Chapter 32
thirty-two
Georgia
“Georgia.”
Before I’m even fully awake, I catch the excitement in Cash’s voice.
It stirs me right out of sleep. “Cash?” I whisper.
The half-open curtains reveal a sky that’s the dark, inky blue of deep night, but a sliver of light from the hallway spills into the room.
The mattress dips where Cash sits on the edge, looking wide-awake and full of surprises.
I sit up and gasp at the sea of purple and lavender balloons covering the floor, gently moving and bumping together. I blink down at them, almost as amused as I am disoriented.
“Happy birthday, baby,” he says.
I laugh and then almost cry before settling on a bewildered smile as I take in what he’s done: the wall-to-wall balloons, the glittery Happy Birthday letters strung across the mirror, the paper-flower crown placed delicately at the foot of the bed.
I reach for Cash’s hand. “This is so…sweet,” I say, the word totally inadequate. “Am I disoriented, or is it the middle of the night?”
“It is, indeed. Just a few minutes past midnight, and I hate to wake you, but I have a surprise, and it has to be now.” He reaches down and produces a stack of clothing from the floor, his beloved white Shafer Football hoodie folded on top.
“Get dressed and meet me downstairs.” He kisses me and grabs the flower crown before shuffling to the door through the sea of balloons.
When I come downstairs, sleepy but exhilarated, a pile of my winter gear sits by the front door. “Bundle up, beautiful, you’re gonna need it.”
I don’t hesitate to follow instructions. “For what, exactly?” I ask, stepping into my boots.
“No questions will be answered until we arrive at our destination.”
Once we’re both bundled up, he escorts me outside to a gray pickup truck—Cam’s, I think—which is already running and toasty warm.
A travel mug of hot cocoa sits waiting in my cupholder, and soft classical music flows from the speakers.
I bite back my questions and relax into the coziness of our confined space while he steers the truck out of the driveway and onto the darkened, empty roads.
There’s a surreal quality to the night, thanks in part to the fact I’m still sleepy and confused, but it’s soothing knowing Cash is in charge and I don’t have to do a thing but exist right here next to him.
I don’t pay attention to the clock, so it could be thirty minutes or an hour before Cash turns off the road onto a driveway marked by a big wooden sign reading Blue Lakes State Park.
My heart flutters at the words below the name.
Designated Dark Sky Place. So that night at the Hartnells’ house, when I was telling his family about my birthday traditions, he was filing my words away for later—and that was before I knew I needed him in my life.
“You’re either taking me stargazing, or we’re burying a body tonight, right?”
“Why not both?”
“Hopefully because you don’t have said body in the back of the truck?”
“Yeah. Plus, I’m a traditionalist, and you only mentioned stargazing on your birthday, so I figured I better stick to the script.”
There’s not another car in sight as we creep through the park, past the darkened visitor center and empty parking lots and trailheads, finally turning down a single-lane road surrounded by clearings. He chooses a parking space from the empty row on the left and kills the engine.
“You sit tight,” he orders, then hops out.
The truck shifts as he moves around in the bed behind me, aided only by a flashlight, and then he’s opening the passenger door and holding out his arm to me.
With his hand around mine, he escorts me to the truck bed, which has been padded on all sides by puffy sleeping bags, pillows, and wool blankets, a giant nest that looks cozy enough to fall asleep in.
“Climb in, baby.” His voice is soft but fills the quiet night.
The few minutes it takes for my eyes to adjust to the darkness are bliss with Cash’s body close to mine, two heavy blankets pulled over us, my warm cocoa in my hand, and the sky stretching endlessly overhead.
“Shit,” Cash whispers as we lie there. “Every time I look around, I see more stars.”
“Right? It’s incredible what you see when your eyes adjust. Especially in a Dark Sky Place. I haven’t been to one in years.” I press closer to him and rest my head against his shoulder.
“Now you’re in the hot seat because I expect an astronomy lesson.”
“Uh-oh. I don’t know how much I remember of my dad’s teachings.”
“I’ll be easy to impress, I promise. Which is your favorite constellation?”
“As a kid, I always loved the dogs—no surprise there. Canis Major and Canis Minor.”
“Big dog and little dog?”
“Technically, I think it means greater dog and lesser dog.”
“Rude.”
“I always thought the little one was cute. Canis Major contains Sirius, though, which is the brightest star in the sky.”
“Fuck yeah. When I grow up, I want to be Canis Major.”
A laugh vibrates through me, spilling past my lips and echoing all around us. “You can be anything you want to be, my love. Reach for the stars. I have to say, I see you more as Orion, though.”
“Ryan?”
I bark out a laugh, then strangle it when I realize he’s not joking. “You’ve never heard of Orion?”
“Oh. Yeah, the guy with the belt, right?”
“That’s right. Orion the Hunter.”
“Huh.” His lips brush against my hair, and he dots a reverent kiss on my head. “Does he always get what he chases?”
I smile. “Let’s say yes.”
“Can I ask a himbo question and still get to be Orion in your eyes?”
“Go for it,” I say affectionately. I love that Cash doesn’t need to be the smartest person in every room.
“Can we see the astronauts’ shoe prints on the moon? Like, is there a telescope out there strong enough? Because we have ones that can see billions of light-years away, right?”
“You’re right, so it’s a good question. I don’t know much about telescopes, but I think the reason is that they’re really good at resolution—making objects clearer—but not as good at magnification.
So they can make something huge like a planet look sharper but not see something tiny like footprints, even if they’re closer. ”
He nods. “Yeah, okay, that makes sense. What other nerdy knowledge do you keep hidden from me?”
“Oh, plenty. You just let me know when you want to start learning about classical composers.”
We lie there for a long time, Cash occasionally asking questions, but mostly we bask in the magic of the dark and the silence until my empty stomach rumbles loudly.
“Was that your belly growling? Good thing I remembered to bring breakfast.”
“Breakfast? If you pull out a hot plate and a carton of eggs…”
“No more guesses. You sit tight and let me whip it up.”
He clicks on the flashlight and hops out of the truck bed. For a few minutes, there’s only the sound of him shuffling things around in the back seat, then the door shuts and the distinct glow of firelight illuminates the dark.
I sit up to find Cash inching around the truck, his face lit by the cluster of candles atop the cake clutched in his hands. “God help me if I drop this thing. My football days are over if I go to jail for starting a forest fire.”
The laugh that comes out of me turns to tears before it can meet the night air.
As he sets the cake carefully on the open tailgate, I stare in awe, taking in the swirls of near-black chocolate frosting and the smattering of moons, stars, and constellations of shimmery gold fondant.
Just like the birthday cakes of my childhood, right down to my name written in gold script.
“You remembered,” I whisper.
“I remember every word you’ve ever said to me.”
“It’s beautiful, Cash.” I swipe at the tears on my cheeks. “How did you know about the details? It looks exactly like the ones I remember.”
He looks pleased with himself. “Those photo albums of your aunt’s came in handy.”
“Aunt Julie was never there for my birthday.”
“Maybe your parents sent her a picture. I had to search, but it was in there, sweet little pigtailed Georgia puffing up her cheeks to blow out the candles.” He shrugs. “However it got there, it was special enough to make the album.”
Curiosity pokes at me, but in the cozy glow of flickering candlelight and Cash’s soft rendition of “Happy Birthday,” it’s small next to my happiness.
“Well, make a wish, birthday girl,” he says, placing the paper-flower crown on my head.
Biting my lip, I think it over. I’ve never been the girl with a mile-long wish list, even back when I was little and believed in the limitless magic of birthday candles. But one look at his face and the shimmering sky beyond him makes it easy.
As wisps of smoke curl into the night air, he braces his hands on the tailgate and leans over the cake to kiss me. “Now tell me your wish so I can make it real.”
“Sacrilege! Everyone knows if you say what you wished for, it won’t come true.”
“That’s only for the sad fools who have to rely on magic. You’ve got something better.”
“What’s that?”
“The man who’ll go to the ends of the earth to make you happy. Now tell me your wish so I can make it come true.”
I pause, trying not to let superstition get the better of me. “I wished for every birthday to be this perfect.”
The cockiness drains out of his expression, and for a moment, he only stares at me, emotion flickering in his eyes.
“There you go again, getting me right in the heart.” He thumps his fist against his chest. “You can trust me, honey. From now until the day I die, every birthday—ah, fuck it, every day, you’re going to feel this love. ”
Elation seizes me, locking around my heart, seeping into every lonely corner of my body, and snuffing out the hurt. I’ll never forget his words or the feeling of knowing right down to my soul that he’s the only man on earth who can live up to them.
Biting into the dessert is bliss. Moist chocolate cake as dark as the frosting, buttery, semisweet chocolate, and a thin layer of cookie crumbs in the middle, it’s the best thing I’ve tasted in years, and even if my covered hands mean I make a mess and smear frosting on my mittens, I eat every crumb off the purple paper plate Cash served me on.
“Does it taste like childhood?”
“It really does.” My mother’s recipe is lost to time, and this cake’s flavor has a complexity that gives away its professionally made status, but I’m not lying.
Birthdays with my parents meant feeling like the most loved and adored girl in the world.
Only Cash Hartnell could reignite the feeling I thought was lost forever.
“So is this what it was like on your birthdays?” he asks once we’ve cleaned up and lain back down. “You and your parents looking up at the stars all night?”
“Pretty much, though I don’t think I ever made it much past midnight. At some point I’d fall asleep and my parents would get me home, and the next thing I knew, I was waking up in my own bed. It felt like magic.”
“It’s cool how easy it is for kids to get that feeling, you know? Birthdays and holidays and even some flaming candles could feel like magic.”
“It is.” My mind drifts back to those early special occasions, the memories vague but distinctly euphoric. “Ever wish you could go back in time to those days? Back when life was so easy and so good?”
“No.”
“Come on. You don’t wish you could be innocent and carefree again? No worries and no responsibilities?”
“Nope.”
“Why not? I thought you had a great childhood.”
“Because now you’re my girl. And I don’t ever want to go back to life before you belonged to me.”
Tears well in my eyes. I always shake my head at the way Cash thinks all he has to do is speak something out loud and it’s true, but the simple, beautiful truth of these words wraps me up warm and tight.
There’s no space left for the questions and uncertainties of the last few days, only for the way he loves me.
For the birthday wish I never let myself yearn for.
For the birthday wish he knows and the other one I’m making right now, the one that’s lived inside me, unspoken and unreleased, for so long: to be loved like this forever.