Chapter 11

CHAPTER ELEVEN

BENNETT

Being with Theo was easy. He seemed to have an innate ability to put me at ease in conversation. He teased me about my age, about my inability to hide behind curtains, and about my reputation in town for being the world's best—and most ruthlessly efficient—uncle.

After a while, I gave as good as I got. I asked him if he'd ever drawn NSFW illustrations. He turned adorably pink when he admitted that he had. When I asked if he'd done them of anyone he knew in real life, he got even pinker and mimed zipping his lips. But I got the feeling from the way he looked at me that I might have featured in one or two of them.

I also asked him about his jobs and about his relationship with his family. He told me about his mother, who was a combination of wonderful and terrifying; about his oldest brother, Julian, a veterinarian who ran a romance novel book club with his longtime boyfriend; and about his other big brother, Constantine, who ran Ross Landscaping and was planning to adopt a child with his husband. He even told me about his father, who'd passed away when Theo was just a kid.

Now that we'd begun talking, it felt like the conversational floodgates had opened, and neither of us wanted to stop. I was enthralled with him and endlessly curious about the things and people and places he loved. We even exchanged a little Copper County gossip, discussing everything from old Milton Knight and his obsession with his rare Icelandic chickens— "Just be glad you don't live closer to the Knights' house, Bennett, that's all I'm saying."— to how old Mr. Wrigley had passed away and his wife, Mabel, had recently had a stroke, to Watt Bartlett's plans for expanding his orchard. Theo told me about an online course he'd taken over the winter in graphic design, and I asked his advice on a hiring decision I needed to make.

When the sky finally faded to inky black, the subject of stargazing came up again.

"You said you were going to show me your telescope," Theo said, eyes sparkling. "I was kind of hoping that was a euphemism."

I snorted and pulled him closer. We'd wrapped our limbs around each other a while ago and hadn't let go since. "If it wasn't, it certainly is now."

Theo reached out and caressed the side of my face. "Will you show me the stars first? I really do want to see them, and I want to share something that's special to you. Like the logic puzzles." He moved his mouth close to my ear. "And the creeping on each other."

I moved my face to kiss him. It was lazy and slow this time, seeking and finding, and I took my time indulging in the lack of urgency. When we finally separated, his eyes were glazed.

"Let me take you up. We can look for noctilucent clouds."

I pulled him out of the pool, handing him a fresh towel before leading him to the circular stairs behind my office. He asked questions about the observatory as we made our way up several flights, but when we finally arrived on the main observational level, he got quiet.

While he looked around, I double-checked the positioning. When I'd found something interesting for him to look at, I urged him over and placed him in easy reach of the eyepiece. I explained how to adjust the focus, and when I finally heard him gasp, I could tell he'd discovered the target.

"Saturn." His voice was reverent, and it reminded me of the earliest memories of finding the planets with my grandfather. "You can actually see the rings."

"It has at least eighty-two moons. You should be able to at least see Titan," I explained, giving him pointers on how to find it. "Titan, Rhea, Dione, and Tethys are considered the ‘major four.'"

He asked several questions without pulling away from the eyepiece. The awe in his voice was satisfying to hear. Sharing the magic of discovery was thrilling with anyone, but sharing it with him felt like an even bigger gift for some reason.

As soon as he pulled away, he begged for me to show him something else. I used the finder to move the telescope to Regulus before gesturing him back into position.

"You're a Leo, right? Regulus is the brightest star in the constellation. Alpha Leonis." I pulled up a stool so I could sit behind him and wrap my arms around him while he continued looking. "It's actually four stars. The largest of them is Regulus A, and it is almost four times larger than our sun. What's interesting about it is that it spins so fast on its axis the motion causes it to bulge in the center, which makes it appear egg-shaped."

He asked questions about how fast it spun compared to the Earth and what the other three stars were like in comparison. I could have talked to him about stars all night, but the feel of his warm body against mine was too tempting to ignore.

I leaned forward and pressed a kiss to the back of his neck. "Stay with me tonight?" I murmured.

"God, yes." He turned around and kissed me on the lips. After a moment, he pulled back and shot me a cheeky grin. "You'll let me come back and stargaze with you again sometime?"

"Absolutely," I said.

And because it felt right and fated, because it felt like Theo and I were discovering something here that had been a billion years in the making and would shine bright enough for a hundred lifetimes, I added, "Theo Ross, I think you and I will be stargazing together for a long, long time."

And we did. Over and over again. Until our time together could be measured in months and then years. Until neither of us could remember a time we hadn't existed. Until Theo no longer had to do more than stumble out of our bed and pull his sleepy husband upstairs with him to watch the stars together one more time.