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We faced each other. Stared.

Reed bent his legs at the knees and dangled his hands between them, leather-encased forearms pressed to his thighs. My body was halfway submerged in water, his bone-dry, but the crackling charge in the air upstaged the elements that separated us, while pearly starlight blanketed him in a soft glow.

Sky, water, earth.

Him.

His gaze held with mine, and for a moment, time seemed to suspend as we allowed the silence to breathe, the thump of music from the party serving only as a distant heartbeat.

“So, Halley Like the Comet,” Reed finally spoke, his voice a gentle ripple in the summer breeze. “Do you have a story to go along with the name?”

I continued to flick my toes in and out of the water as droplets splashed along my lower legs. “My mom was a stargazer. A dreamer.”

“Was? Past tense?”

“Yes. Now she’s just an alcoholic.”

Too dark. Too deep.

I chomped down on my tongue like I could chew through the spoken words and swallow them back down.

His expression wilted. “Sorry to hear.”

“Who were you looking for?”

He tugged his bottom lip between his teeth and made a hissing sound, processing my swift subject change.

I tried not to focus on the action but failed.

“My daughter,” he said.

I blanched at the admission, my bobbing legs ceasing all motion. “You have a daughter?”

“Yes.”

“A daughter old enough to be at a party?”

Shifting across from me, he sighed as the soles of his boots drew imprints in the muted sand. “Thanks for that stone-cold reminder. I’m still getting used to the concept of her having a social life that doesn’t involve Disney movies and bedtime stories.”

Oh, boy.

I was way out of my league with this guy. Something told me I should remove myself from the conversation with dignity before the curious allure of him eclipsed my logical thinking.

Unfortunately for both of us, I ignored the nagging tug of sound judgment.

“Her mom said she’d be here, but this isn’t really her scene,” he added, scratching his jaw. “She likes beachy bonfires and country music, not the grunge scene with rowdy douchebags. Thought she might’ve come outside.”

“Nope. Just me out here.” I dug my toes into the lake floor until they were wholly hidden. “Sorry to disappoint.”

He paused, his eyes returning to mine, twinkling with what looked like pale-green flecks now that he was closer. “I’m not disappointed.”

My smile returned, less foreign this time. I’d smiled more in the last few minutes than the last few years and we’d hardly exchanged more than a handful of sentences. “Well, then. Cheers to random, strange encounters behind Jay’s house.” I lifted my invisible flute in the air.

A half-grin twitched on his mouth as he moved an inch closer to me in the sand, his boots teasing the water. “How do you know him?”

“Through Becky.” Everybody knew a Becky. I didn’t, but he probably did. “She left a little while ago and I don’t know anyone else here.”

“Sure you don’t need a ride?”

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