Chapter 22
We found a moonshine booth on our way back to the car. Growing up in Appalachia, I’d partaken of my fair share of moonshine, but Jack said he’d never tried any. He picked out a few different jars and checked out, me shaking my head the entire time.
“How strong can it really be?” he asked me, catching my amused smile.
“Just you wait.”
Now, we’re back at the cabin, parked in front of a fire we made in the stone fire pit out back, drunk from taste testing the various bottles.
“It’s stronger than I was anticipating,” Jack says, his head rolling across the back of the Adirondack chair to face me. His words are slurring together just a touch. In the flickering firelight, his eyes are glassy, his cheeks flushed from the alcohol and the cold. He looks good. Messy, relaxed.
“I tried to warn you.”
He takes another sip of moonshine from the coffee mug I picked out for him at a booth selling ceramics by a local potter.
I told him it was a perfect keepsake, his own mug to drink his fancy coffee from.
He gave me an indulgent smile, shook his head, and purchased it without a word.
But when we got home, he carefully peeled back the paper it was wrapped in, washed it, and carried it out with us to the fire pit.
“Do you know anything about the stars?” he asks. He’s turned away from me, staring instead up at the wide expanse of black above us, dotted with pinpricks of light.
I shrug, pull the flannel blanket tighter around my shoulders, and say, “Just the basics, I guess. You?”
When I glance over at him, he nods, eyes still fixed on the sky.
“I was really into astronomy as a kid. Used to check out all kinds of books on it from the library and read them in bed while I waited for my mom to get home when she worked late shifts.” His voice is soft, the way it always is when he talks about his mom.
“She’d come home and find me reading with a flashlight and would tell me I could get up.
Evan slept like the dead, so we would go outside and sit on the balcony.
She’d ask me to tell her about the stars, to point out the constellations. ”
My chest caves in a little at the longing in his voice, the grief that hasn’t dissipated. I ache with the desire to fix it for him, even though I know it’s not possible.
“Tell me about the stars,” I say.
His eyes dip and catch on mine. Twin pools of black in the darkness, reflecting the fire in his irises. There’s stubble on his chin, and I wonder what it would feel like beneath my palms. I tuck them beneath me to keep from reaching out and closing the distance between us.
The alcohol is getting to me, making my brain fuzzy, my wants slippery.
“Okay.” His voice is soft yet rough. A dichotomy.
His gaze returns to the sky, but mine lingers on his face for a moment longer, watches as he lifts a hand, pale in the moonlight, and points up at the heavens.
“See that W?”
I pull my attention from his face and follow the line of his hand, searching for what he’s pointing to. I have to lean closer, cross the barrier of our armrests to align my gaze with his, and I feel the heat of him seeping into me, sending goosebumps prickling along my skin.
“I see it,” I tell him, my breath puffing in the air. “What is it?”
“Cassiopeia.”
It sounds pretty coming out of his mouth in the deep timbre of his voice.
“In Greek mythology, she was punished for her vanity and placed in the sky tied to a throne that revolves around a pole, forcing her to hang upside down half the year.”
“Well, that’s sad.”
I can feel the laughter that rumbles through him, and it makes me want to press closer, memorize the feel of it.
“What next?”
I don’t pull away from him, the fabric of his sweatshirt pressed against my cheek, but I don’t think he minds.
He draws a line with his finger and I follow it. “That big rectangle,” he says. “It’s Pegasus.”
“It’s huge.”
He nods. “Hard to miss it when you know what to look for. Sailors used to use it to navigate.” He moves his finger again. “See that V shape extending off the corner of Pegasus.”
It takes me a minute, but I nod.
“That’s Andromeda. And that bright spot just above it?”
“Mmhmm.”
“That’s the Andromeda Galaxy. It’s the closest large spiral galaxy to the Milky Way. 2.5 million light years away.” He pauses. “Or something like that, if I’m remembering right.”
I press a smile into the fabric covering his shoulder. He’s always so confident, self-assured, but I like that he’s not cocky, that he will admit when he doesn’t know something.
He keeps talking, pointing out stars, telling me their stories.
His voice is soft, melodic. Between it and the alcohol, my eyelids are heavy.
I don’t know when I drift off, how long he tells me about the night sky while I sleep on his shoulder, but when I wake up, I’m in his arms, still wrapped in my blanket, and he’s carrying me over the threshold of the back door.
I blink awake, eyes adjusting to the dim light in the cabin. “Did I fall asleep?”
I can feel his laughter again, but this time it’s pressed everywhere, so close it’s like it’s in my own body. “Yeah, you fell asleep.”
“How long did we stay out there?”
My brain is still fuzzy, but less so. There’s only a pleasant buzz left from the moonshine, enough to heighten my senses and dull my thoughts. It feels good to be carried, and I wonder when the last time was that someone took care of me like this. Carried me.
“Mmm, maybe another half hour? Hour? I lost track of time,” he says.
We’re in the living room now, and he sets me down slowly, holding me steady as my feet touch the floor.
My worn, denim jacket rides up, exposing my midriff to the calluses on his fingers, the hands of someone who used to work on a ranch.
Who hasn’t been home in years but still feels like it.
I’m steady on my feet, but he doesn’t let go. And I don’t step back.
My head is unfocused, rushing to catch up with my body. Because it feels alive. More alive than I’ve been in ages.
“I’m sorry I fell asleep,” I whisper, for some reason not wanting to speak too loudly, to break the trance, to have him realize his fingers are tracing lazy circles on my hip bone.
“It’s okay.”
He smells like moonshine and smoke. Like memories from my teenage years. When life was simpler. The last time I felt this in my body, this aware of what I wanted.
I should step back. Put some distance between us. But right now, I can’t think of the reasons why.
“Jack.”
It might be the first time I’ve said his real name. I like the way it tastes in my mouth. Like something decadent. Intoxicating.
More so than the moonshine, it makes my head spin. Makes me feel drunk. Uninhibited.
“Stevie,” he says, and the sound of his voice sends a shiver of awareness down my spine, making want pool in the place behind my belly button.
I’ve thought about Jack a lot the last few weeks. He’s wormed his way into my life, into my head. But I haven’t thought about kissing him until now. About how he would taste and feel. The strength of my desire to do it shocks me.
My grip tightens on his sweatshirt, pulling the fabric taut between us. An invitation to close the final inch between us. My eyes lock on his just in time to see his expression shutter. For me to realize I’ve made a grave miscalculation.
The whiskey sours in my stomach. I drop my hand and move back, but he doesn’t let go of me, the heat of his hand burning through the fabric at my hip.
“I better get to bed,” I tell him before he can embarrass us both by turning me down.
His jaw tenses, and for a moment he looks like he wants to say something else. His eyes are bottomless in the dim light, searching my face, his own unreadable.
“Goodnight, Stevie,” he says, finally letting go of me. The warmth of his body disappears, leaving me shivering.
“Goodnight, Jack.”