Chapter 473) Echoes

Author's Note: This is another one of probably several more text-centric chapters with fewer images due to my lack of Wifi-access during my travels. There is a collection of pictures at the end of this chapter.
Enjoy.

A Sulani Beach

Moaning, Keira blinked open her eyes and turned her head to look at the handsome, very athletic and barely clad man in the lounge chair next to her. Most women who knew Connor only refered to him as ‘Adonis’, as in the handsome mortal lover of goddess Aphrodite from Greek mythology. This Adonis next to Keira however was not mortal, but a vampire, as was the love of his life, who looked nothing like the blond goddess of love, but Keira was beautiful as a painting nonetheless. Keira’s deep brown hair and nearly black eyes contrasted her alabaster-light skin, reminiscent of her vampiric grandfather’s partial Japanese heritage, and she looked like a vampire long before she was turned. Like most vampires she was a daywalker, as was Connor, allowing them to move freely day and night. Including at a Sulani beach, even though suntanning was out of the question. Every liberty had its limits. Even for highly developed and evolved vampires.

“Con-Bear?” she purred.

“Keke?” he mumbled drowsily without opening his eyes.

“Thank you for coming with me this time. It’s so much better with you here. I wish this would never end.”

“Hmm hmm.” he made, agreeing.

“Connor?”

“Hmm hmm?”

“I have something to tell you and I don’t know how. Something big.”

His eyes opened now, a mildly worried expression in them, but he kept his usual calm. A characteristic he was famous for, and very handy in his career as a doctor, where things weren’t always calm and pleasant.

“Is this going to be one of those Keira confessionals, that usually end up uprooting my entire life?” he asked carefully, his tone mildly suspicious.

“Maybe … but not as you might think.”

“Ah crap. I knew it, things were going just way too good. Fine, just say it then.”

“Remember back in our cute little house in Newcrest? Back before everything happened?”

“You mean before you dumped me for no reason and then disappeared, ultimately creating team Keira and team Connor, resulting in our parents moving into different homes for the first time since college? Yah, you could say I remember.”

She sighed.

“Ouch. That backfired. What I meant was back when things were great between us, before I screwed everything up for the first of many times.”

“Okay, you know what, Keke, I am sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. Let’s try again. Yes, of course I remember. I remember everything about us. From the first moments together, us learning to crawl, when you kept stealing all my little toys, eating all my cookies and I just let you, smiling like a fool, just happy you were happy. Some things just never change.”

She giggled.

Silence fell for a moment, then she sat up, dug around in her beach bag, grabbed her phone, scrolled around some, then handed it to Connor.

He took it, briefly glanced at it, then looked up at Keira. Before he could say anything, she did.

“There are more. Scroll right. Just look at them.”

Connor did, then looked at her again.

“Why am I looking at a real estate listing?”

“You don’t recognize it? It looks a bit different, but some parts are still the same, like the pool and the backyard. Con-Bear, that is the same property in Brindleton Bay we used to live at for some years between junior and senior high. One of our old homes, where we lived as teens. Someone had bought it, started to remodel it, but ran out of funds, and then it was put back on the market and sat for a long time, because there was no idiot willing to buy a pricy construction site with pretty landscaping.”

“How nostalgic.” he handed her back her phone, she slipped it back in her beach bag, before telling him.

“Recently, finally the right idiot stumbled across it. I bought it. The house.” Keira said.

“What?! Why?! You already have a house. You always told me you loved your tiny shoebox in San Sequoia. What do you need a huge mansion for now? You must like echoes.” Connor stared at her as if she had lost her mind.

“I bought it for us, Connor, on a hope and a prayer. For you and me to start over in, to fill it up with furniture and memories together, new memories, good memories. And for little Anastasia. Which is my very prosaic way of telling you that I am ready to settle down.”

Connor froze, his eyes wide.

“Wait a moment. Are you pregnant, Keira?!”

She shook her head.

“No, Con-Bear, no. I meant I am ready to really settle down for good and to stay for good and to level up with you. Marriage, a baby, I can see it now, with you Connor, and it no longer scares me, not even a little bit. On the contrary, I keep seeing babies everywhere and feel like one of those should be ours. Obviously not with me living in my ‘shoebox’ in San Sequoia and you with your cousin in Newcrest. Before we can even really plan for all that, we need to build a solid foundation, together. My home is too small, and I like Nolan, but I am not moving in with you and him, and while the artist in me can appreciate the cool architecture of The Bachelor Pad, it’s not the kind of home I want to start nesting in. For that to work, for us to work the way I think we both imagine it to, you would have to trust me again. This isn’t one of my whims, this has been bouncing around in my brain for many months now. I’ve known for a while that we both would have to uproot one more time, I just didn’t know where to, until I saw our families’ old property in Brindleton Bay was available, I just knew it was a sign of fate. I know you said you wouldn’t move away from Newcrest again, that’s it’s your home, but in reality, it’s our parents’ hometown. Our mothers’ to be exact and our dads adopted it as theirs because they love their wives, and after moving so much they all realized Newcrest was it for them, but you and I we don’t really belong anywhere. We were both born in Tartosa during your aunt Caitlin’s wedding, we lived in Del Sol Valley, Forgotten Hollow, San Myshuno, Brindleton Bay, Newcrest, San Sequoia, … We don’t exactly have a real hometown. But maybe our future child would if we figure this out. And why not Brindleton Bay? It’s close to Newcrest and San Myshuno, where we have most connections to. I am done running, Con-Bear. I can feel it. Something changed inside of me. I already gave my notice with the arts center. No more travel for work. This is me looking to start over and settle down. I’d love to do all that with you, to build this life with you from the start.”

“Keira, are you really saying what I am hearing? Cos I think I am having some weird sort of brain malfunction making me heard the weirdest shit that you would NEVER say.”

“Your beautiful genius brain and your ears are hearing me just fine, Connor. I am not trying to trap you, Con-Bear. If you are not ready, after all the things I put you through, you have been so very patient with me, if this is too much too quick, I understand. I know what I am asking of you is huge. But I am doing this. I bought the house, I am going to start furnishing it and decorating it and … start nesting and I would love it if you would do it with me, if you could take one last leap of faith and join me, in our old childhood home in Brindleton Bay, the place where as a young mortal teen girl I once realized you are my first love and my forever love. The only thing that changed since was that I am no longer mortal. No matter how much I run, something always leads me back to you. YOU are my home, Connor. Marriage and a baby used to scare me, make me feel claustrophobic, but now I keep stopping at bridal stores and baby boutiques, imagining us as a real us again. Maybe one day with a plus one.”

Connor’s excitement and reactions were subdued.

“Keke, everything you are saying speaks to my very soul, but I am a bit hesitant to do cartwheels yet. I just got burned by you too many times. We have done all that before, and not just once. I am not gonna regurgitate the many ways we have failed as a couple – not to point fingers, but we both know it was always because of your inability to stay put. I most definitely don’t like our current setup, we’re engaged but live in opposite ends of the country, most people won’t consider us a functional couple, and I am not really sure why we are even engaged anymore cos it hasn’t looked like we’re really going anywhere with it – ever, but I like chasing rainbows even less. If something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. All you are saying sounds WAY too good to be true.”

Keira took both of Connor’s hands in hers.

“I know all that, but this is true. I mean it, I swear, and I know only time can prove what I am saying. I am asking you for a lot, I know that, but the only way I can prove anything I told you is if you can find it in your heart to trust me one more time, Connor. One last chance for me to show you what we can be. Travelling used to be so much fun, so exciting, recently it’s become redundant, boring, a drag. Until now, because you are here with me. Every solution to every one of my problems has to do with you. Adding you, not subtracting you. I used to fear marriage and/or kids would mean we lose each other, become someone else. Parents, instead of lovers. My home feels tiny and uncomfortable, not to mention so empty without you, so I have been spending a lot of time at my parents’s home, who spend a lot of time with your parents and I just can’t ignore how our parents interact with each other, times two. Your parents, my parents, it’s impossible to see how different both partners in each relationship are, but they made it work for so long now and are still going strong and still so much in love. They raised kids and are still lovers. They raised us, we lived all that with them, means we can make it too. Please Con-Bear, gimme one last chance. This is me begging, no longer asking.” Keira’s passionate plea ended with her pointing at herself with both hands before putting them together in a praying motion.

Connor rubbed his face with both hands, groaning, then threw his head back looking up into the sky as if the answer was written in the clouds. With a deep sigh he eventually looked at Keira.

“All right. I hope I am not gonna hate myself for falling for this again, but love makes men into fools. Before we make any of this public give me a chance to talk to Nolan, so he won’t feel like hit out of left wing. But okay, Keke, let’s do this again. You better mean it this time. Don’t make me the idiot again.”

Keira squealed excited and jumped on top of Connor, covering his entire face and neck with hundreds of tiny kisses, which he endured chuckling.