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HOPE
A full moon brightens the night, casting a luminescent white glow over half of Kingsette, leaving the other half drenched in darkness. Luckily for us, we have the light. The same way we did that first night one month ago.
“Tell me again why we’re on the roof-deck?” Will arranges us on cushions against the wall of the Inn’s roof-deck and smooths a blanket over our laps before opening up the bottle of wine he grabbed on our way up.
“You took me to the Ferris wheel when I needed a place to escape. I’m taking you to the roof-deck. Best place in Kingsette to stargaze, and you seemed like you needed space to breathe.”
“Back to where this all began,” he says, pouring a glass of wine into a red plastic cup he also picked up on the way to the roof.
“At least we’ve upgraded and aren’t drinking straight out of the bottle,” I say.
He chuckles, and we clink Solo cups.
“And you’re not using cheesy pickup lines about generous pours. What was it you said?” I slide my gaze in his direction, my lips already twitching up with the start of a laugh. “‘Beautiful women never have to thank me for generous pours.’”
“Hey! Low blow!” He nudges me with his elbow. “That’s definitely not what I sounded like.”
“Oh, there’s a good chance you did. I got whiplash from how fast you went from directing me to the gazebo to hitting on me.”
He laughs, a full, deep sound that vibrates down my entire body. “I was just trying to keep up. One minute you’re sweet and sad—the next you’re all temper and sass.”
Heat floods my cheeks. Of course he hadn’t forgotten. “Fair. Not my finest moment.”
“I might disagree with that.” The look he attaches to that claim makes my toes curl.
A measured silence crawls between us, heavy with all that’s happened. For long minutes, we drink and it’s just easy, like slipping into another life I’ve always belonged to. The lake and hospital and all that happened and didn’t happen tonight feel impossibly far away.
“Are you ready to talk about the other night?” Will asks with heartbreaking tenderness after we’ve both finished our first glass.
“Are you ready to talk about what happened tonight?” I ask, arching a brow.
“Touché.”
“Can we just pretend for a little while that none of it happened?” The wine he brought is light and sweet and exactly what I need to calm the storm of my thoughts. I’ll have to face it all soon enough. But not yet.
Will nods and lifts a finger to the sky. He points out obscure constellations and stars, and I’m so grateful for his chatter, for this moment when we’re safe from it all.
“Tell me about the astronomer in Dublin who taught you about stars.”
“You remember that line, huh?”
“I remember a lot of what you say.”
He blows out a breath. “It was my dad on a trip to visit family in Dublin. He was into space and stars. I think the biggest disappointment of his life was when neither Darren nor I were that excited about a spacecamp he’d found. He thought it was the greatest thing in the world, and we didn’t.”
“You miss him a lot, huh?”
He turns to me, a crease forming between his brows as if he hasn’t considered this before. “I guess I do. I don’t talk about him much. Except with you.”
“I can’t tell if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. I don’t mean to dredge up old memories.”
“No, I like that you do. I’ve been running from the memories and the feelings too long. Maybe I need to finally confront them head on.” He studies my face like it’s a puzzle he’s trying to solve. “I got scared when my dad died. It made everything feel unsafe. I thought leaving Kingsette would make that feeling go away.”
“That sounds familiar,” I say, my pulse ticking up at the vulnerability laid bare on his handsome face. “Do you want to tell me about him?”
For a while, he tells me stories. About his dad and nights that they camped under the stars, how sometimes his mom came with them and how she hated the mud and the cold, but inevitably would be the one making the s’mores to keep them awake just a little longer.
Every inch of me melts into his stories, the pictures that he paints with his words. Will might be the best storyteller I’ve ever met, and I can’t imagine a time that I’d be sick of hearing him talk.
