Page 72 of It Happened on a Sunday
“Maybe so.” I shrug. “But Etsy’s a big place.”
His eyes narrow. “Is that a challenge?”
“It’s an observation,” I answer, pulling off a small bite of the concha and popping it in my mouth.
“Observation, my ass.” This time when he smiles, there’s an edge of wickedness to it that does all kinds of interesting things to my insides. “Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Oh, wow! Quite the tyrant when it comes to competition.”
“I like to consider myself a strategist,” he shoots back before taking a much larger bite of the pastry.
“I was talking about myself.”
He laughs then, loud and open and wild in the best possible way. He looks so good that I don’t even care that it’s the money shot, the one that’ll be spread like wildfire across social media before we can make it back to our respective hotels.
We continue eating our dessert while teasing each other about more and more outrageous merch. I try to drag it out by eating the tiniest bites possible. I wasn’t sure I wanted to come on this date to begin with, but now I don’t want it to end.
Too soon, though, the concha is done and Sly is picking up the last of the trash.
“I need to text Marco,” I tell him. “Let him know where to meet me—”
“Are you ready to go?” he asks, and though he sounds fine with it, there’s a disappointment in the depths of his eyes that makes my stomach flip half a dozen times.
“I thoughtyouwere ready,” I blurt out, gesturing to the trash in his hand.
Sly shakes his head. “I’m just getting prepared for the next part of our date.”
“There’s another part?”
“If you want there to be,” he answers, nodding toward the observatory. “You up for a little stargazing?”
What is it about this man that makes him see things before I share them? I’ve loved stargazing since I was a child, though I’ve never told anyone about it. It’s one of the things I miss most when I’m on tour, when I’m always in cities where the lights are too bright to see the stars.
Trust Sly to find a way to give me something I love when I’d never in a million years think to ask for it.
We toss our trash, then head out of the food truck area toward the observatory. His hand brushes mine as we walk under the trees, so I take a risk and reach for it.
He grins down at me as our palms slide together, fingers intertwining like the first notes of a song, uncertain but full of promise. All around us, Griffith Park stretches out, golden and glittery in the late-afternoon sunlight.
Sly and I don’t say much as we wind our way up the hill. But the silence between us isn’t empty. It’s filled with the magic of conversations yet to come. And when the white dome of the observatory finally comes into view, anticipation curls in my stomach.
Sly and the stars in the same time and space as me? Yes, please.
“The show starts in a few minutes,” he says as we walk through the front doors. “We should probably find our seats.”
I follow him into the theater, nerves creeping in as I worry about who we’ll end up sitting next to and whether or not they’ll recognize one of us. But Sly leads me to the back row of what turns out to be an empty theater, and as the final five minutes before the show tick down, I realize only a few other people have joined us. But they’re sitting in the front row and haven’t so much as glanced our way.
“What did you do?” I ask, heart thumping like a metronome on high.
“Bought every ticket that wasn’t already sold,” he answers, lips quirking up at the corners. “I figured you’d enjoy it more if you didn’t have to worry.”
My breath catches in my throat. What am I supposed to do about this guy? What’s the point of having walls if he keeps sneaking around them in the most thoughtful ways imaginable?
I manage to choke out a thank-you as the lights come down around us. And then the room explodes with images of galaxies millions of miles away.
I shiver at the thrill of it all as down in front the live narrator starts explaining the mystery of what we’re looking at.
“You cold?” Sly whispers, shifting so I can cuddle into hiswarmth if I want.
