Chapter Seventeen
Aleksi
The sky over Seattle looks unsure if it’s going to cooperate tonight.
I check the forecast again even though I’ve already checked it eight times. Clear enough for a few hours. If the weather holds, the planets will do the rest.
I get a text on my phone:
Donna-Trey’s Realtor: Congratulations. The house officially closed. Can you meet me tomorrow to get the keys? Want me to pull the For Sale sign before I leave today?
I can hardly believe that I bought a house that cost half my yearly contract guarantee but Vivi said that she’d been in the neighbors house a few times for birthday parties with Adeline and it would be perfect for Kendall.
If I trust anyone to understand Kendall’s taste, it’s Vivi.
I know that buying a house without asking Kendall is a huge step that she’s either going to take as romantic or pushy.
If she hates the house or thinks I’ve lost my damn mind for buying it for her then the realtor said there were four other offers on the table and she can turn around and resell it for me.
Me: No. Keep the For Sale on it for a few more days until I can bring Kendall to see it. I don’t want to freak her out.
Donna-Trey’s Realtor: No problem. Just let me know if you want me to relist it, otherwise I’ll come by for the sign in a few days. Good luck!
I’m taking a huge leap here, I know, but Kendall deserves the best and so does our kid. That apartment is too small and I have the money to make sure she gets what she should have had a long time ago.
I could see in her eyes how much she wanted that crib and chair in a nursery for him. And it’s the one thing I can do to take something off her plate.
Next thing… that ancient car. But one step at a time or Kendall might run for the hills. She scares a little easily. I have to go slow with her. Not the pace I want to take but I’ll do it.
The plans Vivi has for the nursery sound perfect and I gave her an unlimited budget to do it with.
Painters arrive tomorrow and then furniture the day after.
My phone buzzes again, but this time it’s my sister.
Saara: Everything on for tonight?
I grin. Of course my sister remembered. She knows how much this night needs to go right.
Me: On. As long as the clouds stay away.
While I wait for her to answer, I move through my apartment ticking off items I’ve triple-checked already.
Picnic basket—packed. Lanterns—charged. Telescope—collimated and begging to show off.
Printed star map on heavy paper—coordinates of the night we met, the exact time stamped like a secret only the two of us know.
Another buzz.
Saara: They’ll cooperate. You’re the most stubborn person I know, and the sky fears you.Saara: Also, breathe.Saara: And remember who you are.
I open the pantry, close it again. I don’t need anything in there, but my hands want a job.
A bench-scratcher who was told he skated wide, shot wild, thought too much. A late call-up. An optimist because if you don’t expect the puck you’ll miss it when it comes. A man whose chest has felt hollow since that night in Nevada. Another buzz.
Saara: Don’t forget, you’re a fighter, Aleksi. You always have been.
Saara: Sometimes you also have to tell people what you want and if she’s not madly in love with you already, then something is wrong with her.
A screenshot fills my screen of a text exchange between me and my sister. It was training camp week one.
Me (last year): I just met my future wife today. She’s the team doctor.
Heat climbs up my neck. I remember hitting send and tossing the phone face-down like the words might explode.
Me (now): I was jet-lagged.
Saara: You were in love, and you still are. Go set up your fairy lights, Romeo.
I’m still smiling when the knock comes. Not a timid tap. Three decisive knocks that sound like a woman who has a city to run, a team to hold together, and a baby boy casually growing inside her.
I text Saara back quickly.
Me: She’s here.
Then I pocket the phone and open the door.
Kendall stands there in a soft black sweater dress and sneakers, hair braided over one shoulder, cheeks bright as if she walked three blocks fast and argued with herself the whole way.
She smells like coconut shampoo and not her usual doctor smell.
It hits me in the sternum in a way that has nothing to do with my lungs.
“Hi,” she says, cautious but smiling.
“Hi,” I say, trying not to stare at the curve of her belly, currently protecting our son as he grows, hopefully with a stronger heart than mine. “You’re right on time.”
“I only live a few blocks away,” she deadpans. “Even I can’t mess that up.”
I lift the picnic basket. “Good. Because I… may have planned a thing.”
“A thing?”
“Are you okay with a rooftop picnic? I might have bribed the stars too.”
The corner of her mouth tugs. “You’re bribing the stars now?”
“Only with dessert.”
“Okay,” she says softly. “Show me.”
We take the elevator up and then the extra stairs, the wind cooler on the roof, the city flaring to life around the Commons like someone flicked the dimmer from moody to gold.
I’ve spent the last two hours transforming the corner by the pergola into something not even the most jaded part of me can call anything but romantic: fairy lights strung along the lattice, lanterns low, a thick blanket spread wide, mismatched cushions like a soft barricade against the world.
The telescope stands beside it like a quiet conspirator.
Seattle hums below us—headlights threading the streets, the bay a black mirror cut by a ferry’s light.
Kendall stops. “Aleksi…”
“It’s not much,” I start.
“It’s beautiful.” She says it like a fact she can’t talk herself out of.
I lift the basket onto the blanket. “Sit. Eat. Pretend we’ve always done this in the right order and I didn’t…” I gesture vaguely at her belly. “Get enthusiastic before asking you out.”
She chuckles. “Enthusiastic? Is that what we're calling failed condoms now?”
“I’m working on my PG version of events. We’re going to have little ears here soon enough.”
Her laugh breaks open the last of my tension.
I pour sparkling water into tumblers, plate the food: still-warm mushroom and truffle flatbreads from the place across the street that Scottie says has the best food, roasted carrots with yogurt, a tangy apple salad with butter lettuce, a little box of cardamom buns because Saara previews the menu for me to make sure I was picking the best ideas and told me if I didn’t include the cardamom buns that I’d lose Kendall forever to a man with better taste in food.
I was going to cook but when I told Saara she told me that mom’s always been biased and my cooking is not that great.
“So,” I say, passing her a plate. “The doctor is allowed to eat carbs tonight?”
“The doctor is allowed to eat anything that doesn’t smell like onions.” She stares at the flatbread like it might make vows to her. “This smells like heaven.”
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…?”
“A double star,” I say. “Two stars that look like one until you look close.”
“Seems on brand.”