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“Where to now?” I sighed, accepting his hand. He tugged me up and I cocking my eyebrow.
Blake laughed, pulling me to his side as we started moving deeper in the gardens. The twinkling lights wrapped around the wooden beams lit our path casting a delicate glow around the place.
It really was something.
But when we reached the end of the walkway I gasped.
“Something, huh?” Blake said.
I broke away from his hold and wandered further down the path. It was a large space, a perfectly tended lawn, really, but it wasn’t that I was staring at.
A canvas of stars, so bright that it felt like I could reach out and touch them, filled the night sky.
“Blake, it’s…”
“Just like Lancaster.” He stepped up beside me, wrapping his free arm around me and I dropped my head against his shoulder.
“No Man’s Land.”
“No Man’s Land,” he repeated.
“It’s perfect.”
“Come on.” Blake started moving again until he reached the middle of the vast space. I hadn’t noticed it before, but he laid out a blanket and put the bag down. “Shall we?”
I couldn’t stop my smile if I tried.
This was everything.
When I reached him, he helped me down, scooting close to me, wrapping his arm around me. The air was cool, but I couldn’t feel it. I was too busy remembering a childhood of nights just like this.
No Man’s Land had been our retreat from a dismal life in the foster home we shared. I first sneaked out with Blake when I was just twelve and terrified of what my new life with my foster family would bring. But Blake kept me grounded. Over the four years we spent there together, he became everything to me, and No Man’s Land was the one place we could be ourselves. The place he recalled the constellations.
The place we shared our first kiss.
We hadn’t returned to Cenci Park in Lancaster—it held too many bad memories—but this was as good as. And snuggled against him, watching the sky above, I was transported back to the time when a scared girl fell in love with the brave messy-haired boy that loved the stars.
Of course, the road from then until now hadn’t been easy, in fact, it had almost broken me irreparably.
But despite everything—the odds stacked against us—we found our way back to one another.
And now here we were.
Blake brushed his nose along my shoulder and then leaned forward to retrieve the bag. He pulled two takeout trays and sporks, handing one to me. “Okay, so this isn’t Duke’s, but it is the best cheesecake in the whole of Columbus.”
Curious, I opened the container and peered inside. The smell of sugar and berries filled the space between us. “It smells good.”
“Wait until you taste it. Mrs. Beech makes the best pie I have ever tasted.”
“Mrs. Beech?”
“She’s Uncle Ant’s old housekeeper. She retired not long after I moved in with them, but I will never forget her pie. But I know you prefer your desserts with cheese.” He winked and motioned for me to try a bite.
The spork slid into the cake with ease, crunching through the base. It smelled divine and Blake was right, I’d take cheesecake over pie any day.
“You’ve been holding out of me,” I said when I’d finished the first mouthful.
“Some things are worth the wait.” Blake reached out, his finger gliding over my lip, smearing away the crumb of cake.
