Page 95 of Player Misconduct
We eat. The wind teases the fairy lights. A gull cries once and then decides it has better places to be. For a few minutes the city falls away and it’s just her tiny sounds of appreciation and the way she keeps catching herself with her palm on her belly, as if she can’t quite believe he’s there.
“How was your day?” I ask.
“Long.” She takes a slow breath. “Penelope put out several fires with one email. I signed forms. I pretended the internet didn’t exist.”
“The internet is canceled,” I say solemnly. “By order of me.”
“You have that power?”
“I have a telescope. That is basically the same thing.”
She smiles, then looks toward the edge of the roof where the sky opens. “I forgot how much I like being up high. It makes the city feel… manageable.”
“Then we’ll stay up here until it is.”
“Let me show you something,” I say, before I can ruin the moment with nerves. I pull the tube from the basket—the rolled print tied with twine—and pass it to her.
“What is this?”
“Coordinates,” I say. “To someone important.”
Her brow lifts. “Should I be jealous?”
“Open it.”
She unties the string, the paper unfurling across her lap. A navy sky dusted with constellations, the coordinates printed small at the bottom, the title in simple white type:
The Night You Were Found.
Her hand flies to her mouth. “Aleksi…”
“It’s the sky over Seattle the night you told me about him,” I say quietly. “The first time you said the words out loud.”
She traces a finger over the stars. “You bought him a star?”
“A bright one,” I admit. “Registered and everything. You just have to pick his name and then we can officially finish the registry.”
She laughs, the sound small and shaky. “I get to pick his name?”
I nod. “Someday he’ll ask about how we brought him into this world, and you can point out the window and tell him he already had his own piece of our sky before he was even here.”
“Come on,” I say lightly, because otherwise I might say I love you and I promised myself I wouldn’t. “Before the clouds change their minds.”
I set the telescope, fingers remembering motions my father taught me in our backyard, breath syncing to the simple joy of lining up light-years for someone you want to impress without making it feel like a trick. Saturn first; she deserves rings.
“Look,” I tell her, stepping back.
She bends to the eyepiece, braid sliding forward, sweater shifting over the soft curve of her. The wind lifts a strand of hair; I want to tuck it behind her ear and don’t. She inhales sharply.
“Saturn,” she whispers. “Whoa, I didn’t realize how clearly you can see everything with these. It looks fake.” She straightens, eyes wide. “Like a sticker.”
“We forgive it because it’s old. Life gets busy on earth. It’s perspective I guess.”
She laughs again, the sound like a small fire in a cold room. “What else can I see?”
“Jupiter will be sulking behind clouds for another hour,” I say. “But I can show you Albireo.”
“Which is…?”
