8
Kit
The crisp nightair wasn’t doing nearly as much to sober me up as it might have, but with my fingers linked with Andy’s again, a full belly, and the prospect of a good night’s sleep ahead of me, I finally felt at ease.
I’d also come to a very important decision.
“I think I’d rather like it if you were all over me,” I said, squinting as soon as the words were out, suspicious I hadn’t quite phrased that right but too fuzzy to be sure.
“Now?” Andy asked, eyes bright and wide.
Ah. Yes, now that I thought about what I’d said, I could see exactly how I’d phrased it wrong.
“Umm.”
Yes.
No. The answer had to be no.
“I meant in general,” I said. “In front of Mother. I... it... if the offer’s still open, I’ve been thinking about it, and if you’re comfortable then it would annoy her much more if she thought you really liked me.”
“I do really like you,” Andy said, squeezing my hand.
I focused on putting one foot in front of the other for a couple of steps, forcefully reminding my tipsy self that this wasn’treal, and he didn’t mean it that way.
“Yes, but if you were sexually attracted to me.”
Andy squeezed my hand again, although that might’ve been related to narrowly avoiding breaking his ankle in a pothole.
“Offer’s still open,” Andy said. “Full boyfriend package.”
I giggled atboyfriend package, breaking into full-blown laughter and stumbling helplessly, Andy catching me under my shoulder and steadying me up.
He burst into giggles as soon as we were more or less upright again.
“Do I need to call Stanley to pick you two up?” Father asked, a few paces ahead of us and slightly more sober, only by virtue of having dedicated himself to improving his alcohol tolerance for decades.
“We’re fine,” Andy called out, pressing close to my side as we started toward the house again. The walk wasn’t long, but it was dark, cold, and over uneven ground that was wet from the earlier snowfall.
“If you pull me into a ditch, you really are sleeping with the dogs,” Andy said, but he didn’t mean it.
“I won’t,” I promised anyway, making an effort to straighten up.
An owl hooted somewhere in the woods, and overhead, the clouds that had brought the snow parted and a sliver of velvet black sky studded with glittering stars appeared.
Andy steadied me as I tripped over my own feet, pressed up tight against me, the warmth of his body seeping through all our combined winter layers.
“Auriga,” Father called out, pausing and pointing up. “Look at that.”
Andy dragged me over to stand beside him, looking up as well.
“What are we looking for?” Andy asked. I’d already spotted it, but then this wasn’t my first stargazing expedition.
“It’s... sort’ve shaped like... oh, Kit, you show him.”
Andy looked at me expectantly.
“I can’t possibly lift him onto my shoulders,” I said, thinking back to the way my father had shown me the stars when I was little.
