I frown.‘As in … the bird?’
He smirks without turning.‘The constellation.You don’t look for the stars.You look for the dark space between them.’
I glance sideways.He’s pointing up at a gap in the sky, and for a minute I see nothing.
And then – there it is.
The shape emerges from the negative space: long body, slender neck, round head.
‘Oh.It’s … huge.’
‘Takes up half the sky,’ he says.
We stand there quietly, shoulder to shoulder, watching the cosmos.
It’s the kind of silence that doesn’t feel awkward, a silence that maybe neither of us is in a hurry to break.
‘I used to think the stars were souls,’ Luke says eventually.‘And the older you were when you died, the brighter you shined – every year added another spark.’
I glance at him.His voice is soft, far away.
‘That one there …’ He nods at a particularly bright star near the horizon.‘I reckon that’s my mum.’
Silence.
‘She must’ve lived a full life,’ I say softly.
Luke gives a slow nod, chewing on the weight of that.‘She did.
Breast cancer got her last year.Now it’s just me and Dad on the farm.’
The ache in his voice is subtle but sharp.I don’t know what to say to that.I never know what to do when people hand me things that feel too heavy to hold.
‘Where’s your farm?’I ask instead.
‘Two hundred and thirteen k’s that way,’ he says, gesturing into the darkness.
‘Ahh.Sothat’show you knew where the nearest latte was.’
Luke releases a low laugh, the kind that curls at the edges.‘I might have mapped it one day.’There’s a pause, and then he looks over at me.‘What about you?Parents back in Sydney?’
The air tightens.The conversation has veered left, towards territory I don’t go.Not here.Not with him.I have rules – a whole damn system, actually, refined over years of romantic trial, error and tactical ghosting.Nothing personal, no sleepovers, no breakfast, no second hook-ups, and strictly –strictly– no feelings.That’s where people get hurt.And I don’t do hurt.I do exit strategies.
I shrug and do what I always do – lie through my teeth.‘Yeah, they’re alive and well.Celebrating their thirtieth wedding anniversary next week.’Then, because I’m physically allergic to sincerity, I steer the conversation away from anything personal and add, ‘Also, I once believed if you swallowed gum, your stomach would glue itself shut and you’d die slowly and dramatically.’
Luke stares at me.Then he tips his head back and lets out a huge laugh, as though it’s been sitting there all night, waiting for permission.
‘We’ve all got our childhood trauma, I guess,’ he says, grinning.
He looks at me for a long second, and I swear the air between us crackles.There’s a glimmer in his eyes I don’t recognise.Or maybe I do, and I’m choosing not to name it.
‘Who are you?’he asks quietly.
I open my mouth to say something – anything – when someone shouts from down the road, ‘Oi!You two coming or what?’
I flinch as if caught doing something off script.Right.No time for stars or … whatever the hell that was.I grab my empty glass and step back into the scene.
Luke hangs his head as I spot Ella and Darcy disappearing around the side of the cabins, a trail of champagne-fuelled humans drifting after them like tipsy breadcrumbs.Abbey is hand in hand with the curly-haired groomsman –Dex?Dax?Derek?– and they disappear in the same direction.
