Chapter 33
THIRTY-THREE
SADIE
The day quietly gave up and turned into night sometime between second helpings of lamb and pepper stew and Quentin refilling their mugs like a man personally invested in wine-based happiness.
The flames snapped and curled, throwing warm light over Quentin’s face in a way that felt almost unfair, like the universe had decided to flirt on his behalf.
Above them, stars were everywhere, reckless and uncontained, scattered across the dark like someone had knocked over a jar of glitter and decided not to clean it up.
She leaned back in her chair and tugged the blanket tighter around her shoulders. “Okay,” she said, staring upward. “Either this isn’t real, or I’ve accidentally wandered into a very aggressive tourism commercial.”
Quentin laughed, low and easy. “You think Montana hired the stars?”
“Absolutely. This is propaganda.”
She let her head rest against the chair, eyes tracing constellations she didn’t know the names of. They were leaving tomorrow, and it ached, as if she might blink and all of it, the calm, the closeness, this version of herself, would disappear.
“I love the night sky,” Quentin said beside her.
She turned her head slightly. “Well yeah. Of course you do,” she said. “You’re a space nerd. And a horse guy. And a former theater kid.” She squinted at him, assessing. “I’m not sure it’s possible for one human man to be any nerdier.”
“I’ll have you know,” he said, sitting up straighter, “that I also did magic.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “No.”
“Yes.”
She burst out laughing. “Absolutely not.”
“The Amazing Quentinillo,” he said solemnly. “Fourth grade. There was birthday parties and one extremely judgmental PTA.”
She pressed a hand to her mouth. “I can’t even picture this. Did you wear a cape?”
“Briefly. Until it got caught in a folding chair and I almost choked in front of my school principal, Mrs. Delaney.”
She lost it, laughing so hard she had to bend forward. “I would have paid actual money to see that.”
“I was a visionary. Tragically misunderstood.”
“Uh-huh,” she said, still laughing. “So the stars are your favorite thing because they remind you of your failed magic career?”
“Exactly,” he said. “They, too, are dramatic and impossible to explain.”
She leaned back again, smiling up at the sky. “Okay, fine. It is kind of incredible.”
“Kind of?” he echoed.
“Don’t push it, Quentinillo.”
He took a sip of wine, eyes still on the sky. “Though,” he added casually, “tonight might be my favorite version of it.”
Her pulse tripped. She kept her voice light, because self-preservation was important. “Because it’s extra sparkly?”
“Because you’re here.”
She laughed, cheeks warming, and stared back at the sky before she could do something embarrassing, like smile too hard. “So,” she said, “why space? What’s the appeal?”
He leaned back in his chair. “Everything you’re looking at was born in stars,” he said, voice low.
“They lived, burned bright, collapsed, broke apart. Their pieces floated through the dark for billions of years, waiting. And somehow, they found each other again and rearranged themselves into… this.”
He gestured vaguely between them.
“Us,” she said softly.
“Us,” he echoed. “Even the stew.” A beat. “Especially the stew.”
“So underneath all the mess,” she said, quieter now, “we’re basically the same thing?”
“Stardust with beating hearts,” he said.
She turned toward him, studying his face in the firelight. “Well,” she said, voice quieter now, “the stars did a pretty good job with you.”
He choked. Fully choked. Coughed into his sleeve, eyes watering.
“Wow,” he managed. “I—okay. That was… unexpected.”
She smiled to herself as he ducked his head, suddenly shy, rubbing the back of his neck like he didn’t quite know what to do with the compliment. She watched as a faint blush crept up his neck, and something about the sight made her chest ache in the sweetest way.
After a moment, he recovered enough to look back at the sky. “You know what I like most about being out here?” he said. “The quiet. It’s like the world exhales. No expectations. No noise. Just… stillness. It feels like the world finally shuts up.”
She nodded. “I’m bad at that.”
He glanced at her, mouth twitching. “At shutting up?”
She laughed. “Rude but fair.” Then she shrugged. “Mostly at stillness. It always felt like something was waiting to catch up with me.”
“Growing up, I did everything—dance, rhythmic gymnastics, even a unicycle phase.” She scrunched her nose at the memory. “I was like a one-girl circus act. My parents practically needed a spreadsheet to keep track of my hobbies.” She paused, then snorted. “Actually, I think they did have one.”
Quentin shook his head, amused. “And out of all of that, special effects makeup is what stuck?”
“Pretty much.” She leaned back, a smile playing on her lips. “One day, I found this video of a girl turning herself into an alien with full prosthetics, crazy blending, every detail so realistic she could’ve walked onto a sci-fi set. It blew my mind. I was hooked.”
He tilted his head. “That was your lightbulb moment?”
“Yep. I mean, I’d always loved makeup. I was that kid who woke up early just to do a full face before school. Perfect winged liner, bold lips, the works. My teachers were probably concerned.”
Quentin snorted. “Were you one of those middle schoolers who wore red lipstick like you were on a Paris runway?”
“Absolutely,” she deadpanned. “Meanwhile, everyone else was still figuring out how to use ChapStick.”
He laughed, shaking his head. “That tracks.”
She grinned before turning thoughtful. “Special effects was different, though. It wasn’t about looking pretty or following trends. It was about taking something in my head and making it real. For the first time, I stopped bouncing.”
“So makeup saved your parents from signing you up for skydiving lessons next?”
She laughed quietly. “Exactly. Everyone wins.”
The more she thought about it, had she actually stopped bouncing from thing to thing, from place to place, from person to person? Not really. She was twenty-seven years old and hadn’t lived in the same apartment for longer than six months. Her mail practically needed a tracking device.
“Well, to be honest, I still struggle with being still in one spot,” she said, her voice low, almost shy. “I’m always moving. Always chasing the next thing. If I stop too long, it’s like I’ll disappear. Like I won’t know who I am without the momentum.”
Quentin didn’t say anything right away. But his gaze was steady, warm. Like he saw straight through the noise and didn’t flinch.
“The idea of staying in one place forever?” She gave a soft, breathy laugh. “That terrifies me. Not because I don’t want roots, but because I’m scared they’ll turn into chains.”
She glanced at him, then away. “My ex Brian, he used to say settling down was what love looked like. That staying in San Diego meant we were building a future. But it wasn’t about love. It was about control.”
Her voice dropped, a thread of bitterness underneath. “He wanted me to shrink for him. Stay small. Stay his.”
Quentin’s jaw tightened but he didn’t interrupt.
“I almost did it,” she admitted, softer now. “I almost gave up the life I wanted for the life he wanted for me.” A crooked smile tugged at her mouth. “Then I found out he was cheating, so. Plot twist.”
Her lips pressed into a rueful smile. “After that, I decided freedom was safer. No apartment. No pets. No one waiting up for me. Hard to break your heart if no one’s holding it.”
The wind shifted, brushing a strand of hair across her face. Quentin reached out, tucking it behind her ear. His fingers lingered for just a beat longer than necessary.
“Do you ever feel trapped,” she asked, her voice barely louder than the crackle of the fire, “when you come back here?”
Quentin exhaled slowly, his fingers tapping a steady rhythm against his knee.
“For a long time, yeah,” he said, voice low and rough around the edges.
“This place doesn’t change. The trees grow older but the streets stay the same, and people—” he paused, jaw tightening, “they settle in like moss on stone. And it all made the guilt about Delly worse. Like I left her here. Like I moved forward and she never got to.”
He turned toward the fire, the flames dancing in his eyes, restless and gold. “That was why I avoided it. I thought if I stayed too long, it would swallow me.”
“But now?” His voice was quieter. “Now I see it differently. It’s not stagnant. It’s steady. There’s beauty in that.”
He reached for her hand, hesitated, then let his fingers brush hers. Barely there, but it sparked through her like a pulse.
“I don’t know,” he murmured. “Maybe staying wouldn’t feel so terrifying with the right person. Someone who knows when to hold you close… and when to let you run.”
“You say things like that,” she murmured, “and it scares the hell out of me.”
He looked over, brows drawing together—not pulling away, just waiting.
“Not in a bad way,” she added quickly. “It’s just… I’m not used to someone saying the quiet parts out loud. The real parts.”
He didn’t say anything, but his thumb brushed against hers.
“I got really good at leaving first,” she said. “Before anyone could decide I was too much. Or not enough.”
Her voice cracked just slightly. She hated how raw it made her feel, how easy it was to say with him sitting there.
Quentin’s gaze didn’t waver. “You shouldn’t have to prove anything,” he said simply. “Not to anyone.”
She thought of the nights she’d spent untangling herself from people who only loved the parts of her they could carry. The boy who told her she was too much. The version of herself she’d buried, bit by bit, for the comfort of someone else.
She used to think love meant proving you could bend. Be low-maintenance. Be quiet. Be easy to keep.
But being with Quentin didn’t feel like shrinking. It felt like space, like air filling her lungs. His fingers lingered against hers, and the stars burned above them, ancient and unyielding, their light carrying across ages just to fall at their feet.