The night seems a thousand times darker atop Snoqualmie Pass, more substantial somehow. Two other cars have already staked out spots around the parking lot. When Josh stops right in the middle, ignoring the parking lines, I know what tonight’s about: to live my own life.

“I didn’t know this existed. So,” I tease him, but really I’m fact-finding, “do you bring all your girls here?”

“Just one,” he says. “You.”

My heart stops at those unexpected words, words that can pierce the scar tissue of a broken heart.

“I came here a lot after the car accident …” Josh says, and his voice trails off.

I fill in the blank. “It’s a good place to be alone.”

“And to look at the stars and think that maybe he’s up there somewhere.” Josh shrugs. “It was the first place I drove to after the accident. I knew if I didn’t, I might never drive again.” Josh keeps his eyes directly on the night ahead like he can will himself into the stars. His hands slide off the steering wheel as though he’s lost all control of the direction. “I just miss him,” he says, “and part of me worries that I’m going to do something that hurts you, too.”

“Hardly,” I say, and flex my biceps. “Do you have any idea how strong I am?”

“I do.”

As we gaze at each other, I hear my own words and hope he hears them, too.

“Hey, look,” he says, pointing to the clearing in the sky. “You brought the stars. Persephone would be happy.”

“She would be …” (In clothes.)

“I hear the ‘but,’ ” he says. “But …”

“But she’d be happier wearing real clothes.”

His fingers drum the steering wheel. “I just don’t feel good about changing any part of her.”

“I get it. Caleb drew her.” (But …)

“I literally heard the but.”

“Okay, fine. But she can’t fight vampires in that uniform. Not to be too graphic, but logistically, the way she’s drawn and everything, there’s going to be a lot of bounce going on. A. Lot. Of. Bounce.” I stop because Josh is frowning, and after years of watching Mom and Dad work with skittish clients who balk at their recommendations, I know I’m pushing him hard. So I shrug and back off. “I’m sorry, but it’s true.”

“Don’t apologize,” Josh says quietly. “I’d rather hear the truth. So bounce. Okay, then what should she be wearing instead?”

“To fight vampires?” I turn to face him, tucking one leg under myself as I warm to this topic. “Layers.”

“Layers.”

“If you have to keep the bikini, then toss on some layers. And channel Zoë. Revolutionary badass.”

“But River Tam. She fought in a dress.”

“Yeah, and combat boots. But River’s in another category of badassery completely.”

“So she could fight vampires in a dress.”

“For sure.”

“So increase Persephone’s badassery—”

“And layer.”

Before I can elaborate, a meteor flashes across the break in the clouds, a streak of gold that slices the sky open. I’m surprised stardust doesn’t shower down on us. The meteor moves so fast, if I had blinked, I would have missed it. Even now, a split second later, still staring hard at the sky, I lose the tail. As one, Josh and I slam out of the truck. At first, I don’t notice the cold much, figuring I’ll grab my parka in a moment. We stand side by side in the dark with his arm around me. I’m officially freezing now, but I don’t want to risk missing the next meteor by getting my coat or my hat and scarf. I stare so hard at the sky that my eyes start to water, blurring the pinprick stars. I blink away the tears rapidly.

Josh calls, “There!”

Too late. In that blink of my eye, I’ve missed the fleeting meteor in another part of the sky that I hadn’t been watching. I sigh, disappointed.

“There’ll be more,” he promises. “NASA predicted a hundred an hour. Give or take a dozen.”

I shiver and wrap my arms around myself.

“Hang on a sec.” Josh leaves for the truck and returns with a familiar blanket, the one I had forgotten after the poke restaurant. He hands me my coat, then hops onto the hood of the truck, holding his hand down to me. I don’t even hesitate, shrugging first into my parka, then clambering to sit next to him. Josh maneuvers behind me so that he can enclose me against his chest, wrapping his legs around me. With the blanket snug around both of us, we are cocooned tight.

He murmurs, “Go ahead. Lean back.”

I tilt my head against my new favorite pillow, his shoulder, as I stare up at the sky. I swear he can hear the thudding of my heart. I know I can. My body should be approximately negative thirty degrees of cold. Instead, I am a furnace of warmth and wanting. And then, then, Mother Nature acts, unleashing a comet-dragon, gold-streaked and long-tailed. The meteor bolts across the sky.

“Did you see that?” I ask him, myself, the stars. Maybe it took this very moment and that very meteor to appreciate the darkness. The night isn’t a prison closing me in, but freedom. Here, outside in the dark without any fear of my body shutting down, I can breathe and shed protective layers and be me. “Did you see that thing?”

He leans down, his breath warm on my cheek. “It’d be hard to miss.”

“It was so beautiful.”

“It is.”

We turn toward each other, untangling only to tangle again, now with my legs wrapped around him. He stares so hard down into my eyes that I don’t think he means the meteors. Or even me, really. But this—this electricity, this comet of an emotion streaks from him to me, and back again.

“You want to kiss me,” I whisper to him, this elemental fact seeping all the way into my bones.

“You say that to all your guys.”

“Just you.”

No more questions, no more replies, I know he’s going to kiss me, the air is fraught with expectation. Anticipation. My lips tingle. He closes the gap between us, his hands tracing the edge of my low, low-cut shirt, his tongue gently following up the curve of my neck. Then, nothing, but his lips held a mere breath from mine. Not even a soft brush of his lips. Instead, he makes me wait, wait, wait.

I sigh, breathe, moan.

When I finally feel his lips hard upon me, I suddenly understand the workings of physics and reject its laws outright.

Because.

This kiss is pure action, reaction, reaction.

Reaction.

All I can do is trust that the Earth is still spinning, gravity still anchors us to the ground, meteors are still flashing across the sky. Eyes closed, pressing into this boy, all I know for sure are his kisses—soft, hard, slow, thorough—that dance across my lips. My skin has become his sky.