Chapter 22
RYAN
Jackson drops me off at the curb with a cheerful “Have fun, space boy!” and peels away before I can dive back into his passenger seat.
I walk up the driveway, clutching the strap of my messenger bag for dear life. Inside the bag is my star chart, a couple of bottles of water, and a blanket that belonged to Mom.
The front door swings open before I can knock.
“RYAN!” Gerard Gunnarson fills the doorway. “Bestie! You’re early! This is perfect! Come in, come in!”
Before I can protest, a massive hand clamps around my wrist and drags me into the foyer.
“Oliver’s upstairs getting ready,” Gerard announces, steering me toward the living room. “Which means we have time for bestie bonding!”
“Gerard, I don’t think—”
“Drew! Drew, he’s here!”
Drew Larney materializes from the kitchen, a beer in one hand and a grin on his face that immediately puts me on edge.
He’s wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt that says “I Put the Cute in Barracute-a,” and his expression suggests I’m about to be his entertainment.
“Ry-guy. The man of the hour, and the reason our fearless captain has been stress-cleaning since noon.”
“Stress-cleaning?”
“He alphabetized the spice rack,” Gerard stage-whispers. “We don’t even use spices.”
I have no idea how to respond to this information. Oliver stress-cleaned…because of me?
“So.” Drew takes a slow sip of his beer. “Lunar eclipse, huh?”
“Yes. The moon will pass through Earth’s umbral shadow, resulting in—”
“Fascinating.” Drew’s tone tells me he finds it anything but. “And you need Oliver for this because…”
“He asked to come. He said he wanted to learn about the things I care about.”
Gerard clutches his chest dramatically. “That’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard.”
“It’s not romantic. It’s educational.”
“Educational.” Drew draws out the word exactly the way I’ve heard Jackson do when he’s being sarcastic. “That’s exactly what Oliver said. Is that what the cool kids are calling it now?”
Heat floods my cheeks. I’m suddenly very aware that I’m standing in the middle of the Hockey House living room, being interrogated by two people who clearly think they know something I don’t. “What exactly are you implying?”
“We’re not implying anything.” Gerard’s grin widens. “We’re stating. Explicitly. You and Oliver are going on a date.”
“It’s not a date.”
“You’re spending the night alone together under the stars.”
“For scientific observation.”
“He cleaned the kitchen for you.”
“That seems like a personal choice unrelated to—”
“He ironed his shirt.” Drew leans forward, eyes glinting. “I’ve known him for three years, and I’ve never once seen him touch an iron. He’s probably checking his reflection for the fortieth time.”
My heart does something new. Flutter, maybe. Or a full cardiac event. “That doesn’t mean—”
“Ryan.” Gerard’s voice softens, losing some of its manic energy. “I’m going to ask you something, and I need you to answer honestly. Bestie to bestie.”
“We’ve known each other for a semester.”
He swats an invisible fly. “Irrelevant. Do you like Oliver?”
The question is like a grenade with the pin pulled. Dangerous. I should deflect. Employ any of the dozens of avoidance tactics I’ve perfected over two decades of emotional self-preservation. Instead, I hear myself say, “I’ve liked Oliver since I was ten years old.”
The admission escapes before I can stop it, and my chest cracks open. Gerard’s eyes go wide. Drew nearly drops his beer.
“He was my best friend. My only friend, really. And then my dad got reassigned, we moved, and I never talked to him again until this year. I remember the first time I saw him here. It was from across the quad, and I panicked. I’d spent years convincing myself that the friendship we had was just a childhood thing, that it didn’t mean anything, that he’d forgotten all about me.
” I’m rambling now, the words spilling out faster than I can control them.
“So I avoided him. I was terrified that if I got close again, if I let myself care again, I’d lose him forever. ”
“Ryan.” Gerard’s voice is uncharacteristically gentle. “That’s really sad.”
“I know.”
“Like, really, really sad.”
“I know.”
“Like, I want to hug you, but also I want to shake you for wasting the years—”
“Gerard.” Oliver’s voice cuts through from the stairway, sharp with exasperation. “What are you doing?”
We all turn to see Oliver descending the stairs.
His dark hair is devoid of its usual spikes, and his green eyes are fixed on the six-five behemoth of a man with an expression that promises retribution.
He’s traded his usual clothes for a forest-green polo, dark-colored shorts that look brand-new, and black flip-flops.
“Nothing!” Gerard holds up his massive hands, the perfect picture of innocence. “Just chatting with my bestie!”
“You’re interrogating him.” Oliver reaches the bottom of the stairs and crosses to me in three long strides. His equally massive hand lands on my shoulder, warm and grounding, and some of the tension in my chest releases.
“I’m sorry about them,” he says, low enough that it’s almost private. “They have no concept of boundaries.”
“It’s fine.” My voice comes out steadier than I feel. “They’re just curious.”
“They’re nosy.” Oliver shoots a glare at his teammates. “We’re leaving now. Don’t wait up.”
“Use protection!” Gerard calls as Oliver steers me toward the door.
“Gerard, I swear to God—”
“Love you, Ollie!”
The door closes behind us before Oliver can deliver his threat.
The night air is cool against my flushed cheeks. I take a deep breath, letting it settle me.
“Sorry,” Oliver says again. It’s not lost on me that he hasn’t removed his hand from my shoulder. “They mean well, but they have the subtlety of a cow in a field of mice.”
“It’s okay. Really. They care about you. It’s sweet.”
“They care about the drama. I’m just a convenient source of it.” He’s smiling now. That’s a good sign. “Come on. The astronomy tower awaits.”
We walk across campus, side by side, the path lit by old-fashioned lampposts that cast pools of golden light against the growing darkness.
The astronomy tower sits at the edge of campus, a narrow brick structure that most students forget exists.
But I’ve spent countless nights up there, alone with the stars, pretending I could hear Mom’s voice in the silence.
The door is unlocked during the summer, and we climb the spiral staircase to the observation deck. It’s small, even more so with a beefy hockey player in tow.
“Wow.” Oliver steps onto the deck, his neck craning until his Adam’s apple juts sharply against the skin of his throat. His jaw slackens as his gaze travels upward into the vast darkness punctuated by pinpricks of ancient light. “You can really see the stars here.”
“Light pollution is minimal on this side of campus.” I set my bag down and start unpacking. “The eclipse won’t start for another hour, but we should be able to see the moon clearly once our eyes adjust.”
Oliver lowers himself onto the curved wooden bench, the old boards creaking slightly under his weight.
His hand pats the empty space beside him, fingers drumming once against the weathered grain.
I stand frozen for three heartbeats before my legs carry me forward.
As I sit, our thighs nearly touch. I unfold Mom’s blanket—the one with the constellation patterns she’d hand-stitched along the border—and the fabric settles across our knees.
Oliver’s arm stretches behind me, his fingertips grazing the metal railing.
His ankle slides over his knee, settling into place as the flip-flop dangles precariously from his toes.
“This is nice,” Oliver says quietly. “Peaceful.”
“That’s why I come here. When everything else gets too loud, this is where I go to think.”
“What do you think about?”
“Space, mostly. The scale of it. How small we are in comparison. It’s comforting, in a weird way. Knowing that whatever problems I have, the universe has been spinning for billions of years and will keep spinning long after I’m gone.”
“That’s either very Zen or very nihilistic.”
“Probably both.”
We sit in silence for a while, sipping water and watching the sky grow darker. The moon emerges, hanging fat and full above us, silver white and impossibly bright. In less than an hour, it will begin to darken as Earth’s shadow creeps across its face.
“Can I ask you something?” Oliver’s voice drops to a whisper, the words catching slightly in his throat. “How did your mom get into astronomy? You mentioned she passed the passion on to you, but you never told me the story.”
I’ve guarded this story since the funeral, kept it folded away in the farthest corner of my mind. But sitting here with Oliver, the night wrapped around us, I find myself wanting to unfold it for him.
“She was an Army nurse. That’s how my parents met—they were stationed at the same base. But before that, before the military, she wanted to be an astronaut.”
The memory surfaces unbidden: Mom at the kitchen table, late at night, her chestnut hair draped over star charts while the rest of the house slept. She’d trace the constellations with her fingertip, naming them softly, as if they were old friends she was catching up with.
“When I was six,” I continue, “I asked her why she looked at the stars so much. She pulled me onto her lap and pointed at the moon through the window. Told me that when she was young, she dreamed of walking up there. Of leaving footprints in the lunar dust.”
In the gentle dark, with only Oliver’s steady breathing beside me, I find my voice no longer catches on the memories I’ve kept buried for so long.
“She said, ‘Ryan, I wanted to touch the universe. To be out there, floating among the stars, seeing Earth the way all the astronauts who came before me did.’ I asked her why she didn’t go. Why was she here instead of up there?”
I remember the sadness in her eyes.