Launi

The cabin is just like I remember it. Jagger parks the car and Parker, Sean, and I get out. It's been a few summer since we've all been here together. Jagger takes a minute, standing with his arms braced above his window as he takes it all in.

"Stop it," I tell Sean and Parker as they kiss in front of me for the million time in the last three days. "Your love is disgusting," I tease. The truth is nothing makes me happier than seeing my best friend happily in love with someone finally worthy of her. It doesn't hurt that I've literally trusted him with my life before.

"Sorry," Parker practically sings.

Sean takes her hand and the four of us make our way to the front door which has been left open. I can see Rye is down on the dock, he's watching us come over the hill like we used to each summer. It was a ritual, the first day reunion after a full year apart.

"You guys go ahead and get settled. I'll be back up in a minute," I tell them.

Sean doesn't waste a second, scooping Parker up and carrying her into the house. Jagger rolls his eyes but follows them inside to give me a moment alone with Rye.

The walk to the dock feels like five miles as Rye and I watch each other.

After three long months, we're finally face to face. I study his new mustache, and the way I would swear his eyes look happier somehow and perhaps his face is a little fuller, evidence of a life well lived.

Rye does the same to me, his eyes searching and categorizing all the changes that have taken place over the last three months. "I've missed you," he says and I can see it on his face. It's the relief of having me in front of him and I know the feeling. For a while now I've tried to push him from every part of my memory, but the harder I try to get over him, the more everything about him seems to get stuck in my head. How do you forget an entire childhood of memories?

"I've missed you too," I tell him. We stand for a moment, smiling back at each other like awkward teens before I tell him, "I loved my song."

He laughs and his entire body relaxes. He looks up at the sky and then back and me. "Thank God," he says. "I was worried you'd hate it as much as the original."

"I could never," I tell him and I mean it two ways. I could never hate a song as much as I hate my dad's version of "Baby Girl" and I could never hate a song Rye wrote for me.

"I'm sorry," he says.

"I know," I tell him. I have played his song on repeat for the last week. I have studied every word and committed them to memory. It's our song.

"I'm not going back," he says.

"I've heard," I say. "Me either."

"Good," he tells me. "I want better for you."

"I want better for both of us.," I tell him. "You deserve happiness too."

Rye moves closer, and I feel that pull to him as if the three months apart has done nothing to that primal drive to be near him. We stay here for a moment, my brain finally getting a hit of that bonding chemical it had been suffering without. Rye is intoxicating to all of my senses, and I know in this moment that no amount of time apart will get me over this man.

Rye dips his head slightly, making sure I'm looking him straight in the eyes when he tells me, "I've spent the last three months making myself worthy of you."

"You've always been worthy," I tell him.

"I thought," he starts but then stops himself.

"You thought what?" I ask. I reach out and touch his wrist like I had all that time ago.

"I thought you were with him," he says lifting his chin in the direction of the cabin. "he was a better choice for you," he confesses.

I shrug, "What can I say, I have daddy issues."

Rye laughs and nods in agreement.

"I have some news," he says.

"I think I've heard all the news I can take this week," I tell him.

His hands slowly find their way to my hips, and he tugs me closer until our bodies are pressed together and our faces are inches apart. "I think you'll like this news," he says as he gently kisses my lips briefly, a tease of what's to come. I rest my hands on his chest, letting one twist into his shirt to pull him to deepen the kiss this time.

Rye pulls back, forcing me to look him in the eyes again. "The new owner of the cabin will no longer allow Free Pony to play "Baby Girl" here. As a matter of fact, he said he won't be renting the house out to rockstars and their feral children."

"That's oddly specific," I say. "he must have gotten complaints from the neighbor about both."

"I think it might be more personal than that," he tells me, his hand moving up to lift my chin so he can kiss me again. My love for the scratch of his mustache and the firm touch of his hands on my skin prove that my three-month Rye-deprivation-experiment was a failure. My need for this man is undefeated.

"Rye Banning," I say, "what have you done?'

"I kept my promise," he says, and then he hands me a gold key on a small chain. "And I bought you the best part of our childhood."

I look down at the key in my palm and realize he's just given me back the one thing I had missed when I had tried to leave the child of a rockstar life behind.

"I love you Rye," I confess out loud for the first time.

"I love you more Baby Girl," he teases before scooping me up and kissing me as if he'd been thinking about it every second of our time apart.

Some songs are with us for a season, a moment in our lives that's lost in time until the familiar chords are played in just the right order, and it all comes crashing back. Others are more like theme songs, playing us in at the start of our stories and forever bringing us to mind when those who know us hear it again. I had spent my whole life literally turning down my theme song, stuck in a world slightly less joyful in the quiet. All it took was Rye changing the vinyl and turning up the volume on something that fit much better. He did that for me in a way no one else could have.

I hope in time when my father's version of "Baby Girl" plays, people in my life get nostalgic for a moment spent with my dad, and when Rye's rendition comes on, they turn it up and think of me.

The End

*****IF YOU ENJOYED THE STORY, PLEASE GO BACK AND LIKE THE CHAPTERS TO HELP OTHERS FIND IT. I APPRECIATE YOU STICKING WITH RYE AND LAUNI. I HOPE YOU LOVED THEIR STORY.