"Okay....can I ask why?"
"No." He said firmly.
"Lindsey." She was using the same voice that she used on Max when he was doing something he shouldn't do.
"Stephanie."
Stevie sighed, "you're getting on my nerves."
Lindsey stood and cleaned up from lunch, "I'm sorry if I'm annoying you. I can go out if you need some time alone."
"I don't want time alone. I want to know what's going on with you!" She raised her voice. She hadn't really yelled at him in a long time.
"We're not together, Stevie! I don't have to tell you everything!"
She looked at him hurt. He never talked to her like that anymore.
"You never call me that," she said, her lip quivering.
He leaned on his hands against the counter, facing away from her, "I'm sorry."
"It's fine. You're right; you don't have to tell me anything." She got up from the table and walked outside to sit on the porch swing. She was so angry and so hurt by his words. It was the first time since they'd been living together that they'd really argued, and it was definitely the first time his words had cut right through her.
He grabbed the baby monitor and walked outside. He started pacing in front of her, "Steph, I am really, really sorry."
"I don't understand why you're being like this."
Lindsey took a deep breath and ran his hands through his hair, "I'm just....I'm just frustrated."
"About what?" Stevie asked.
He paced some more. He couldn't stand still. "About us. Steph, you have to try to understand how hard this is for me. I am so in love with you it makes me weak in the knees. I can't imagine ever being away from you again. You are everything to me. Do you have any idea what it's like for me to hold back from telling you I love you? Or hold back from kissing you; touching you? I want to make love to you so badly it drives me crazy. And I don't want that to come off like...I just want to have sex with you. It's not about that. I respect you so much and I respect your boundaries. I just....I just want to show you how much I love you, you know? Sometimes I can't look at you because it's all so overwhelming. I'm sorry."
Lindsey stopped pacing, but he didn't look at Stevie. She didn't speak for a long while and he almost walked back inside.
She cleared her throat and wiped her eyes before she finally spoke, "I'm in love with you, Lindsey. I'm in love with you and it drives me crazy, too. I'm just so scared. I mean, fuck, you just called me Stevie while we were arguing and you haven't done that in years. It's the little things that make me scared. We can't go back to the people we used to be, Linds. I don't want our kids to grow up in a home where their parents are fighting all the time."
Lindsey stopped pacing and kneeled down in front of her, resting his hands on her thighs. "It wouldn't be like that. It would be just like it's been. I swear."
"I just need a little time to think about this, Lindsey."
Elizabeth started crying and Lindsey got up to go get her without another word.
April 1977
Stevie was giggling as she walked through the hotel; heels in her hand and an arm flung around a man whose name she'd already forgotten.
They had been doing coke and drinking together. She was high and drunk and happy. She wanted to feel like this forever.
She was leading the man back to her room when the door to Lindsey's suite opened and he stepped out into the hall.
"Stephanie," he called for her.
She turned around and waved at him, "hi."
"What are you doing?" He asked.
She leaned against the tall man next to her, "well we were just going to go back to my room and fuck."
Stevie didn't have much of a filter when she was on drugs and when she said things like that, it made Lindsey cringe.
He walked closer to her, "no you're not."
She smirked, "are you jealous?"
"No, Stevie. I'm looking out for your best interest. You don't know this man. Do you even know his name?"
"Of course I do," she glanced at the man next to her.
"Alex, I'm Alex." The man said.
Lindsey took Stevie gently by the hand, "okay, Alex, it's time for you to be going."
Lindsey took the key to Stevie's room and unlocked it. He closed the door in Alex's face.
Stevie sat down on the couch and tossed her shoes aside, "are you going to tell me what that was about?"
"It was about you not fucking strange men."
"Oh so...let me get this straight. You can sleep with your girlfriend and me, but I can't sleep with anyone else?"
"That's not what I'm saying," he sat down next to her.
"It sure fucking sounds like it."
"You can't just pick up strangers and bring them back to your room. They could hurt you or give you a disease or get you pregnant." He tried to explain where he was coming from.
She shook her head, "you do not get to make my decisions for me."
"I don't want you sleeping with someone you don't know and then sleeping with me!" He raised his voice and quickly regretted it. He didn't want someone to overhear.
"Then stop sleeping with me!" She shouted back.
They both sat in silence for a moment. Lindsey was the first to speak, "is that what you want? Because we can stop if that's what you want."
She wiped her eyes and pulled her knees up to her chest. "No...no. I can't. You're worse than any drug I've ever used, Lindsey Buckingham."
He didn't know what to say to that, so he pulled her close and kissed her.
Just another day in their fucked up relationship.
All Too Well
Start from the beginning
