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setting.
    “It’s amazing to be alive,” she
whispered.
    “And to share it with your soul mate who
you’ve waited your whole life to find, never knowing it could happen,” he
whispered in return.
    A few minutes later, Cullen hopped naked
out of the bed and announced he was having a shower.
    Ivy lay there in the rumpled, sweaty
sheets, feeling that all was somehow right with the world.
    Even
though everything’s a mess, I don’t care.   We’re going to get through this together.   That’s all that matters.
    And knowing that—knowing that her
soul had finally found its counterpart, its resting place, she could breathe
easy despite the challenges that awaited.
    She went and opened the sliding glass
door and let the breeze in and looked out on the shimmering water.
    The cool breeze off the water tickled her
naked skin and she smiled.
    This
is what it’s like to really live a full life , she thought.   There’s pain and fear and sadness, but
there’s greater amounts of love and laughter and sex and beauty and excitement.
    I
wouldn’t trade my life with Cullen for anything else, no matter how picture
perfect.
    I
like the messiness of him.
    I
love it, actually.
    As she was thinking this, she heard
something from downstairs.
    Her heart immediately jumped, and now it
was banging hard in her ribcage.
    Someone was in the house.
    “Cullen!” she cried.   “Cullen!   Someone’s here!”
    She wondered if it could be an animal
somehow getting inside.   Because the sounds were not clear at first, just general noise of
rustling and movement.
    But then she heard the distinct sound of
footsteps.
    “Cullen!” she cried, as the footsteps
began ascending the staircase.
    Whoever it was, they were coming up.
    Ivy ran and grabbed one of Cullen’s shirts
and threw it over her naked body, frantically buttoning it closed to cover
herself.   She called for Cullen
again as the person appeared in the hallway, and she screamed.
    It was an older man, probably an inch
shorter in height than her.
    He had a gray beard, and he was dressed
in simple slacks and a sweater.   His
eyes were cool and blue behind his wire-framed glasses.   “You must be Ivy,” he said, and the
voice was very familiar.
    The bathroom door opened and Cullen came
out, still dripping wet, wearing a towel around his waist.
    He looked at the man in the hallway and
his eyes widened.
    “Dad!” he cried.
    “Cullen,” Preston Sharpe said.   He looked at his son and waited for a
response.
    Ivy practically fainted, she was so
relieved, she stepped back, breathing normally again.  
    Cullen and his father met inside the
bedroom in a firm embrace.   “Dad,
what the heck are you doing here?”
    His father ruffled his hair, something
that seemed like a kind of impossibility, Ivy thought.   You
don’t rustle Cullen Sharpe’s hair.  
    But strangely, Cullen didn’t appear to
mind.
    Didn’t mind his dad ruffling his hair,
didn’t care that he’d intruded into the house unannounced, and caught his wife
half-naked.
    Cullen was smiling with happy surprise.
    “I’ve been waiting for a chance to see
you,” the older man said.   Now he
looked at Ivy.   “Don’t you want to
give your father-in-law a hug?” he said, holding his arms wide.
    She didn’t really want to, especially not
when she was only wearing Cullen’s button-down shirt and nothing else beneath
it.   As it was, it barely covered
her crotch.
    But she went to him and gave the older
man a dutiful huge, withdrawing as soon as it was permissible, without
appearing rude.   “So good to meet
you, Preston,” she said.
    “Oh, just call me Dad,” he said,
smiling.   He adjusted his
glasses.   “I do apologize for
scaring you when I came up the stairs.”
    “That’s okay,” she said.   “I thought someone was breaking in.
    “Nope.”   The older man grinned slyly.   “I’ve been here for days already.   Hiding.”
    Cullen’s mouth dropped open.   “You’ve been here, at the