“Is this…?”
“To the cabin, yeah,” I said, fidgeting with the coat I was still holding. “Yeah, umm. I just. I guess I wanted you to know… I’m serious about you always being welcome. I don’t want this to be the last time I ever see you. I was thinking Thanksgiving at least, you know I don’t love spending it with my parents, and I’m guessing you don’t love spending it with yours, but we could have… I mean, if you want, we could…”
“I’d love to,” Harvey said, staring down at the key in his hand. “Definitely beats spending it alone in a hotel room and watching the parade in my underwear.”
“You can totally watch the parade in your underwear,” I teased.
“Or in those pajamas you like?” Harvey smirked.
“I dunno if you’d still be able to watch the parade in those, I’d probably be in the way. Y’know. Sitting on your lap.”
“Probably more interesting than the parade,” Harvey said.
“Onlyprobably?” I asked, mock-scandalized.
“Definitely,” Harvey corrected. “Like a thousand times more interesting. I find youveryinteresting, Ig.”
“It’s the frog facts, isn’t it?” I grinned.
“It’s a hundred percent the frog facts,” Harvey laughed, pocketing the key I’d given him. “Tell me a fun fact about frogs.”
“You know how a group of birds is called a flock? A group of frogs is called an army,” I said.
“An army of frogs,” Harvey repeated. “I thought you said they weren’t dangerous?”
“The local ones aren’t,” I said. “But some frogs are so poisonous you could kill a thousand people with just one of them. They call ‘em poison dart frogs because people used to use them to, y’know, poison darts.”
“I did not know that,” Harvey said, smiling at me. “See? You’re very interesting.Andyou make coffee. You’re basically perfect.”
“I’m not perfect,” I said, setting my coat aside again and grabbing one of the blankets that wasn’t making up the structure of our little fort.
Harvey looked at me as I wrapped it around both of our shoulders, eyes soft. “You are to me,” he said after a moment.
How was I meant to respond to that?
“Hey,” Harvey said before I had to think of a response. “I can see us up there.”
I looked out at where Harvey was pointing, but I wasn’t sure what he was getting at.
“See those four stars there, the ones that make a mountain? That really bright one is the highest peak,” Harvey explained.
“I think I see that,” I said. Four stars, like a longer Orion’s Belt with an extra star.
I wasn’t any kind of astronomer, I just liked spending time with Harvey looking at the stars.
“That’s the blanket,” Harvey said. “See those two really close stars in the middle? They’re faint.”
They were faint, but I could see them. They were so close they almost looked like they were touching—even though they must have been thousands of lightyears apart.
“That’s us,” Harvey said. “We’re about to kiss.”
“Are we?” I asked, turning to him.
Out here the bright hazel of his eyes was gone, but in its place, the darkest spots reflected the sky above us.
From this angle, Harvey’s eyes were full of stars. And I could see us in them, too.
“Yeah,” Harvey murmured, leaning in. “Just about here,” he added, close enough for his breath to ghost over my face.
