#a synopsis

Sy saw you the moment you arrived. A late summer barbeque that he’d thought would end with nothing but him being stuffed on ribs and beer just got a lot more interesting. 

He watched you all afternoon and as the sun began to set, he found himself wishing you would just look at him. His usually confident manner was hindered by how struck by you he was. He’d never seen a girl who was surrounded by a light of her own making. He could feel your brilliance radiating across the small back yard. 

Hey Pretty Girl, wont you look my way? Love’s in the air tonight. 

As if you had heard his thoughts, you suddenly locked eyes with the big captain that all the girls had told you about. He started at you for a moment too long, then looked away as if he had been staring at the sun, blinking hard. 

Drinks were flowing and people were starting to dance as the fireflies were making their rounds in the nearby fields. Fairy lights lit a large tree and you were looking up into the twinkling lights that mingles with the swaying leaves when a deep voice quietly spoke behind you. 

“Hey Pretty Girl, can I have this dance?”

You nodded and followed him onto the makeshift floor, a old country love song slowly filtering around you as his large hand wrapped around your waist and pulled you closer, but not too close. As the song neared to an end, he murmured in your ear.

“And the next one after that?” 

You nodded, unwilling to let go of him. 

Several songs later and before you knew it, you and Sy were in his truck, headed to a secluded spot by the river. It felt so right being in his arms and you couldn’t stop saying his name as he brought you closer and closer to the sky. 

He worshipped you that night, saying that it was “just like its meant to be, all wrapped up in my arms so tight, Hey Pretty Girl, it feels so right.”

A few months passed, before you knew it, he was telling you that he wanted to bring you home. He didn't want to wait any longer. He knew you were the one and he was ready to jump in head first. 

“My momma’s gonna love you, she’ll make me sleep on the couch I know, Hey Pretty Girl, I wanna take you home.”

He proposed to you the night you met his mother, walking through the dark fields that he ran through as a child. He pointed to a distant hill, telling you that he had bought it and wanted to build a house and a life with you. 

“We’ll plant some roots and some apple trees. Hey Pretty Girl, lets build some dreams.”

Your marriage was both amazing and hard. Sy constantly being deployed was the worst. When he was home it was bliss. You loved your Captain, and you greedily wanted him with you always. He missed so many milestones while he was away fighting rich men’s wars on his family’s time. 

Your first child was born while he was deployed. His mother was there with a tablet so he could be as with you as possible. Bunkered in his room, under a blanket because it was night and he couldn't let the light be seen, he praised you. 

“Hey pretty girl, you did so good. Our baby's got your eyes. And her fathers heart like I knew she would.”

Decades passed, and he would sit on the porch of the house he built you, his calloused hand in yours. Your daughter chasing after her own kids, running around the yard, he would whisper to you, making his peace with all he had been through over his life. 

“Hey pretty girl when I see the light and its my time to go, gonna thank the lord for a real good life, pretty little girl and a beautiful wife.”