“And we’ll celebrate more later,” he said with a low growl.
I grinned, glad to hear it. “What else, then?”
Cass turned to the hillside and started to cast his eyes about the sky, trailing his gaze up and around. “I wanted to show you something,” he said, then pointed. “There.”
I stepped up behind him and rested my hand on his shoulder. I followed the line of his arm up to the sky, searching. “What are you pointing at?”
Cass squatted down a little and leaned closer to me. “That blurry thing. Right there.”
“Oh!” I said, my eyes catching on the distant object. “That’s Andromeda.”
Cass kissed me on the cheek. “I know. I looked it up. You told me it was your favorite thing to look at in the sky, remember? But that was months ago, before it was really visible.”
I blinked, startled. “You remembered that?”
He shrugged. “It’s your favorite. It took me forever to find the damn thing, though. I’ve been Googling it at night and then rushing out here to try to spot it again.” He turned from me back up to the sky. “Fuck! It’s gone again.”
“Yeah,” I laughed. “It’s really easy to lose stuff out there.”
“I’m not sure I understand it. I know it’s a galaxy like ours, but outside of that, everything I read seemed like nonsense.”
I nodded. “Here, give me your fists.”
Cass arched an eyebrow. “Why, Shawn…”
I snorted out a laugh. “Cass! Not like that.”
He chuckled as he extended his hands, both tightened into fists. “Here you go.”
I took one of his fists, then moved it so Cass’s arm was sticking out to the side. “This fist is the Milky Way galaxy,” I said. “That’s the billions of stars where we live.”
“Right.”
I took his other fist, then stuck it straight out in the other direction. “And this is the Andromeda Galaxy. It’s about the same size as the Milky Way, and it looks really similar, too.”
“Right, I saw some pictures online.”
I stepped back, then waved my hand in front of him, gesturing across his chest and his arms. “The rest of this,” I explained, “is pretty much empty space. Millions of light years with barely any stars, just space dust and some gas clouds and weird molecules floating around, as close to nothing as you get in outer space. And around the Milky Way and Andromeda, too, for a long stretch into the distance, there’s just a big open void.”
“So it’s only us and Andromeda, floating there and looking at each other for eternity?”
I shook my head. “Not quite.” I placed my hands on his shoulders, then spun him around. “The Milky Way and Andromeda are orbiting each other, spinning in the same circle.” I stopped him, then grabbed his wrists and gave him a kiss. “And over time, we keep spinning a little bit closer and a little bit closer.” I pulled his arms in, bringing his hands together. “We each have some tiny little galaxies that we carry close with us, and they come along too. And in four billion years, the Milky Way and Andromeda will spin so close that they collide and combine into an even bigger and more powerful galaxy.”
Cass grabbed me by the side and kissed me. “Galaxy collisions.”
“Astronomy is badass. A drummer told me one time.”
“Fuck yeah it is.”
I answered a few of his questions, happy just that he had remembered I mentioned Andromeda in the first place. When Cass prompted me, I took a second to line the telescope up and give us a better view. The bright light white in the center of the galaxy shone clearly against the night sky, and the milky blue spirals of stars that stretched from its center made a sparkling halo.
Cass stepped back from the telescope. “Thanks for showing me.”
“Andromeda coming back into view is the perfect occasion for a date. Thank you.”
He pushed his hand through his hair. “I hope you like the next part, too. Take a seat.”
I raised an eyebrow but didn’t ask any questions. As I settled in on the bench, Cass turned to his drum set, which was sitting under the awning. “I’ve been thinking about this summer,” he said, “and how it’s nice been out here with you.”
