Page 173 of Hello, Summer
Conley plopped down onto the swing and patted the seat beside her as an invitation.
Skelly crossed his arms over his chest and cocked his head, trying to read her expression. “No sunset beach walk before dinner?”
“Not enough time,” she said, pointing toward the horizon, where the sky was streaked with vivid violet and orange and periwinkle and half a dozen other colors whose names she couldn’t currently remember.
“Just look at that,” she said softly. The Gulf had turned from green to deep blue, but it was lavender now, barely rippled, and the fading sun cast a reflected orange stripe on the surface of the water.
Skelly sat down and stretched his arm around her shoulders. “I know how you love your sunsets. But is there something special about this one tonight?”
“I hope so,” she said. She lifted his hand from her shoulder and kissed the palm of it.
He looked startled for a moment. “Seems like you have something important on your mind.”
“Very important,” she agreed, laying her head on his shoulder and snuggling close beside him.
She stayed like that, listening to the rise and fall of his breathing, studying the curve of his jaw, his profile, the barely gray stubble of his beard. She reached up and removed the sunglasses perched on his nose.
“Why’d you do that?”
“Because I want to see your eyes,” she said.
He blinked rapidly. “They’re the same eyes you’ve been looking at your whole life.”
Skelly’s eyes were brownish-greenish with flecks of black and luxurious lashes that she’d never appreciated until lately.
“You’re right,” Conley said. “Maybe it’s my eyes that have changed. Maybe I’m finally seeing you the way I should have seen you all along.”
He kissed her. “About time. Now what’s all this about my eyes?”
“I want to be looking right at them when I tell you I love you, that’s all.”
He grasped her shoulders with both hands. “You love me?”
She nodded. “Yeah. Maybe I did all along. Maybe I was waiting all this time, to come back home and finally discover the man of my dreams was actually the boy next door.”
Skelly pulled her closer and was about to kiss her again, when she put a finger to his lips.
“Hold on,” she said. “Isn’t there something you want to tell me?”
“Oh.” He gave it a moment’s thought. “Is this the part where I tell you that I’ve been here all along, trying to convince myself I could somehow be happy with somebody else but at the same time patiently waiting for you to finally come home and fall in love with the skinny guy down the block who broke your heart a million years ago but who was secretly in love with you all along?”
She smiled. “Yes.”
She wrapped her arms around him and fell into him, and they kissed. When she looked up, fifteen minutes later, the sun had set, and a million tiny stars spattered the dark velvet sky.
“We missed the sunset,” Skelly pointed out. They were reclined on the sand now, and his arm cushioned the back of her head.
“I know, but there’ll be others,” she said.
“Does this mean you’ll marry me?” he asked.
“I think I have to,” Conley said, kissing him again. “Because if I don’t, G’mama will.”
Epilogue
HELLO, SUMMER
By Rowena Meigs
