Her face softened. “You’re too sweet, but I’m going to have to pass on the champagne tonight.”
My smile fell and I felt my forehead wrinkle in confusion. “How come?” Liv didn’t drink often but when she did, she loved champagne. It was her favorite.
She nudged me with her shoulder. “It makes me sleepy. And I have big plans tonight. They include you and me inside that tent, buck ass naked.”
“Well, in that case,” I set the champagne back inside the basket and pulled out a small bottle of water, “I’m going to need you to hydrate up.”
She laughed as she took the bottle of water from me. “You’re crazy.”
“Only for you.”
She leaned up and kissed my lips in a soft, slow close-mouthed kiss before saying, “Let’s eat.”
And so we did. We sat beneath a cloud covered sky on our blue blanket, snacked, and talked about our days at the planetarium and community center. Liv gushed about the kids she taught about the stars and I listened closely, her voice music to my ears, hanging on her every word.
When we finished eating, we lay back on the blanket side by side, cozied up together, her hand in mine, looking at the dark sky quietly. And as I lay there, I realized I could still visualize every star, every constellation. That was what this girl did to me. My dreamer made me dream. As a boy, I couldn’t. I didn’t dare. But the man I was now, he did. All because of her.
I was starting to realize with every passing moment of Liv pressed into my side underneath the gray night sky that the stars weren’t gone. They were just hidden. I could still see them in my mind’s eye, so I raised my hand to the sky and pointed. “Can you see Ursa Major, Liv? He’s right there,” I said, my breath a puff of smoke in front of me since it was growing so cold.
I felt Liv’s head turn toward me so I looked at her, my heart hanging out there for the world to see. God, I loved her so.
“I see it,” she whispered back, her eyes shining.
Chapter Six
Liv
I lay in the field, my boy with the tattoos by my side. It was chilly, but I hardly felt a thing as the deep timbre of Adam’s voice warmed me from the inside out. He told me stories of the sky that I’d heard time and time again, but I didn’t mind a bit. When Adam talked to me about the stars, it felt like putting on my very oldest and favorite shirt. It felt like home. I was just glad we were here. In this moment. In this space.
I was so relieved he’d finally agreed to come and lay under the stars. Otherwise, my big plans would have never worked out like they did.
I’d had a surprise for him tonight, too. He’d almost foiled my plans with this unexpected overnight trip, but I’d improvised and grabbed the old familiar Coke bottle he’d left notes in for me long ago on the way.
When I realized he was bringing me to the field, it seemed like fate, much like Adam and me. I knew that tonight was the night to finally tell him. And I was beyond excited.
I rolled up onto my elbow, facing him, resting my head on my hand, and smiled down. “Thanks for bringing me out here tonight, Nova. I really needed it.”
He ran a cool hand down the side of my face. “We need to make more time to come back here every now and then. And not just for work.” He was right. I’d missed my field of hope and my sky of dreams.
I pressed my face into his hand and kissed his sweet palm. “I think I might have lost a glove on the ground over your head. Can you grab it for me?” I whispered into that sweet hand.
Sitting up, I watched as he followed suit and turned around to get my glove, only to find the glass Coke bottle there instead.
He stared at the bottle for three seconds, then looked at me before looking back at it again.
“Well, are you going to pick it up?” I asked, grinning.
His forehead scrunched in an adorable way that I’d grown to love and a quick bout of apprehension passed over his face as he lifted the Coke bottle and held it up, studying it from the outside like he couldn’t understand exactly what was happening. “Is this our Coke bottle?”
Giving him a soft smile, I said, “Yes.”
He hitched a crooked, barely there smile back at me. “Isn’t that my thing though? Leaving notes in a bottle for you?”
I bit my lip to hold my laughter in. “It is. But this is a special occasion.”
I saw it then. The same sadness that had haunted his eyes for the past year. It was a sadness that peeked through that reminded me of the boy I’d sneak out to see in the middle of night. The boy who hardly smiled. The boy who never dreamed. The boy who didn’t dare hope.
But I loved that boy, just as I loved the man before me. I just had to remind him from time to time that he wasn’t that kid who’d lost everything anymore. That he had me. That he had us. And that life was good. In fact, our life was amazing and it was only going to get better.
He stared at the bottle in his hand like he was trying to see the contents without even tipping it upside down and letting them fall into his palm. He looked afraid.
I pushed up on my knees until I kneeled before him and then I lay my forehead to his. “Open it, Adam,” I whispered across his lips.
I was waiting on him to take a chance on me, on that bottle, just like I had on him and that bottle years ago. I wasn’t the least bit disappointed that I had and he wouldn’t be either if he would just look inside.
“Okay,” he whispered back before laying such a sweet, soft kiss to my lips, I could have cried.
With our knees pressed together and my heart practically jumping out of my chest, Adam turned over the bottle and a white, rolled up piece of notebook paper fell into his hands.
But I wasn’t looking at the contents of the bottle. I knew what they were. I was staring at my gorgeous husband’s face as he unrolled the paper to find the small plastic test inside.
A loud gush of air escaped him and all of a sudden I was in his embrace, his arms so tight around me I could barely breathe.
I swallowed hard as tears gathered at the corners of my eyes before warming the cold of my cheeks.
And then I heard it. The small gasps of air, the choke of a barely there sob. I tried to pull away from him so I could check on him, but he just held me there, his face buried in my hair so I clutched him to me, too. I rubbed his hair and his back and whispered how much I loved him until he finally quieted.
He finally let me go, only to hold the test up between us, his face red and wet. “Are you sure?” he choked out.
I nodded and gave him a soft smile before grabbing each side of his face with my hands. I used my thumbs to wipe new tears that spilled over from his aquamarine eyes. “I’m pregnant.”
He looked down at the test in his hand and I let my hands fall away from his face, looking down at it, too. The long thin, digital test read pregnant as plain as day.
“Are you sure?”
I could read it all over his face. He was still that teenage boy on the inside…the one who didn’t dare to hope. But he didn’t have to.
“Yes, baby. I took five pregnancy tests. They all came back positive. We’re having a baby.”
He tackled me to the blanket and kissed me hard before pulling back, breathing heavily. And then concern covered his face. “Fuck. I didn’t hurt you, did I? Or the baby?”