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“Then what’s it like?”
“Look outside,” she says.
I slide off the bed and walk to the window. Heavy curtains cover it, but I push them aside, peering up at the dark. “What am I looking at?”
“Can you see the moon from where you are?”
It takes me a second, but I find it. “What phase is it in?”
“Waning crescent. See how it’s just a sliver? It’ll be a new moon again soon.”
“It’s pretty.” I spend enough time awake at night that you’d think I’d notice the moon often, but I can’t remember the last time I looked directly at it. When I play night games, the moon and stars are far away, nearly hidden by the stadium floodlights.
“I’m looking at it too.” There’s a rustling sound on her end of the line. “I miss you.”
At her words, my heart starts racing. I press my fingertips to the glass. The sliver of moon shines like a pearl, seemingly small enough to cup in my palm. For a moment, I can almost convince myself that the golden string is tied to the moon, and if I tug on it, she’ll be able to feel it. That even if we aren’t saying all we mean right now, she’ll get the message. “And I miss you.”
“Sebastian?”
“Yeah?”
“Will you stay on the line with me until I get back to the house?”
I swallow down everything—the wishes, the dreams, the aching, sticky-hot want—and hope I sound halfway to normal. I can always give more when it comes to her. “Always, angel.”
31
MIA
“See?Some of these questions are random, but then others are way too personal.”
I peer at Sebastian’s laptop. On the screen is a list of questions the reporter fromThe Sportsman, Zoe Anders, sent over to “get him thinking” ahead of their interview. It’s an odd mix. The first one asks if he’s a Reds fan, or if he switched to the Mets or Yankees after years of living on Long Island, but then directly underneath it, she wants to know if he’s had any contact with relatives of his father and mother.
The moment I see it, my mind starts mulling over the possibilities. I guess it makes sense that the reporter would wonder about it too, but it’s his past. He doesn’t have to share it with anyone, especially not a magazine. “You could decline to answer, right?”
He swipes his hand through his hair, then settles his baseball cap back on his head, backwards. “I guess so. The short answer is that no, I haven’t.”
I look at him sideways. I’m curious too, but that feels like a question I don’t have the right to wonder about, considering the fact we’re just friends. This is what I wanted, after all, even if it’s getting so hard to remember why. “Just tell her you’re only going to answer questions that are directly about baseball.”
“I guess.” He grimaces. “I don’t want her to do digging on her own and make up a story, though. My mom’s relatives didn’t want to adopt me because they hated my dad. It’s not that deep.”
I can’t help myself. “Why?”
“He got her pregnant before they got married. They thought she was settling, that she could have done better.” He puts his hand on my knee, squeezing lightly. He laughs shortly. “And then she died, and theyreallythought she could have done better.”
“That’s awful.”
“I don’t want anything to do with them anyway.” He shuts his laptop firmly and puts it on the coffee table next to mine. “Haven’t heard from them in years. I love baseball, but the rest of it is already too much. According to Izzy, those stupid photographs are all over Instagram.”
“That is something nice about astrophysics,” I say dryly. “No one is going to ask me for an interview.”
He winds his arm around my waist and pulls me into his lap. I straddle him, adjusting my skirt so it still covers my butt.
“I have some questions,” he murmurs, kissing my neck. His hands stroke down my bare thighs, making me shiver. “They’re of a personal nature.”
“Oh?”
He pushes up my skirt a couple inches. “Maybe a demonstration would be more effective.”
