HE WEARS A NAVY BLUE SUIT SIMILAR TO THE ONE MY FATHER DONS just inside, a solid navy silk tie over a crisp white dress shirt. Tan, unbruised dress shoes. Hair smoothed precisely. Dimple invisible in the filter of the golden hour. Today’s version of him is so imposingly attractive he rivals backward-hat Charlie. He rubs his hands together unconsciously in front of him in methodical circles. I can’t help the warmth at my base that the familiar gesture provides me.
“You came,” I say softly into the chilled afternoon air. He takes a step toward me. I’m quite sure he hasn’t heard me, my muted words evaporating into the space between us before they could possibly reach him. He answers anyway.
“I made you a promise weeks ago that I would come. You kept your promise to me by going on the trip. I wanted to keep mine. I’m sorry I’m late.” He smiles, though it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.
As he finishes his slow approach, I attach to his gaze, bright and delicate in the stream of velvety yellow light. He looks me up and down. He’s never seen me this dressed up, let alone in anything that represents my Indian culture.
“Wow,” he whispers when his eyes reach mine again.
“Thank you for coming,” I say.
I want to reach for him, for a hug or handhold or pinkie embrace. But I don’t do it. Not yet.
“I’ve missed you,” he says. The desperation in the sputter of his voice is familiar. Going from 24/7 togetherness in Turks to not speaking left a painful void I wasn’t prepared for. “I’m sorry I’m late.”
“You said that already.”
“I know. But I want you to know why. I debated whether to come up until the last minute.”
My heart constricts as he takes another step forward.
“I know how much your job means to you. That getting it is your dream come true. I know how hard you worked for it.” He takes another cautious step. “And I know that I could jeopardize all of that for you. I can’t be the reason you don’t get everything you ever wanted.”
The draw I feel to him is intense, the gravitational pull of water up the shore at high tide.
But not yet.
“I’m going to need a minute,” I tell him, turning on my nude peep-toe heels to rush inside. His face falls. He thinks he’s made a mistake coming here. That he is right about the job and that I regret inviting him. That I still choose it over him. But that’s not it.
I dash inside.
Tess finds me, my phone in hand, having been spying out the window.
“Here.” She shoves my phone at me. “Go get your guy,” she declares with a slap on my butt to send me on my way.
Nate lifts his fist for a bump of solidarity.
I observe Charlie through the glass for a moment, hands in his pockets, back turned as he looks out at the tree-lined property edge. I can’t get back to him fast enough. I’ve missed you too, I attempt to tell him telepathically.
At the click of my heels against the patio tile, he turns to me with a pensive look.
His face. It’s full of fear and longing and want, bursting with hope and things unsaid. Observing him, I know he feels it. The connection between us that demands exploration.
Stepping onto the grass, I take my place in front of him. “Hi.”
His mouth twitches. “Hi.”
I hit play on my phone, click the volume up to high, and toss it beside us where it sinks into the freshly cut grass.
Charlie looks down, then back at me with a sentimental smile as “Drift Away” begins to play from my phone. I can’t help but smile back, knowing the lyrics will be “give me the Beach Boys” forevermore.
He takes another step toward me where there was no space to be had. “What are you doing?”
I clear my throat, move even closer, ignoring my heels sinking into the soft earth. “The grand gesture.”
He comes closer still, taking my hands in his. He is cold to the touch, as I’ve come to expect. I bask in the way the feel of them awakens me.
“Look, I’m sorry for making you feel like you were just a cover. That what we had was fake. Because it wasn’t. It was real. It is real. More real than anything I’ve ever had.”
I press my palm to his shirt at stomach level, feeling the ridges beneath the thick cotton of his dress shirt. “This is supposed to be my grand gesture.”
He gives me that sheepish grin, and I want to kiss the dimple that digs into his cheek.
“I met up with Brooke,” he says.
The sound of her name makes my throat clench. Perhaps this isn’t going to turn out as I hoped.
“I told her everything. About our trip, my intentions when I invited you. About what it was like to learn of her relationship with Spencer, so soon after we broke up. I told her how much it hurt me, but that ultimately, I now know we weren’t meant to be together.”
“How’d that go?”
“It was good. I feel . . . relieved. She’s genuinely happy. Happier than she ever was with me.”
“That must have been hard.”
He’s thoughtful for a moment, eyes flickering to the ground then back to me. “Somewhat. I also told her about you. About how I fell in love with you.”
A flutter makes its way from my belly to my toes.
Love.
“Fell in love, as in past tense? As in, no longer?”
He shakes his head. “Still, very much in love. But I didn’t want to get in the way of your job. And I didn’t want to tell you until I knew I was truly over Brooke. That I could give you all of me. It’s one of the reasons I’ve stayed away as long as I have. I needed to ensure I was fully over her. Ready to move on. Ready to dive in. With you, if you’ll have me. I don’t know what that would look like with your job or if it can even work, but I want to try.”
I thrust myself forward and kiss him in similar fashion to our kiss that first night at the bar. This time, he kisses back immediately, no hesitation or surprise to be had. Only aching want—soft and tender, then firm, crescendoing back and forth between the two. It’s whole, this kiss. It’s filled with the passion of recovering something once lost.
The song ends and immediately starts again.
He pulls away slightly. “You put it on repeat?”
I nod. “I knew this might take a while. More than three minutes and forty-eight seconds.”
There’s a flicker of an appreciative grin across his lips and it’s gone as quickly as it came. “What about your job, Sloane? I don’t want to get in the way of that.” A seriousness flattens his eyebrow ridge.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I’m not going to give you up for a job. And Charlie, I need you to know, you are not almost good enough. You are more important than Zane ever was. More than any job. You’re so much more than good enough. You’re Fruity Pebbles.”
His smile grows slowly. I pay close attention to its expansion. “I told Brooke I was genuinely happy too. And your message was right. I really am happlier than I’ve ever been. Because of you. You’re Kix.”
My breath catches. “You’re taking over my grand gesture. I had a whole speech planned,” I tell him, my arms wrapped around his neck.
“Oh? Please then, I’d like to hear it.”
“Well, for starters, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for blaming you for the game mistake, and for the picture.”
“You’ve already apologized for those things.”
“I know, but it bears repeating. And there’s more.”
“So much to be sorry for after such a short period of time,” he teases, forehead creased playfully.
“Yeah, but our time together was like summer camp.”
“What?”
“Didn’t you ever go to summer camp as a kid? Those relationships you build in a week are deeper than most that take years. Like me and Tess.”
He shakes his head as he smiles so lovingly it makes the longing roll across my body.
“But back to my apology list. I’m sorry for acting like our time together didn’t mean anything to me, because it did. It meant more than you could possibly know.”
He leans in and kisses me. It’s light and airy, like bread rising.
“Does that mean you forgive me?”
“It means I was never mad at you.” Here we stand, covered in the scar tissue of past relationships, alongside the fresh cuts we’ve given each other. But the new ones are still just cuts, shallow, with a chance at healing. He leans in to kiss me again. “I know this is supposed to be your grand gesture, not mine,” he says when he pulls away. “But there’s something else.” He sprints across the grass, bends down behind a bush that lines the space between the patio and grass. When he shoots back up, he has the field day goat trophy/makeshift necklace around his neck.
“Wait, you still have that?”
He shrugs when he makes his way back to me. “You left it in the suite when we were leaving. I packed it.” I kiss him again, though with some difficulty because the plastic goat ear presses into my chest.
“You sentimental sap,” I say, straightening the goat just as I had when I presented it to him. He places his palms under each of my elbows, curls his fingers around my arms.
He leans in for another kiss, but I interrupt before his lips can connect with mine. “Wait. There’s one more thing.”
This grand gesture has turned into a back-and-forth between us, and perhaps it’s just as it should be.
I turn and nod toward the window where I know Tess is still watching. She leaps from her seat and bursts out the side door, then creeps behind a bush near the reception entrance, carrying a long-reach lighter. She crouch-runs across the grass in her A-line royal blue dress and five-inch nude heels, clicking the flame, all the while acting as though her stealth efforts are somehow keeping her hidden.
“Is this some kind of real-life reenactment of Arsonist Betty?” Charlie asks as we watch her scurry across the manicured lawn.
I place his face between my palms and turn him toward me so he can’t see her shrink down and light the flame behind him. Then to another, and another. Four in all. She darts back inside and once again, it’s just Charlie and me.
Then, the gunshot-like pops begin. Despite knowing they’re coming, I jump at the first blasts and Charlie tightens his grip around me. Behind him, light sprints into the sky, yellow and blue and green. Fireworks. Not guns. And before you wonder how I managed to afford a real fireworks display, let me clarify these are four little round cylinders you find in a tent on the side of a road around the Fourth of July. It’s perfect. Until—
One of the four cylinders falls over from its perch in the grass, with Charlie and me in its direct line of carnage. The flames shoot ferociously toward us, snapping and snarling their way across the grass.
“Run!” Charlie orders, placing an arm behind my back and pushing me toward the building as if we’re soldiers under fire on the battlefield.
“Charlie.” I tug on his arm to stop him after a few steps. He looks back and sees that the small display is shooting short, singular strands of colored fire that don’t quite reach us.
Again, side-of-the-road fireworks, not the midnight Disneyland kind.
“Oh. Right,” he says, running his fingers along his chin. We hold hands, looking on as the final firework putters out.
When it does, he turns to face me again. “This is exactly why if the world was ending, I’d choose you. And not just because you’d keep me alive. But because you make me feel safe.”
“If the world was ending, I’d choose you too. And don’t worry. I’d protect you. Not just from the zombies and gangs, but from the cold. From needles and weird bugs and bumpy plane rides too, if airplanes are still a thing.”
“I don’t know what I’d bring to the table in terms of help, but it sounds perfect.”
“Don’t underestimate yourself. Your fishing skills make you a hot commodity for the end of days. And if that doesn’t work out, we can always sell your body for gas and eggs.”
He smiles. “You’ve thought about this.”
“Of course I have.”
I’m not sure how we got here, talking about apocalyptic survival strategies, but I love it. Because it’s the perfect grand gesture. For me. For us.
“Do you want to go inside and meet everyone?” I ask, pointing a thumb over my shoulder. “There’s plenty of cheese on the buffet.”
“There’s nothing I’d love more,” he says, squeezing my hand.
When the celebration dwindles in the early evening, and Charlie has adequately charmed Nate and Tess, my extended family, my dad and, somehow, my mom, we escape to a quiet spot on the second-floor terrace of the venue. It feels like home. Our version of comfort—sitting on a terrace looking out at the stars.
“I severely overestimated your dance moves,” I tell him as we sit on the weathered wood deck, backs pressed against the chilled sliding glass door. Charlie’s suit jacket is slung across my shoulders, and I can’t help but close my eyes each time I inhale his scent of silky bar soap. I’ve craved that smell these last weeks. “They are so much worse than what I originally thought.”
He bumps my shoulder playfully with his. “Is it true what they say then? Bad dancer, bad in bed?”
I shake my head. “Definitely not true. Though, I’m gonna need a refresher, just to be sure. Very, very soon.”
We kiss.
This kiss, one of several this evening, is once again different from all the others. It’s tender, unhurried, deliberate, and the feeling that comes to mind more than any is that of thankfulness. This kiss is thankful. As his tongue gently finds mine, I wonder when a kiss from Charlie might feel like a plain old kiss from Charlie. I can’t imagine that day coming anytime soon.
When we part, I rest my head on his shoulder. He presses his lips to the top of my head. Now that we are together, out in the open for the world to see, the affection is unrelenting.
“I still cannot believe you managed to win over my mother. I thought it an impossible feat.”
Just a few hours before, I had announced I was single, then I was introducing Charlie as my boyfriend, a statement that had unintentionally fallen out of my mouth when presenting him to my cousin Layla. Without a missed beat, he smiled and nodded in agreement.
“You didn’t think she’d like me?”
“I didn’t think she’d like anyone.”
I could practically see the mechanisms turning in her head. She wanted to hate him. Part of her wanted to pull me aside and insist Charlie is not the guy for me. That I should be with a doctor or an engineer. That I should be a doctor or an engineer. But, alas, my mother has grown. And after the revelation about Zane, I believe she’s giving up, little by little, her plan for me. She looked down at our clasped hands and, finally, said, “Very handsome.”
I pulled him away before things could go south.
While I still care what my parents think, I also know I’m now prepared to follow my own instincts for my own life.
Charlie looks up at the sky and I do the same.
“I decided I’m going to keep at it with acting. It may take years more, but I want it. You’ve taught me there’s no shame in pursuing what you want in life, I’ve just gotta build the path and see it through. Stamina, right?”
“Stamina.” I reflect on my own situation. “Catapult isn’t exactly what I was hoping it would be,” I tell him.
He turns to face me. “No?” he says, and his furrowed expression is one of deep concern. I warm in appreciation at his ardent care for my dreams.
“No, but I’m starting to think perhaps there’s another way. I thought for so long Catapult was the one way to get what I want in my career. But now, I wonder if there’s more opportunity out there than I first realized.”
“Honestly, I’m so glad to hear that. I never wanted to stand in the way of your dreams. I’ll support you in any way that I can.”
“I know. And you’ll get the same from me.”
He raises my hand and presses his lips to the back of it. “I know.”
We stare at the sky, dark and flecked.
“Do you think it will be the same? Here, in the real world? Not in paradise?” I ask.
He’s quiet for a moment before responding, “Turks was real life. It was picturesque, yes, but, Sloane, you know nothing about it was fake. It was real life, just with a beach. And if we can make it through living together and Amazonian centipedes, Andres-level resort games and too much rum punch—”
“Then we are adequately prepared for LA?”
He smirks. “Yes. Exactly. Besides”—he leans in and kisses me again, this one sturdy, grounded—“here, we have tomorrow.”
I look into his eyes and see the shimmer of the millions of stars overhead.
“Did you think about me? Over these last few weeks?” I ask, now staring at the quickly emerging twinkling lights we pretended were shooting stars, a thousand miles away from here.
The sky seems bigger than it ever has. Vast and unbothered and humbling, steeped in history and hope.
“Every day,” he says.
I already know the answer. I just want to hear him say it.
Glinting city lights flicker in the distance and the last of the bloodred sunset disappears completely.
It’s just pollution, I tell myself when my eyes begin to water.
“Sloane Cooper, are you actually crying, you sap?”
“Please,” I say, dabbing quickly at my inner eye.
We watch for a long while, the lights from the city twinkling brighter as the sky softens to a deep plum. And then one light in particular catches my eye, moving across the sky, leaving a trail of white dust behind it. A shooting star. A real one—seeming as though it started as a light from one of those downtown buildings and took off like a rocket and then, ended its voyage with a brief final sparkle.
Or maybe it’s a faraway plane and its contrail.
I can’t know for certain, but tonight, I decide with all of myself, it’s a shooting star.
In this moment, on this terrace, I can see it all with him. A life of adventure. A potential lifelong partner who supports me with unabashed strength. I even see two little blue-eyed, tan-skinned babies—Loki and Delta—running along a sandy beach, giggling and kicking water at their dad.
I squeeze Charlie’s hand, knowing wherever life takes us from here, it must include a terrace for stargazing.