"So, Daniel Hess?" she asked as the car pulled out onto the road.

"I needed a strong name," he answered in kind.

"And Terry? Athena?"

"She chose the name herself. She wanted something powerful, but not Terry-fying." He laughed.

"So she chose the Goddess of wisdom and war for her name?"

"I let everybody choose." His smile disappeared. "Everybody I could ask."

"You left Bax as Bax."

Chad nodded. He had.

"I like it. Think he would have liked it too." She squeezed his hand. "And then he would have asked you for a dozen croissants and gallons of coffee in exchange, for as long as he lived."

"Happily," Chad mused.

She laughed. They both knew it. Bax would have happily demanded breakfast for life, and Chad would have happily obliged.

"And Sasha Carmichael?" she asked as they got out of the car.

"It was the closest thing I could think of to Micah." He held her by the small of her back and led her up the path to the front door.

June held a moment, her hand placed on his chest. "What happened to her?"

"She is under permanent supervision in a dedicated hospital. They did it on the down-low to keep my name out of the papers."

Chad led her into the dark house, through the lounge they both knew how to navigate well. "If you could have picked your name?"

June swivelled on her heels, pulling him by his collar gently. "What would I have picked?"

He nodded, unable to tear his gaze off her enchanting face, glowing softly in the dark, lit only by whatever streetlights snuck in through the window.

"Ivy."

"Ivy?"

"It can survive through almost anything." She smiled, unsure whether she should kiss him. For the first time in over seven months, they were alone with no other soul in sight. She pulled him closer to her face, still wondering if it wouldn't look too forward to kiss the man she was supposedly mad at like it was the only thing she wanted to do in the world.

Their lips close, yet miles apart from touching.

Chad held himself at bay. "Are you sure about this? What about Ben?"

A cheeky smile fleeted across her face. "Oh, that was a onetime thing. I had to get you out of my system."

Chad cocked his head sideways. What?

June tugged him by his belt, a nervous smile lingering on her kissable lips. "He let me stay at his until I found boarding at uni," she said in a hush, her body distracted by his. Her hand lingered close to his crotch. Her shallow breath fell on him like a soft kiss. Her gaze pulled by his lips.

"Are you gonna kiss me, Chad Gilligan, or do I have to find someone else to help me with this?" she whispered, guiding his hand in between her legs.

Chad bit his lip, grabbed a handful of her hair with his other hand and pulled her mouth to his. "Don't you dare."

She kissed him back, as hard as she could. Then take me, were what her lips were saying. Somehow, through the night, they'd ended up on his bed, naked and exhausted, having ravaged each other again and again.

♡

When she woke the next morning, Chad was sitting quietly on the edge of the bed, under the covers, admiring her.

She sat up on her elbows, blushing to the nine, her lips between her teeth, unable to stop a smile from spreading. "Keep that up and I might think you're stalking me, Chad Gilligan."

"I wasn't the one lurking in the shadows last night." He smiled, continuing to watch her, unfettered. He liked that she was suddenly shy. Her gorgeous cheeks flushing pink.

"What?"

He shook his head. "The most beautiful thing I've seen."

June laughed. "What's that?"

"Your face." He moved over her body slowly. "Your lips." He kissed her long and hard, making her moan beneath him. "Your neck." He licked it slowly from the nape to the base of her ear. "Your..." he pushed down the cover to reveal her breasts, slowly beginning to move down towards them.

June grabbed his face, to pull him back up, but he placed a hand on her lips to shush her. "I'm not done yet." He twirled his tongue around her erect nipple, and before they knew it, they were making love again. One more time, after another, never enough, as if they were making up for the lost time.

She lay wrapped in his arm, her fingers dancing between his. "So, are we going to stay in bed all day, or go out to dinner too? I'm starving."

"If the lady wants dinner, the lady shall get dinner." He kissed her one more time before flying off the bed. "But first, I have something I've been meaning to give you."

He disappeared for a good minute before shivering his naked butt back to the bed. Two wrapped gifts in hand. "Bloody hell, it's cold out."

June watched him rush back under the covers and hand her the packages. "What's this?"

"Open it," he urged nervously.

June ripped open the first one, a thick volume. "What is this?" she mused, staring at a hardcover book with a familiar cover page, the one from For Fay. Except, this cover didn't say 'For Fay'. It read, 'For June' and below that, the author's name was not Zachary Eve, but Chad Gilligan.

Chad smiled sheepishly. "Terry dubbed the story a giant love letter, so I thought. I mean, it is."

Surprised, and speechless, June turned to the title page inside as Chad continued. "It's the only copy that exists with all the original names and events. I had it especially made for you."

The title page inside made her laugh.

Chad chuckled. "I thought it'd be our inside joke." He pointed at the thing that had made her laugh. The title page was a riff of Cassie's attempt to 'amend' his original one from the journal. 'June' crossed out, with 'Cassie' scribbled in a handwritten font above in red. Then Chad had crossed out 'Cassie' in blue, and re-scribbled June above that. Below it all, he'd signed it 'With all my heart, Chad.'

June laughed again, caressing her name. "I love it!" She kissed him on the cheek and went back to looking at the page, amused.

Chad took the book out of her hand and replaced it with the second and last present. "Now this."

She looked up at him with her bedazzled eyes. "What is this then?"

He shook his head. "Hope you like it."

"I'm sure I will." She ripped into the wrapping, unsure what it could be. It was hard and rectangular but had a varying surface. It wasn't until she saw the photo she became choked up.

"How did you find it?" Tears rolled down her cheek as she stared at the smiling faces of her parents. It was the photo from her nightstand. The one Cassie had stolen.

"I asked Tom to keep an eye out for it." He wiped her tears. "Told him what it meant to you, and if I could have it back."

He watched June caress her parents' images with longing, unable to speak.

"They found it scrunched up in a trash can at her apartment. I had it restored." He rubbed her back as she cried. "I was trying to give it to you that night when you came back."

She put the frame safely on his nightstand and threw herself at him, nuzzling her face against his neck. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." He held her close.

She could hold on to him for as long as she wanted, so Chad wrapped the duvet over her to keep her warm. "Shall we go eat?"

She nodded, sniffling as she separated from him. "Shower, then dinner."

"Shower, then dinner." He followed her into the bathroom. "So, Ben, uh... was he...any... good?"

"In bed? Uh-mazing. The way he moved his body, hmm," June teased as she turned on the shower.

"That good, huh?"

"Shut up and get in here." She laughed, pulling him into the warm shower. "It's not his body I want though, is it?"

If this were one of his books, a man like him never got the girl. It was always the Bens, with their hard body, and harder egos. Not a simple man like Chad. Yet here he was, with a beautiful woman before him, and he was fine with that.

In fact, he was more than fine with that.

"Where shall we go tonight?" he asked, running his hand down her back, watching the water mould itself around her skin.

"You can take me anywhere." She kissed till his body reacted, then she stopped, stepped out with a wicked glint in her eyes.

"You're gonna leave me like this?"

"Then come get me?" She ran out giggling.

♡

"Why the name Fay?" she asked an hour later in the taxi, holding his hand between hers.

"Minsi liked it."

"Who's Minsi?"

It was his turn to tease. He winked. "You'll never know."

For that, he got a good smack on the arm and an upset new girlfriend. He laughed. "She's Terry's assistant. A lovely girl," he added, loving the fact that June was jealous.

She narrowed her eyes at him as the taxi pulled up to their destination. "Not too lovely, I hope."

He leaned in, kissed the woman, and slipped out of the cab, holding the door for her. "Not the body I want."

They'd pulled up outside one of the fancy restaurants in the city she had always wanted to go to, but could never afford.

With a protective hand resting on the small of her back, he led her through the glitzy doors and into what would be an uh-mazing life, until the next disaster that usually happened in his life. 

(Image by Efes_kitap on Pixabay)