We spent the night at the lake cabin, naked and rolling in pleasure, in the back bedroom where our love affair had begun so many years earlier. We reminisced about the first night and all the indiscretions along the way. No matter how disapproving they might be, since they had gotten us to where we were, we agreed we would never take anything back. We talked about all the decades to come and how they would never be enough.
***
It was Christmas when we got back to Maui, seven months after our wedding. The air was filled with the sound of mele kalikimaka and every palm tree on the island was twinkling with lights.
Our goal: find the waterfall that had eluded us last year.
We parked our rental car on the side of the road next to the same bamboo forest. He stepped out and onto the highway, then walked around the car to get me. With his hand on the small of my back he made sure I didn’t trip and fall into traffic on the narrow road.
We entered the towering green forest through a small unmarked opening that turned into an actual hiking trail.
“This is it!” I yelled. “A small opening in the trees leading into a grotto! How could we have missed this?”
“You’re right!” From behind he wrapped his hands around my little growing belly and kissed my cheek. “Follow me.”
We hopped from stone to stone across a shallow river bed that cleverly concealed its treasure deep within the forest. The trail picked up on the other side of the water then spit us out into another river basin where we immediately heard gushing water.
Gigantic boulders surrounded a small emerald pool, the mouth of a stunning secluded waterfall. It wasn’t a hundred feet tall nor did it require a helicopter and landing pad to get to. It was better. It was private, and no one was there but him and me.
I sat on a flat polished boulder dangling my legs into the crystal green pool as Grant navigated his way to a ledge behind the falls.
“This is so amazing!” he yelled from behind a curtain of white gushing water. “I love it here!”
When he was done exploring, he came and sat beside me. He kissed me with a frisky smack and interlaced our fingers. I felt his wedding band around his right ring finger and laughed out loud.
“Honey, you do know that wearing your wedding band on your right hand means you’re gay.”
“I know,” he said. “It doesn’t bother me. It doesn’t fit my left hand, and I don’t want it to fall off.”
“We can get you a new one,” I said.
“I don’t want a new one. I like this one.”
“Actually, I like it that you wear it on your right hand. Other women will think that you’re gay and leave you alone.”
He turned his attention to my wedding ring, wiggled it from side to side, and slid it off past my swollen knuckle. We watched it sparkle under the sun as he twisted it around, and then he turned his body to face me.
“I’m so excited for our baby. You make me so happy. Since I didn’t get to do this how I planned last time…” He smiled.
I cringed.
When I looked up, his unconditional loving eyes met mine.
“C.J.,” he said, “you were so worth the wait. Will you marry me?”
***
I am getting excited
for our little guy to arrive,
so I can get u prego again!
HONEY!
IT’S SO GREAT THAT I GET TO CALL MYSELF YOUR HUSBAND! THERE IS SO ONLY ONE OF YOU ON THIS PLANET, IN THIS UNIVERSE, AND I’M THE ONE THAT HAS THE HONOR OF BELONGING TO YOU!
THIS IS A FIRST FOR ME—THE FIRST TIME I GET TO CALL SOMEONE MY WIFE :) ALL THE YEARS THAT HAVE GONE BY WITHOUT YOU ARE FINALLY OVER FOREVER, AND I LOOK FORWARD TO EVERY DAY SPENT BEING A FAMILY WITH YOU AND I, DANI, AND OF COURSE, ALL OF OUR FUTURE CHILDREN. WELL, OKAY, ALL MEANS NO MORE THAN TWO.
I LOVE YOU, WIFE!
Everyone gets a do-over
—C.J. English
I hope you enjoyed my story as much as I enjoyed telling it. If you did, please consider posting a brief review on Amazon. The more honest the better.
Thank you so much!
-C.J.
If your book club is reading Affairytale and would like to skype with the author, please send your request to affairytalebook@gmail.com
Connect with us on social media for behind the scenes photos and deleted scenes from the book.
Follow Affairytalebook on Pinterest or Instagram for a glimpse at C.J. and Grant’s romantic dates and extraordinary adventures.
www.affairytalebook.com
www.pinterest.com/affairytalebook
www.facebook.com/affairytalebook
@affairytalebook on Twitter
Affairytalebook on Instagram
Affairytale on Goodreads
Acknowledgments
To my editor Hannah Kiges-Hutton who took on my manuscript in the eleventh hour and believed in it enough to commit to a crazy timeline. Thank you for letting me keep my voice and allowing me to make my own rules.
Ericka and Mandee, I speak as if you are conjoined twins but appreciate and love you both in unique ways. Ericka, thank you for listening to me ramble about this project as it was being conceived years ago and thank you for reading endless unpolished drafts until I got it right. Mandee, without the amazing cover, website and your brilliant business mind the book would never have gotten out there. You two bitches are the best.
Levi, you are a fine and decent, hard-working man and I intended no harm to come to you in writing this memoir. I hope you find love and happiness with a woman who will treat you like you deserve to be treated.
Thank you Lissy for supporting me through all the stages of my life and taking me back with open arms after I avoided you while sneaking around and pursuing my love interest. I only kept you away because you would have figured it out.
Dylan, without your very unique personality Grant probably would’ve never become your friend and we may have never met. I guess I owe my happiness in part to you. Also, thank you allowing me to divulge some embarrassing characteristics for the sake of sheer entertainment, I love you.
Mom and dad, without the both of you making me get me on stage, I would never have had the confidence to speak in public and be fearless in front of an audience when I need to be. I want you guys to live forever within the walls of pleasentville, I’ve never seen you happier and that makes me happy. You are loving, open-minded and understanding parents and I am truly grateful for everything you’ve done for me, and with me.
Dani, thank you for being the only one who get’s my sense of humor and snarkiness when no one else does. You understand me in ways no one else does. Whether you like it or not, little by little, you’re turning into me.
To my littlest guy: thank you, little monster, for plunking on the keys of my laptop when I was trying to write this book. I never want you to grow up.
Thank you to my sweet little girl who tossed and turned in my belly and gave me heart burn while I was trying to finish this book. I’ll always remember the times you fell asleep in my arms by the light of the laptop and I just couldn’t set you down. I love you guys.
Thanks to Shawn Rode for the cover photo, I don’t know how you managed to conceal my very pregnant belly in the promo shots, but you did!
Thank you to Lewis Grant for believing in this book from the very beginning and coming along for this wild ride. You are amazing at what you do, the book trailer is fantastic.
Thank you to Grace, Kate, Sunny, Deb, Cindy, Nichole and Jeanette for your edits and honesty in the initial drafts; your feedback was invaluable. Thank you to my in-laws or as Dylan would say (my non-blood’s) you have treated me with nothing but immense respect and kindness. You’ve taken me and Dani in like we had been family all along. I am forever grateful and learning how to love deeper because of all of you.
My love, what more can I say? I just wrote an entire book about you! I think I’ve probably said enough, likely too much. I’m not sure why you came around t
o the idea of me airing our dirty laundry, but I’m glad you did, I’ve enjoyed telling the world our love story. If no other dreams of mine ever come true I will never be disappointed. You alone make life extraordinary. You have taught me things about life and love and string theory that I never knew existed. Although I’ve said it before, I want nothing more than to live for all eternity with you, or at least another 10,000 days. Please create some device that will allow us to upload our consciousness into a computer before we die then download it into a new youthful body when one is grown for us. Or maybe we really should freeze our brains?
To all the readers and reviewers, lovers and haters; thank you to the moon and back for your precious time and support or lack thereof. No matter what, I consider each of you my friend.
With Love,
C.J.
I’m sorry you had to find out this way.
Table of Contents
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Twelve Years Earlier
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Four Months Later