Page 87 of Written in the Stars
“That’s—”
Elle dropped her eyes, breaking their gaze. “Corny? Sorry.”
No. Or, if it was, Darcy still liked it. She likedElleand all her eccentricities, her quirks. Elle made her smile more in the past month and a half than Darcy could remember smiling over the course of the last two years. “No. I was going to say—” She hadn’t actually known. “Interesting. It’s interesting. I didn’t know that.”
“I taught you something?” Elle trailed a finger down the length of Darcy’s spine and grinned. “Huh. Kudos to me.”
“You’ve taught me plenty of things.” Glitter from Elle’s hair landed on Darcy’s wrist, pink, blue, and silver freckles mingling with the rest of the moles that dotted her skin. Rather than shake it off, Darcy let the glitter linger.
Her cheeks burned when Elle stared, lips quirking curiously. Please don’t let her ask what Darcy had learned.
“Teachmesomething,” Elle said instead. “Preferably something that doesn’t involve death statistics due to inclement weather.”
Darcy cut her eyes. “It was relevant.”
“It wasmorbid.”
Darcy harrumphed.
“Tick tock.” Elle arched a brow sprinkled with glitter.
Darcy drew a blank. Not because all her facts were boring or morose, but because staring at Elle did that to her. Zeroed Darcy’s focus to figuring out what color to call the blue of her eyes. Romantic obsessions that scared her more than any death statistic.
“Um.” Darcy shook her head. “I don’t know. I—” Her factsweren’tboring, but they felt inconsequential in the face of Elle’s cosmic knowledge, her ability to expand Darcy’s world by reducing the universe to something as finite as the fact that the moon had no light of its own, but also infinite in its ability to take her breath away. Being with Elle, around Elle, in the mere presence of Elle meant getting comfortable with constantly being out of her comfort zone. Paradoxical.
Elle’s fingers dipped below the back of Darcy’s dress, flirting with hidden skin, almost indecently low. Her lips twitched and Darcyached. “Come on. Anything.”
“I could tell you a joke.”
What the hell. A joke? Where had that even come from?
Elle’s head bobbed in a frenzied nod, her footsteps faltering, losing the rhythm of the song. “Yes.”
“It’s not funny, notreally. Lower your expectations. It’s—” Darcy sighed. Based on Elle’s wide-eyed look of anticipation, Darcy had committed and now she needed to deliver. “On ourfirst... our first date, you told me you weren’t sure what an actuary does.”
Glitter clung to Elle’s lashes, making every blink sparkle. “I remember.”
Here went nothing. “What I should’ve said was, an actuary is someone who expects everyone to be dead on time.”
Elle blinked, then comprehension dawned on her. She ducked her head and snorted loudly, stumbling into Darcy. “Oh god.”
“Lame, right?” Warmth flooded Darcy’s chest, the knots inside her stomach loosening. Elle could’ve rolled her eyes or shook her head in confusion, but she’d laughed.Snorted. It was such a genuine sound. Real.
Elle rested her head on Darcy’s shoulder and sighed. Each exhale was hot against her neck and it sent a shiver skittering down Darcy’s spine. “That was worse than a dad joke. Don’t get me wrong, I love it. But wow.”
“You asked for it.”
“I guess I did, didn’t I?” Elle lifted her head, arms banding tighter around Darcy’s waist as they continued to sway in time with the slow melody. “Speaking of asking for it, what do you want for Christmas?”
“You don’t have to buy me something. You already got me the tree and it was perfect.”
She was going to cherish that ugly little stump of a tree with its mismatched ornaments forever, keep them safe, start a new tradition like Elle had said.
“That’s not what I asked.”
“I have everything I want.”
Time stopped when Elle looked at her, eyes soft and fond, shining beneath the light of the many chandeliers. She wasn’t entirely sure if she leaned in, or if it was Elle who closed the distance between them, perhaps both. Elle’s lips brushed against hers in a barely there kiss that made her sigh and sway closer, melting into Elle. When the tip of Elle’s tongue darted out, dragging against her bottom lip, Darcy’s toes curled inside her heels and her stomach did a riotous flip, her hands sinking into the waves at the back of Elle’s neck, pulling her closer, keeping her there.
