Loading the melons into the back foot well, I pad them with whatever I can find.
Waving farewell to Trev, I close the door.
Marco’s hair sticks up on one side, face still flushed from his snooze.
He snuggles in for a hug.
“Baby, you got five?”
“Yeah, that's all he had left.”
He pauses to do the math.
“That's almost a hundred and fifty dollars.”
“He knocked it down to one twenty. But I figured, you missed out on so many birthdays when you were little. And these ones taste so much better than the city ones so I…”
He interrupts me with a kiss.
He has a habit of doing that.
And then he starts to cry.
“Bub, what's the matter?”
I smudge a tear with my thumb.
“You love me,” sleepy Marco weeps.
“Completely,” I grin. “And I don't know how to stop.”
Smoothing his hair, I kiss him on the forehead.
“You’re gonna be stumbling over my half empty tea cups until you’re ninety.”
“Ninety nine,” he vows.
The world dims around us.
We drive beneath our painted sky until city lights steal it away.
???
When we wake on Sunday, the stars are still faintly visible on his wrist.
But only just.
Twisting his hand in the sunlight, he traces a finger across the miniature galaxy.
“They're almost gone,” he says.
“Almost.”
“What if I want to keep them indefinitely?”
A soft smile forms on my lips.
“I might be able to help with that.”
