." Ellie leaned onto the wall by the phone cradle, JC rattling a saucepan on the stove on the far side of the room, wearing a t-shirt and black board shorts.

"What was that?"

"Oh, Josh is just watching some vegetables for me."

"How is he?"

"He's doing great now that he's home, a lot more relaxed."

"That's good. I'll let you go."

"OK, tell Daddy I said hi. I'll call you tomorrow."

"Happy birthday if I don't hear from you."

"Thanks, Mom. Bye."

"Bye."

Ellie waited for Emily to hang up, putting the phone back on the hook after she heard a click.


That night, JC lounged on a step at the shallow end of the kidney shaped pool in his backyard. His eyes followed Ellie as she stepped out of the pool pulling the bottoms of her crocheted, white bikini back down over her butt. She walked over to the other end of the pool and gracefully dived in, gliding across the bottom for a moment before she emerged just a small distance from him, wiping her hair from her face as she took in a breath. She swam as close as she could to him, standing on tiptoe between his knees, tasting the chlorine on his lips.

"Can I ask you a question?" she asked as she pulled his knees to bring him a little closer to her, not quite pulling him from the step. "Earlier when you listed all of the thing you found attractive about me, why didn't you mention my breasts?"

He made a small amused grunt. "I thought you were going to say a personality trait for a moment, there."

"I just thought that you liked my breasts."

"I do. It's just that you've got a great ass as well."

She pushed herself away from him, swimming backwards until there was a fair distance between them. She then slowly submerged herself, never breaking eye contact. He followed her into the water, grabbing her by the waist and bringing her to the surface as he held her legs around his waist.

He kissed her. "Are you coming onto me?"

"No!" She gasped in feigned shock. "A lady would never do that, and you know that I am nothing but a lady." As she said this, she reached behind her back and slowly pulled her swimsuit top undone.

She swam over to the shallow end, taking a seat on the step facing him, the water coming up to her now bare breasts. She dropped one piece of her swimsuit next to her on the tiling surrounding the pool, she then dropped the second. After a moment, she screamed as JC's black board shorts landed in the water next to her. He popped out of the water in front of her and grabbed her jaw as he kissed her. She reached her hand between their bodies and started running her hand along the shaft of his penis, feeling him becoming hard.

"Fuck," she whispered as he grabbed her breast.

He lightly bit her shoulder. "You have perfect titties."

"Don't be fucking crass." She lightly pushed him away from her.

"You love it when I'm fucking crass." He growled in her ear as he touched her to gauge her wetness. "Is this a hand job, or are we going to fuck, ‘cause it would be a disappointment if you were to waste this..."

She cut him off. "I'll fuck you if you don't say cock, big hard cock, rock hard cock or boner."

He softly bit her neck, growling, "Cock," in her ear as he rammed himself into her. She let out a loud gasp as he started thrusting into her, digging his fingers into her thigh. She leaned back, her chest heaving with laboured breaths as she started rubbing her clit.

"Fuck, Mummy." He leaned forward and bit her nipple, increasing his momentum and force as she cried in orgasm. He shuddered as he came, taking in a deep breath as he stopped, wrapping his arms around her waist, guiding her to hold onto his shoulders. He took a few steps back and bent his knees, lowering them until the water reached just below their heads. He rocked her softly as she buried her head into his neck, catching her breath as he sung softly to her.


An hour or so later, Ellie rested her head on the side of the bathtub, lost in her thoughts.

"What's wrong? You've gone quiet," JC asked as he finished rinsing his hair.

"Nothing, really," she lied before she told him the truth, "I'm turning 27 tomorrow."

"So?"

"I feel like I've wasted my life, or that I'm not happy with the one I'm currently living or something...I don't know."

He pulled her wrist so she would come closer to him, positioning her to sit on his lap. "Do you want to do what you're doing now?"

"I'm not sure. I'm not sure I actually want to be a reporter. I'm happy being an copyeditor, but I feel like Mo is pushing me up the ladder so I can one day do what he does, and you don't get to senior editor without doing some reporting first. At least that's how things work at Clefnotes."

"Do you want to write for Clefnotes all of your life?"

"Again, I have no idea." She buried her head into his shoulder. "I want to be a mom, have a family and so forth, but it's not like that's happening for me right now. I thought I would be a mother by now. I never really put much thought into what might happen if I wasn't."

He subconsciously started running his fingertips along the length of her forearm. "Do you want children?"

"You already know I do, but it's not like you want them right now."

"How do you know that?"

She lifted her head up to look him in the eyes, an offended look on her face. "You just asked me not five minutes ago if I was sure if I took my pill today. No one who's ready to become a father asks that shit."

"We just had unprotected sex in a pool. Who wants to tell their kid that story: ‘Hey, buddy, you were conceived in a pool'?"

She got out of the tub and wrapped a towel around herself. "If you don't want to become a father, then why did you ask me if I wanted children?" She grabbed a second towel and stormed into the bedroom.

He drained the bath and followed her, wrapping a towel around his waist. "‘Cause you ask those kind of questions when someone is having an existential crisis about the fact that they haven't had children yet."

She stopped drying her hair. "I just wish sometimes that you would be honest with me instead of just saying what you think I want to hear."

"I am being honest." He sat on the opposite of the bed to where she was sitting.

"No, you're not." She went back to drying her hair.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"What?" She stopped and stared at him with a look of offended shock.

"Not in general, right now, what the fuck is wrong right now?"

"In general?"

"Answer my fucking question, Elizabeth."

She sat and thought for a moment. "I don't want to have to choose between you and work. I want to be with you all the time, but I don't want to give up who I am. I don't want to just work for you, but I'm also not sure if I'm supposed to work at the magazine for the rest of my life. If that's the case, then I'm not quite ready to move on from my current position. I just want to be happy."

"You're not happy?"

"I think I am. I'm happy with you, but I also I like working, making my own money and being independent." She folded the towel in her lap. "I feel like everything's just in a rush to change all of a sudden."

He edged himself more onto the bed. "Are you getting cold feet about moving in together?"

"No, I love the apartment."

"That's not what I asked."

"I feel like we're just doing it out of necessity."

"We are doing it out of necessity. You need to find a new place, and I need to spend more time in New York for you. Come over here." He beckoned her over to him.

She crawled into his arms, resting her head on his chest. "I don't feel like I have control of my life. I feel like a leaf floating in the breeze being blown wherever the wind wants to take me."

He paused for a bit, a lump forming in his throat as he said something he had been mulling over for some time, but was only just now verbalising his true feelings about. "I got fired last year from a job only I could do. I was also pushed into a legal situation I didn't completely want to be in."

Ellie paused as she took the weight of his statement in. "You didn't want to leave Jive?"

"I thought I did. I don't know. I thought the whole situation could've been handled better. The whole situation." JC put emphasis on the repeated words, implying something bigger.

"What are you trying to say?" She saw a stray tear fall from his left eye. "Are you crying?"

He wiped it away. "I'm not sure I should have chosen this career path, maybe I should just quit."

A million things ran through her head. She recognised that she could try to encourage him, both to continue or to end his music career, but she settled on the most neutral thing she could. "I can't make the decision for you. I can only tell you that I will love you and support you no matter what you choose."

"Tell me the truth."

"I don't care either way, but music is the only thing you're qualified to do...Do it because you love it."


Sunday, June 26th

Ellie and JC sat on the sofa in the living room, basking in the afternoon sun shining through an overhead window. Ellie sat with her feet on the sofa in a soft yellow, cotton sundress. She was reading a paperback romance, tatty for years of wear. Instead of her usual high bun, her hair was French braided and tied into a soft chignon at the nape of her neck. JC, in a pair of jeans and a worn, light khaki green v-neck t-shirt sat with an acoustic guitar, occasionally catching Ellie's eye with a small smile as he worked out a chord progression.

"What do you think of it?" he asked.

"It's very sweet; it reminds me of ‘You Are My Sunshine'." She folded the top corner of the page she was reading to mark her spot and closed the book, placing it in her lap.

He returned to playing, muttering lyrics under his breath. "You make me happy, when skies are grey..." He clasped at the strings to quiet the instrument. He shook his head in semi-agreement. "Eeh, kind of." He subconsciously started playing again. "You like the song?"

"It was my lullaby when I was a baby; everyone in my family sung it to me. Well that and ‘Mamas, Don't Let Your Sons Grow Up To Be Cowboys'. But my Mama changed the lyrics to ‘Mamas, Don't Let Your Girls Fall In love With Cowboys'. I think she was trying to instill the idea that I should fall in love with a stable, educated man instead of a lone wolf-musician type." She made a tight lipped, wry smile.

"Well, that didn't fucking work." He looked down at the strings as the doorbell rang.


JC placed the guitar down as he got up. Ellie followed him as JC opened the door, his parents standing on the front step, his father wearing a cream bowling shirt with tan shorts and his mother in a blue floral sundress, a large, brown paper bag held at her breast. Walking up to the door behind them was a blond man of similar build to Roy, wearing a Wile E. Coyote t-shirt with a-size-too-big, light blue, basketball shorts and flip flops. "Hi, I'll go put these in the fridge." Karen greeted Ellie before she went into the kitchen, her husband giving a small wave as he followed his wife.

"Sorry about Dad. He's a bit of the strong, silent type." Tyler stepped into the house and took off his sunglasses, giving Ellie the once over.

"Um, hi, Tyler." Ellie extended out her hand in an awkward greeting.

"Well, they do say that you should never judge a book by its cover." Tyler smirked, JC taking him in a headlock.

"Come here, you little shit."


Ellie left the boys and walked into the kitchen, coming to a halt when she saw Roy taking in the afternoon sun, soaking his feet in the pool. She turned to Karen. "Roy's quite the introvert, isn't he?"

"Yeah." Karen closed the fridge and took a final tupperware container out of the brown bag. "He does like you though. I hope you don't mind, but I baked you a birthday cake, just something small, a sponge with strawberry filling. Doesn't seem right to have a birthday dinner without a birthday cake."

"Oh my gosh, thank you. I haven't had a homemade cake in years. None of my friends in New York bake, and I never can afford to get home for my birthdays. You really shouldn't have, but thanks anyway. Can I get you something to drink?" Ellie went to the fridge.

"We also got you a little something. Roy picked it out. Josh says you like books." Karen walked to the French doors lining the kitchen, opening to call out to her husband. "ROY, DO YOU WANT A BEER?"

"THANK YOU!" Roy gave a thumbs up from his place on the pool's edge.

"We'll take it out to him." JC offered as he took the bottle from Ellie and made his way out of the kitchen with Tyler in tow.


JC passed his father the brown bottle and made his way down to the dock at the edge of the property, leaning against a tying post as he waited for his brother.

"You're not going to break that poor girl's heart, are you?" Tyler took position at the next post over.

"I don't know yet." JC stared at the water. "I'm not sure I'm going to."

"What does she want from you?"

"You sound just like Dad, you know?" JC turned to Tyler. "I don't think she wants anything from me, not in that way."

"How can you tell?"

"She just doesn't want anything like that."

"You're buying her an apartment."

"I'm buying myself an apartment. I asked if she wanted to move in with me. If I didn't ask her, she would happily be renting a one-bedroom place in the village or something," JC explained in an irritated tone. "Anyway, I pursued her. She was someone outside of the business to spend some time with in New York. We just fell in love, OK?"

"There's more to it, isn't there?" Tyler asked as he stepped closer to JC, studying his face to see if he was lying.

"Look, buddy. It's nice that my little brother is concerned for me, but if you keep pushing it, I will throw you into this lake to the gators."

"There ain't no gators in this lake."

JC sighed. "OK, I might have stalked her a little bit."

"A little bit?"

"I might have hit recall on Eric's phone to track her down, to find out where she was staying in L.A. I also stole her business card to get a contact number...right before I was going to sleep with her."

"That's really fucked up, man."

JC cut Tyler off. "Before you go on your tirade, she already knows what I did. I also have a very good idea of the hypocrisy that I spend thousands of dollars protecting my privacy, yours as well may I mention, whilst I have no problem invading someone else's. I liked her, and I thought that she liked me. When she called me back in February to do the follow up interview, I was reminded of that." He kicked an acorn off the dock. "It's different for me, OK? Everyone treats me a certain way and forgets that I'm still a normal person. Ellie was the first girl in a long time who just talked to me like I was normal, even when she knew I was famous."

"What about Eva?"

"Eva just wanted a little bit of fun; she moved on when shit got a little too heavy for her."

They stood in silence for a moment. "You're gonna marry Ellie, aren't you?"

JC reeled his head back in shock. "No! I...I'm not sure yet."

"Come on, man!" Tyler exclaimed, taking a step back.

"It's not the worst idea I've ever had, OK? She's smart enough to understand why I would want a prenup, she takes good care of me, and I think she'll be a great mother."

"You want her babies?"

"One comes with the other with her. That's all. She won't marry me if I don't want children, and she won't stay married to me if I turn around and refuse to have them."

"That's not a good enough reason to have them."

"It's not like it's happening tomorrow. We might break up before the year's out. I just want to do what I need to do to keep her. That's all."

Tyler started to make his way up to the house, turning back to his brother. "You have got it fucking bad, man, and if you're not careful, she'll fucking ruin you."


After dinner, Karen and JC got up to clear the table. "It was amazing what you did with that chicken, Ellie."

"Oh, it was Roy who did all the work. I just seasoned it a little bit before he put it on the grill."

After a few beers, Roy had started to open up a bit. "Do you want to open your presents now? Let dinner settle a little while before dessert," Roy suggested in light excitement at the idea of her opening the gift he had chosen for her.

"Um, sure." Ellie got up and collected her presents from upstairs, JC calling after her.

"There's a small white box in my sock drawer." After a moment, she came back with her bundle and a small gift-wrapped box, holding it up as she looked quizzically at JC as she entered the kitchen. She sat down and opened an envelope. "Since you don't know any of these people, the card is from my best friend, Claire, and her fiancé, Derek. They pre-ordered me the new Harry Potter." She opened a small rectangular package wrapped in yellow paper, "This is from my parents, John and Emily. They got me a book, Through the Willow Tree; Mary has to come to terms with the death of her husband, Dan, when she starts having dreams involving her late husband and her hunky new neighbour, Taylor. Do these dreams mean nothing or are they visions sent from her husband to tell her to find new love?"

"Three books, wow. The last one sounds like trash," Tyler muttered as he took a sip of rum and cola.

"I like trash. This one--" She held up another rectangular package wrapped in purple foil. "--is from my editors, Maurice and Craig...Cujo by Stephen King."

"That has to be a joke." Karen reached across the table to take the book as Ellie offered it to her. "Isn't this about a dog with rabies?"

"They gave me Carrie last year. They're giving me the complete works of Stephen King for my birthday and the works of Shakespeare for Christmas. They insist on gifting me the works of what they believe to be the greatest writers in history and of ‘the modern page'" Ellie made inverted commas with her fingers.

Roy passed over a similar rectangular package wrapped in pretty pink paper. "Our present now. It's a favourite of mine." Ellie unwrapped the package, revealing The Old Man and The Sea by Ernest Hemingway. The book was of age, the cover depicting a red rowboat floating out on an oil painted sea. Inside was an inscription, a birthday wish from the three of them: Roy, Karen and Tyler, written in Roy's thin scrawl of black ink, below another Hemingway quote dated 1966, "The way to learn whether a person is trustworthy is to trust him."

Ellie touched the page. "Oh, wow."

"I hope you don't have it."

"I haven't read this since high school. It's a really lovely gift." She sniffed as tears came to her eyes. "I feel really shitty that my parents have given Josh nothing but crap, but you guys have been so lovely."

"It's OK, honey. It's different when you have a daughter. I mean, Heather stayed in D.C. just to escape us," Karen said jokingly as she got up to get the cake.

"My present now." JC handed her the little white box and got down on one knee, Ellie gasping in shock. "No, I'm just kidding." He sat back in his seat, rested his head on his hand, Roy hitting him on the back of his head.

Ellie pulled open the white and gold ribbon on the box and opened the lid, finding a ring with a row of seven delicate pearls set into the top of the platinum band. "Josh, what is this?" She took out the ring and looked up at JC.

"It's a ring."

"I know that, Josh. But what is it? What does it mean?"

"It means that you're my girl. That's all."

"Like a promise ring?" Karen asked from her vantage point behind the kitchen counter.

"Not really, I guess...it just means that I love you, and that I want you to be reminded of me when I'm not around, like the cufflinks."

"The cufflinks?" Tyler asked only to be cut off by Ellie.

"Baby!" Ellie pulled JC into her arms. "I love it, I love you," she whispered, gently kissing him.


Later that night, after JC's family had left, JC and Ellie lay on a sun lounge in the backyard looking up at the night sky. "I read somewhere that it would take something like 3000 years to count every star in our galaxy," Ellie whispered.

"No, it wouldn't." JC pointed up to the sky and started counting. "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7...17...25...84."

"Stop it, you've had too much wine."

"So have you." He placed his hand on her leg, pulling it up onto his and started rubbing it.

"I like it out here. I kind of don't want you to sell it."

"There's no real point in me keeping the house. I'm never down here. Not anymore." He paused to think about what the house represented to him. "Do you think I should try to make up with Justin?"

"My Daddy thinks that you should never hold a grudge; it goes against Christ and you never know what you might need from who."

"OK." He watched as she wrinkled her nose, feeling a flush of her breath on his lip. "Do you still want to get married on the beach?"

"Right now, all that I know is that I don't want a big wedding. Back home, weddings are such big events, and I've never really been into that idea. Why? Do you want a big wedding?"

"Not really, I don't necessarily want to elope, but I don't want this big thing either."

"What do you want me to do with that ring?"

"I want you to wear it."

"Is it OK if I wear it on my ring finger?"

"Yeah." He kissed her. "Stay with me forever."

"I promise."



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