Disclaimer: none of these characters belong to me; they belong to Shoot the Moon Enterprises and Warner Bros to whom I am eternally grateful for the opportunity to take them out for a spin and bit of light humour. Further disclaimers follow the story.
May, 2008
The back door of 4247 Maplewood Drive flew open and Lee Stetson swept into the kitchen, followed closely by his stepson, Jamie. Both were grinning broadly at some shared joke and the two women standing inside looked up from their conversation to grin back at the men of their lives.
"Amanda, you have got to hear this". Lee slid into the kitchen, dropped a kiss on his wife's lips and then turned to grab the laptop and pulled it towards him. As his fingers flew across the keyboard, Amanda smiled fondly at her husband of 21 years. Although his sandy hair had shifted to grey over the years – giving him what she liked to call his "Silver Fox" look – his face had barely changed with the years, the deep dimples she had always loved still evident as he grinned at the screen. Glancing up at her, his deep hazel eyes were as beautiful as ever and at this moment, filled with mischief.
"What have I got to hear?"
"You'll see, Mom. Dad and I just about bust a gut when we heard it on the car radio just now". Jamie had moved around the counter to stand behind his wife, Lucy, and as he slipped his arms around her pregnant belly and leaned down to rest his head on her shoulder, his eyes were laughing just as much as his stepfather's.
"You won't believe it Amanda. Someone wrote a song for us"
"But we have a song, Lee. I thought "Some Enchanted Evening" was our song."
Lee paused at the keyboard and looked up at his wife, the cocked brow and the glint in his eye telling her he remembered exactly the night 20 odd years ago when he had caught her dancing in the kitchen and that had become their song.
"Dad! The song!" Jamie interrupted their shared glance, rolling his eyes at the fact that his parents could still manage to be so mushy after all these years. The rolled eyes were contradicted however by the tightening of his arms as he cuddled his own wife closer and dropped a kiss on her ear.
Lee turned back to the keyboard. "Well sort of our song, but more like a song about us. A-ha! There!" he clicked on something on the screen and spun the laptop to face Amanda. She could see he had pulled something up from Youtube and leaned in to listen. As the fiddle music started in the intro, she looked up in confusion. "Country music Lee? When did you start listening to country music? I always thought you were more of a jazz man"
"Just wait for it." He pulled Amanda into his embrace and grinned down at her. Then as the voice of the young girl singing went into the song's chorus, he jerked his head towards the laptop. "Listen"
As she took in the words of the song, Amanda began to laugh, that throaty laugh that Lee still found incredibly sexy. Reaching up to put her arms around his neck, she drew his head down for a brief kiss. "You're right. It's a song about us". Tightening his hold around her waist, Lee swept her into an impromptu kitchen dance, half two-step, half slow dance as the computer continued to play the video.
"I know I've told you this before, but your parents are freaking adorable" whispered Lucy into Jamie's cheek.
"I know. Where do you think I get my adorableness from?" he whispered back, still watching his parents swing slowly around the kitchen.
Someone behind them suddenly groaned "Man you guys, get a room!"
Jamie leaned back and turned to grin at his brother Philip standing at the top of the family room steps. "Which guys? Us or them?"
"Them, of course" said Philip. He smiled and nodded towards Lucy's six-month pregnant stomach. "It's obvious you guys already got one. What set them off this time?"
He turned back to the laughing couple across the kitchen who had apparently forgotten anyone else was in the room. He and Jamie exchanged rueful glances, each of them thinking how many times over the years they had caught their mom and stepfather dance in just this way.
Jamie pointed towards the laptop. "Dad found a song". Philip turned to listen as the chorus of the song began again and then he too began to laugh uncontrollably. "Oh my God, it's their song"
On the computer, Taylor Swift's had dropped down to a slower speed to sing the chorus for the last time:
"Our song is the slamming screen door,
Sneakin' out late, tapping on your window
When we're on the phone and you talk real slow
'cause it's late and your mama don't know
Our song is the way you laugh
The first date: "Man, I didn't kiss him, when I should have"
And when I got home ... 'fore I said amen
Asking God if he could play it again"
"Our Song" Copyright: Sony/ATV Tree Publishing, Taylor Swift Music
