“And you think those ‘seedlings’ of love exist only between you and Alexander?” he asked.
“Star charts don’t lie,” said Onny, turning over a glove.
Darn. Still no shears. She’d used them just last week, so where had they gone?
“And you believe that?” asked Byron.
Here we go again,thought Onny. Here was the part where she told him—for the billionth time—that he couldn’t shake the dreamer out of her, and where he told her—for the billionth time—that all the things she believed in were the “worst kind of pretension.”
“Haven’t we been through this?” asked Onny. “Can’t we just skip to the part where you’re all ‘sneer, you’re dumb—’”
“I’ve never thought you were dumb,” said Byron. “Ever.”
Onny raised an eyebrow. “Right, well, I’m a dreamer, and yes, I do believe that maybe the world is a little bigger than you might imagine, and maybe you think that’s ridiculous, but I believe that a dreamer can only find their way by moonlight—”
“And your punishment is that you see the dawn before the rest of the world,” said Byron, finishing Onny’s favorite quote by Oscar Wilde.
She stared at him, utterly stunned.
“I like that quote, too,” he said.
“Okay, now I know you’re lying,” said Onny. “Did you eat one of the poisonous plants when I wasn’t looking? The Byron I know hates everything to do with the stars.”
“Not entirely true,” said Byron, taking a step toward her.
He lowered his hand, and the room turned dimmer. Onny held still, her back against a shelf of empty pots. Byron took another step, slowly closing the space between them.
“It’s just that I believe there’s some danger to spending all your time looking up at the stars.”
Now he was standing right in front of her. The glow of his phone picked out the shadows under his cheekbones. Onny fought to find her voice. Her mouth felt dry. She licked her lips. “And that is?”
“I think you forget to see…”
He reached out, his hand brushing against her hip. Onny stopped breathing. He leaned forward, his voice low and dark, “… what’s right in front of you.”
When he drew back, a pair of shears dangled from his fingertips.
“Was this what you wanted?” he asked.
Onny snatched the shears out of his hands. Her face felt hot, and she inwardly cursed. What had just happened? It was almost as if she’dwanted…
Nope.
Nope.
Nope.
The greenhouse was too hot. It was too dark. Her adrenaline was jumbled up from earlier.
“Thanks,” she said, before quickly snipping off some of the thorny sarsaparilla leaves and then a sprig of theMatthiola incanaflower.
Byron lifted his phone light to help her. He didn’t move. And he didn’t say anything, either, which Onny was more than a little grateful for.
“Now what?” he asked.
“Now,” said Onny, handing him the flower, “we leave the leaves in a patch of moonlight.”
Onny cast around the room before finding the perfect place. It was right next to her dad’s telescope, on a little metal stool perfectly positioned in a slender beam of moonlight. They walked over, and Onny gently placed the leaves in that puddle.
