Page 123 of Yours, Forever

"Too… late?"

"I love you too, Max. The time to fall in love is well in the past. We're already in the middle of our story."

His immediate grin shone bright in the darkening evening sky. "You love me?"

"Desperately. You and your bespoke suits, and your charm, and your generous, bruised heart. I fell in love with you, and the town did, too. If you can be happy here with me, with us… then we'll stand here on this rock when we're eighty, and look back at all the years we spent together and be thankful for it all."

"It's a deal." He kissed me. "We'll sign on it tomorrow."

And we kissed, over and over again, until there was nothing but night around us, and the roar of the ocean became an echo of our love.

Epilogue 1

Max, a year later

Hand-in-hand, I walked withmy wife on the renovated marina, on our way to the sailboat I had insisted on getting.

"Why did we get a boat again?" she asked for the millionth time. "They're a money pit."

"Newsflash— we have more than enough money, and we need a boat that can easily take us to the hotel. This was a business investment, considering."

"Mhm. We're not going to the hotel though, are we?"

"We're not. I'm going to put my sailing courses to good use, and I'm going to impress you with the way I handle the boat and sails and ropes."

"You don't need to do that to impress me, though, my love."

"Sure, but why would that stop me? In fact, that's not all. My plan includes a picnic in the middle of the ocean. Then we're going to have sex under these rare blue skies, and we're going to swim naked in the complete privacy of lonely waves."

"I see. Sounds like you planned it well. Except for the fact you're wearing linen slacks and a half-open white shirt."

I frowned. "How is this a problem?"

We reached our daysailer, a renovated 1920s classic with a navy blue hull and white surfaces. I helped Eva onto it.

She peeked at the galley, likely confirming that I had already set it up with food, towels, and everything else we might need. I had.

She tsked. "It's just that it could make me mess up the order of things all over again. I could be too tempted to throw you in the water fully dressed, only so I can see you all nice and wet, right before you fuck me."

I purred. I took my phone and wallet out of my pocket and put them in the galley, just in case she wanted to follow through with her idea sooner rather than later. "Oh, well. I'm not concerned. We never get the order of things right."

I started prepping the boat, focusing first on taking the mainsail cover off.

"What do you mean?" Eva sat on a side bench, letting me do the work.

She already knew I preferred it this way.

I folded the thick fabric of the cover and put it in its container. "We got married, we became friends, we had sex, we kissed, then we admitted to our love. All out of order, darling."

I moved to the head of the mainsail and put it in its track.

"I would take issue with the order of things in your statement," she said, "only that it couldn't matter less. We made it at the end."

I hooked the halyard and took a break to admire my wife. She gazed at me, fully unconcerned, squinting under the sunlight.

Her shorts, which didn't do much to mask her thick thighs from view, hiked up her legs when she crossed them. A smattering of dimples covered them, and I bit my lips not to fall to my knees and kiss every single one of them.

To distract myself, I gazed up at our house, fully visible from the marina. It shone like the jewels on Eva's rings, and the copper of mine in the sun.