The next evening, as the surf pounded across the top of the rocks, sending a spray of salty water close to her feet, Ellie pulled her green cardigan tighter as she scratched away in her notebook, the words of songs falling out of her like the stars falling from the sky.
The whitewashed lighthouse with its perky red cap sat on the point to her right, its bulb a faint amber glow in the evening light, not dark enough to see just yet. The sun had started to set over the sea, sending orange and yellow swipes of paint across the heaving purple water. Ellie lifted her chin and breathed in fresh, salty air.
This was what she loved about Port Lagan. There were no people. She could come out onto this rocky outcrop, right out the front of her house and sit and watch the waves and not see a single soul for hours. She'd spent many hours here, with her notebook, writing songs, gazing across the water, thinking about anything and everything. Clearing her head. Resetting her thoughts.
"Your mum said you'd be here."
Ellie turned.
Daniel clambered over the rocks towards her, awkwardly finding footholds for his city trainers, avoiding racks of slippery seaweed that hung raggedly from the boulders.
Ellie smiled and patted the flat rock next to her where she always sat.
"You're rather close to the water, Devine," Daniel breathed, peering over the edge as he settled himself beside her, pulling the sleeves of his baggy grey sweater over his hands. "Is this safe? Do we need to take out insurance?"
Ellie pointed to where she'd carved her initials into the rock back in high school: 'E.D. 1988'. "I'm still alive and I've been out here a lot."
Daniel ran his fingers over the chiselled letters. "James and Kim flew back to Melbourne this morning. Meg and your sister have gone AWOL, and Gav's playing Scrabble with your olds with the goal to drink his way through their red wine selection and smoke a ton more of your dad's evil weed before we leave. They wanted to know if I wanted to play."
Ellie chuckled. "Meg and Coral will be in the bungalow." That was where Coral always used to spend time alone when she needed it. Although this time, she wasn't alone. Ellie and Daniel had come home from the lighthouse at four a.m. to find them pashing on the front porch, a halo of oblivious love shrouding them from Daniel and Ellie, who slipped past with sly giggles. "As for Scrabble, my dad's a ferocious competitor. He knows dumb two-letter words that don't even exist. I recommend you stay away from that game."
Daniel raised his eyebrows. "I shall choose you and the sunset then."
Ellie rested her elbow on his knees and leaned in to him, staring across the water as Daniel shifted his arm around her waist and nudged in close.
"I reckon you like it here," Daniel muttered into her hair as he kissed her head. "You're different. More relaxed."
"I'm very relaxed, thanks to you." Ellie smelled cigarettes and mint and pressed herself into him more, his smell like an aphrodisiac to her.
"My pleasure," Daniel sighed, brushing his fingers along the back of her hand. "Was it worth the wait, Devine?"
Ellie's skin flared as she remembered last night in the cosy candlelight of the lighthouse. "You did okay for an old bloke."
Daniel chuckled. "Always have to work harder to impress you, don't I Devine?"
Ellie nuzzled her nose into his neck. "It was amazing."
Daniel squeezed her tight. "I hope you had a good birthday."
"I did."
Daniel kissed her head again. "Is it about time we talked about the future?"
"I'm okay talking about right now."
"Of course you are," Daniel chuckled, still talking into her hair. "But I think we should nut it all out. While we have time."
Ellie hugged Daniel closer, wondering if she really wanted to bring up all her worries with him.
"I bet I can guess one of the things that's on your mind," Daniel said. "Something about us both being musicians—"
Ellie nodded. "Well, I figure because we're both in bands ... we'd never be in the same place—"
"Logistical problem," Daniel stated, tapping her knee with a long finger. "We can work those things out together when we're back in London. Next."
Ellie's heart surged at the thought that he was thinking about future things.
"Well, you ... must've been with tons of people because you're so ... so ... "
"So ... ?"
Ellie lifted her eyes to where Daniel gazed down at her.
"Hot," Ellie smiled up at him.
Daniel squinted at her. "Didn't quite catch that, Devine."
Ellie let her eyes wander over his face. "Hot."
Daniel nodded, eyes twinkly; cheeky in the fading light. "Devine, listen. And you need to know this." He shifted on the rock and took her hand in his, running his fingers across her rings. "I was a bit of a player in a past life. How couldn't I be? The whole world opened up to me when Glue first took off. But after a while, I realised ... I wanted meaning over more, if you get what I mean. Before I met you, for about a year, I was flying solo and I learned rather a lot about myself and about other people. And about what I want."
Ellie tugged a strand of her fringe across her face and looked at Daniel through it before curling it behind her ear. "What do you want?"
Daniel smiled causing Ellie's insides to fire up like her boost pedal had just kicked in. "I want to be exactly where I am right now. With you. Is that okay?"
Ellie curled her hand around his. "Thank you for telling me."
"Was it the same for you? When Slider started getting bigger?" Daniel asked, tangling his free hand under her cardigan to touch her bare skin.
"No." Ellie closed her eyes for a moment, enjoying Daniel dance his fingers over her back. "I mean, Jessie was the one who kind of went for all the muso shit - sex, drugs and rock' n' roll. People try to flirt with us. Or whatever. But it's not the same for girls who play guitars. I think we scare people."
Daniel chuckled. "What about your surfer geezer, then? Fancy telling me that story?"
Ellie rested her head on Daniel's shoulder. "It's ... I've never told anyone about him."
"It's okay, Devine," Daniel whispered into her hair, kissing her head. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."
As she gazed out across the pulsating waves, Ellie remembered Ash's eyes on hers before lifting her eyes to see Daniel's, soft and thoughtful. She could finally swallow away the anger she felt for Ash after all those years of yearning for him. "Ash was, well, we were together. A long time ago. It was a one off. My only ... his green eyes were ... my ocean."
"Did you love him, Els?" Daniel asked, his voice bringing her back to the present.
Ellie shook her head, cuddling as close to Daniel as she could, which wasn't close enough. Her feelings for Ash were nothing to what Ellie felt for Daniel, who listened to her and wanted to get to know her. How right being around Daniel made her feel.
"And your album?" Daniel said, as if he could see through everything Ellie hadn't said. "It's about him, isn't it? All those brilliant songs?"
"Yeah."
"No absolution, Devine?"
Ellie took a breath. Sat up straight in Daniel's arms. "It's done. I guess I have to forgive him, otherwise I wouldn't be here. With you. Would I?"
"I think we would have found each other somehow," Daniel murmured.
Ellie glanced up at him. Golden hair glowing in the fiery sunset; blowing up in tufts against the wind. His clear blue eyes stared at her from under dark lashes. Ellie noticed he had mismatched socks under his jeans where he'd curled up the cuffs. One shoelace on his sneaker was undone. For all his pristine, ironed shirts on tour, in reality he was the opposite. Scruffy and relaxed. A real person that Ellie wanted to know everything about. And to Ellie he seemed so old, yet so young. And sometimes everything he was, was too much for Ellie.
"What's going to happen when we finish the tour and get back to England?" Ellie dared to ask.
"What do you want to happen?"
What did she want? She wanted her band and her music and her friends to be just as important as he was to her. It had to be that way or it couldn't be at all. Ellie swallowed the doubt inside her. She was having a mature conversation about her feelings and needs without crying and needing to run off and hide her head under her pillow. She was feeling pretty proud of herself. Growing up feelings and all that.
"I have to focus on Slider. And my friends." She looked at Daniel straight up. "Nothing else matters to me as much as that band and our next album right now and Kim and Meg."
"I understand." Daniel tightened his arm around her waist as the sunset burned around them and the waves pushed onto the rocks with heavy sighs below them. "I've got a studio and a band waiting for me too."
Ellie picked Daniel's hand up from where it rested on her knee; pressed it to her burning cheek.
"I want to be with you, but I have to find a balance. I don't need ... rescuing ... or help," she whispered, holding his hand against her skin, feeling his pulse throb inside his palm. He curled his fingers around hers as she spoke. "I have to do my own thing. Find my own way too. But I'm ... honestly, I'm a bit scared of everything ... of you and how amazing you are—"
"I'm scared before every gig but I still get up and go out there, don't I?" Daniel muttered. "But I feel less scared knowing you're there for me."
Ellie pushed away her urgent need to kiss him so they could keep talking.
Daniel let out a long sigh and turned away from her, biting his bottom lip thoughtfully as he stared out across the darkening water towards the lighthouse.
"I want to tell you it's okay and everything will work it out," Daniel eventually said, gazing back at her with soft eyes. He had that longing look he'd given her when they'd been together last night. "But I guess I don't know if that's how it's going to be." Daniel linked his fingers between hers and held her hand to his mouth. "I can't make any promises or guarantees. As long as you trust me and I trust you, then we can be together as best we can, whatever happens next, right? Don't laugh," he continued, "but I have this rather brilliant dream.
"We could have a house—one of those huge old ones with a wide veranda that you see around here. We could fill it with your guitars and my organs and pianos." As Daniel spoke, he became more animated. He grinned at her, his eyes wandering over her face with eagerness. "We'll get two, fat, stinky dogs. Everyone can come visit. And smoke your dad's weed."
"You've really thought about this." Ellie's brain churned ahead five years, ten years, twenty years. "I'm not sure I'm ready for all that."
Daniel looked at her sideways with inquisitive eyes. "We have to have dreams."
Daniel's dream felt cosy and snug and familiar, like when Ellie had put her old jumper on yesterday.
Tears welled in her eyes as he bent to kiss her.
"Are you okay, Devine?"
Ellie brushed away a tear. "I'm very okay."
"I can almost smell it - our house in the land Down Under ... "
"Because of our stinky dogs?"
"Stinky kids, maybe?"
"Not a fan."
"We'll talk about that in five years."
"And where do Glue and Slider fit in to all this?"
Daniel shrugged. "They'll fit in because we need them to."
Ellie brushed away another tear. She wouldn't cry about all this. It was just living life like a normal person. Having feelings and all that shit.
Daniel kissed her forehead again as the sun sent its final radiant rays into the sky, "I'm here for you, Els. No matter what. Even for your gigantic underpants—"
"You know I only wore them in school? Sports undies—"
"I swear you had rather large ones on last night."
"I did not! You said the total opposite - they were normal—"
Daniel shook his head as Ellie laughed at his teasing.
She kissed him as the lighthouse beamed out across the land and water, sending its brilliant, blinding light spinning around the bay in the dying sunset. As she rested her head on Daniel's shoulder, she realised she was pretty happy. Her life was pretty good.
And it was up to her to make it stay that way.
Daniel was like Slider. Something she had to try for. Something she really wanted and had to be determined to keep.
She could make it work if he could.
"Hey, so what went down with you and Jessie yesterday anyway?" Ellie asked.
"I made her a promise I can't deliver, so she'd tell me about the tape. A record deal or something. She was all over me when I mentioned money. She doesn't have a terrible voice though."
"I agree, she doesn't," Ellie nodded. "She tried to bust my head open once, though. Probably should've told you that."
Daniel peered at her. "Bollocks?"
Ellie pushed his fingers against the scar at the back of her head. "War wounds."
Daniel frowned as he touched her bump with gentle fingers, then held her tighter. "She is the devil. Why didn't you tell me she was that bad?"
"Probably should've told you lots of things." Ellie looked at her hands as she picked at a small hole in the knee of his jeans.
"You know what, Devine, I'm done with talking," Daniel nodded, tentatively standing up on the slippery rocks. "How about we retire to your little-girl bedroom so we can write a song about a lighthouse on your birthday guitar together?"
"How about we just retire to my bedroom and lie on the bed and ..."
Daniel looked down at her with those ocean-blue eyes of his and knew what she meant. He held his hand towards her. "It's got rather dark and you expect me to clamber over these rocks without killing myself?"
"Get over it pretty-boy, hold my hand, you'll be fine." Ellie grabbed her notebook, gripped his fingers tightly in hers and he pulled her up off the rocks.
As she helped him back to the house, she figured she'd be shagging his nuts off again soon. Because that's the way it rolled for Ellie right now. She was a twenty-year—twenty-one-year-old—rock star going out with a too hot to be true Brit-pop star. They were devastatingly in love. She had a number one album. She had Kim and Meg on her side. She was on holiday with ounces of weed to smoke, barrels of red wine to devour, and a song in her fingertips that was ready to come out through her new Ric at any minute.
And then she would be on tour. With her band. Life was pretty good.
But first things first.
She was fucking horny.
And Daniel had that cheeky, needy look in his eyes as he clutched her hand and slid across seaweed, crunched on shells and made it to the sand.
"All good, now?" Ellie grinned as he grounded himself on land again.
"Alright, missus."
Ellie smiled to herself as they made their way back to the house, its lights glowing out at them, beckoning them inside from the front windows in the distance. She saw Jupiter, tail wagging, trot excitedly down the path toward them under the streetlight and squeezed Daniel's fingers in hers.
Home.
Sweet.
Home.