Jesus.“So how often do you bring people home then?”
“Never.” She glances at me over her shoulder, and I reach up, tucking some hair behind her ear. “I’ve been out west since I graduated from high school, though, so it’s not like there’ve been many opportunities.”
“Anyone you’ve wanted to introduce them to?”
I’m being nosy, my curiosity about her past getting the best of me. I want to know everything about her though.
I want her to want to takeme.
“Jury’s still out,” she says in a lilted voice, jutting her ass into my pelvis as she bends to look into the telescope again.
She slips away just as my grip on her tightens, walking to a table across the platform. I crouch lower, peering into the machine without moving it from the spot she had it in.
“Canis Major?”
“Yeah. I’m just, um, trying to go down this list I have and see what I can find.” She holds up a sheet of paper where she’s written down the names of multiple winter constellations. Orion and Canis Major are marked off.
“When you said you enjoyed astronomy, I have to admit I didn’t think you meant it,” I tell her.
She huffs. “Thanks a lot for the vote of confidence. Why wouldn’t I have meant it? Acting isn’t myonlyinterest. Star power goes beyond the stage.”
“Enlighten me.”
“What do I look like, an encyclopedia? Do your own research.” She bumps my hip, nudging me out of the way as she moves on to the next constellation on the list. “Besides, if you can’t see the importance of being able to read the stars in the sky, then I guess you’ve never been at the whim of the cosmos. Getting lost is terrifying.”
“I can imagine.” I keep my gaze trained above us. “Imagine only, of course, since a Boy Scout like myself would never get lost. Coordinates and compass reading are day-one survival stuff.”
That makes her laugh a little. “So if you were plopped down in the middle of, say, some dusty desert, you’d be able to find your way out, no problem?”
“Sure. If I can’t rely on myself to find my place in the world, then who the hell else am I going to ask?”
She eases back from the telescope, tilting her chin. “That sort of independence must be nice.”
Unable to stop myself, I inch toward her, drawn by some invisible current. I don’t touch her but lift my hand, pointing at Orion’s belt with my index finger, then dragging it due west.
“See that bright point right there? That’s Aldebaran. If you follow the distorted Y shape it creates above and below, you’ll get the Taurus constellation.”
“Oh.” She leans into the telescope, sucking in an excited gasp. “Beautiful.”
My nostrils flare as I resist the urge to look at her and agree.
But she is. God, she’s fucking beautiful. Hollywood glam in a soft, delicate package that I want to tuck beneath my arm and never let go.
Up here, at least, it’s nice to pretend none of the external stuff—her schooling, my job, Death’s Teeth—matters. That I can just throw caution to the wind and take her anyway.
“Can you help me find Cetus?”
Nodding, I squint at the sky, searching for its tail. I point to the brightest star in a connected trapezoid. “Follow Menkar down, and you’ll find the whale swimming in the celestial sea.”
She turns the telescope to where I’m pointing. “I thought Cetus was a sea monster.”
“Well, sure. Anything can be a monster if you don’t understand it.”
Humming, she moves back to her notebook, scribbling something down on the page before returning to the scope. “You know, I got lost in the Primordial Forest when I was a teenager. It was stupid, really… We were here visiting Quincy, and I went off with this girl?—”
“What do you mean, ‘went off with’?”
“To hook up.” She blinks, cocking her head at me. “Don’t pretend you don’t know what that means, Boy Scout.We’vedone it.”
