Chapter 36
Caspian
The first snow falls on a Tuesday.
They’re fat flakes, dropping slowly from the sky. I watch them from the window as Lee tells me about his senior-year student that tried the age-old excuse of my dog ate my homework.
“If his dog ate that tablet, you bet your ass the vet in town would have known about it. And considering Emmeline’s wife hasn’t heard a peep, I’m guessing the kid simply forgot. Come to think of it, I’m not even sure he has a dog. Caspian? What’re you doing?”
“Watching the snow,” I tell him, looking back as Lee walks across the kitchen, the dishes from our dinner cleaned up.
He wraps his arms around my stomach, chin over my shoulder as he peers outside. “The snowflake dance is this Saturday. Are you coming with me to chaperone? You can be my date.”
I feign a sigh. “If I must.”
He snorts, knowing I’m happy to join him. “What do you think, movie before bed?”
“Sure. Let’s do it.”
We settle on the couch in the living room, Shelly joining us before long. Lee looks offended when she chooses my lap over his, but he pets her all the same. He flips through a selection of old, outdated movies, stopping on one and raising an eyebrow in question.
I can’t stifle my laughter.
“What?” Lee looks genuinely confused. “ A Worthy Deception is a great movie. Ezra Gold? Iconic actor. And Grayson Fox? Hot. They’re brilliant in this, too. Did you know they announced their relationship right before the premiere? Surely you’ve seen it? It’s a classic, old or not.”
“Oh, I’ve seen it. And lived it.”
Lee looks from me to the movie and then back again. “ No . No fucking way.”
“Yes.”
His mouth drops open. “For fuck’s sake, tell me I wasn’t Grayson Fox. I can not be attracted to myself.”
Lee looks horribly concerned for the entire half minute I can’t stop laughing. He groans, slumping on the couch. Finally, I’m able to put him out of his misery. “You were Ezra.”
“Oh, thank fuck.” He scrubs a hand over his face. “Gold and Fox. Holy fucking shit.”
“Still want to watch it?”
“Are you kidding? I need to watch their entire catalogue again. My God , Ezra Gold was such a ham. I’m kind of embarrassed for myself.”
Lee shakes his head but starts the movie, peppering with me a million questions as the opening credits roll. My smile is wide, my eyes, more often than not, on Lee instead of the show .
He’s still muttering to himself two hours later when we get up off the couch, the hour late.
Lee starts turning off lights, but I pause in the back hallway, looking out the glass-paned door.
The snow has stopped, a fine dusting on the deck and over the top of the trees.
The stars are glittering tonight, so vibrant I can feel their pull.
“Hey, Lee? I think I’m gonna…”
I mean to say step outside , but my voice doesn’t come.
Lee calls my name, sounding very far away. “Caspian? Am I losing you?”
Arms come around me as I sink to the floor, the stars swirling, swirling, like water down a drain. I blink, everything hazy and then sharp, and—
“Knock, knock.”
I still the motion of my hand, the water in the tub continuing to swirl. “Come in.”
The door opens, and Arthur peeks his head into the room. “There you are. I thought, for a moment, I might have lost you.”
“Never that,” I assure him.
His smile is fond as he steps fully into the bath, closing the door behind him. It’s dark out, the candle on the sill the only light by which I can see him and him me. He watches as I set the water swirling again.
“What are you seeing, my dear?”
“Gravity,” I try to explain, stars traveling in the vortex of water. Planets, too, caught in the spin. Forces so grand, so vast, I’m unsure if we’ll ever fully understand them.
Arthur lowers himself beside the tub, his fingers combing the knots from my hair. It doesn’t take long, short as the strands are. “Perhaps it’s time.”
“Time for what?” I ask curiously .
His lips quirk, the secrets there as vast and familiar as the universe. “186,000 miles.”
My heart leaps as it does any time those words are spoken. I pull the stopper hastily from the tub, and Arthur chuckles, stepping back to grab me a towel.
Once dressed, we climb the spiraling staircase to the third floor. The observatory is cool tonight, the first of the year’s snow melting against the glass. I come to this room often, but my favorite are the times I come here with Arthur.
Arthur takes a moment to light candles around the periphery of the room, creating a soft glow that feels romantic in the dark with only the stars to watch us. He spreads a blanket on the floor once done, but before I can lie down, he grabs hold of my hand and spins me into his arms.
I let out a soft laugh, Arthur’s smile warming me through. “What are we doing?”
“A dance.”
“Is that so?”
“Mm.”
I wait as we stand perfectly still. “Arthur… Should we not be moving?”
His eyes shine bright, that mischievous glint I love so dearly present. “Whenever you are ready, my love.”
My breath stutters as I realize Arthur is waiting for me to lead. Slowly, I shift my hand from his shoulder to his lower back. He follows me as I take a step and then another. We move in a slow waltz in the center of the observatory, flames flickering around us in a symphony all their own.
Not for the first time, I’m hit with the overwhelming, bone-deep knowledge that this man sees me for all I am. Somehow, some way, he sees me. And accepts me. Encourages me. Loves me .
I’m beyond fortunate to have found my husband in this life. To have a man like Arthur Kane to call my own.
When our dance comes to a close, Arthur bows low before walking me over to the blanket. We lie down side by side, the stars glittering overhead through the glass, their light coming from so very long ago.
“Arthur?”
“Yes, Charlie dear?”
“Will you make me a promise?”
He turns his head, a furrow in his brow. He’s so handsome I ache with it. “Of course. What is it?”
I wrap my hand around his, holding tight. “Even when we’re old and gray, bring me here? Bring me to the stars?”
Arthur lifts our joined hands to brush a kiss against my knuckles, his lips familiar and so very warm. His voice, when he speaks, is full of a devotion I can feel in every beat of my heart. “My husband. My love. One day, you and I will dance amongst them. Just you wait and see.”
I blink my eyes open, the stars in my vision clearing, dark night giving way to a dimly lit hall and a familiar, concerned face staring down at me. Lee brushes my hair back, my head resting in his lap, my chest so tight it feels as if I’m bound.
“Okay?”
I offer him a shaky smile. “Yeah,” I answer, clearing my throat. “Would you come with me to look at the stars?”
Lee watches me for a long moment before nodding. We get up off the floor, Lee’s grip sturdy as he helps me to stand. He grabs our winter coats, and the two of us step outside.
It’s cold, a breeze nipping at my cheeks as we walk across the deck, our boots leaving imprints in the thin layer of fallen snow.
I pull up my hood before using my hand to dust away some of the flakes.
When I lie down, Lee joins me, his breath whitening the air in my periphery as we look up at the sky.
So many stars. Endless. But all I see are twelve. Twelve flickering points of light making up a sword, the tip of the constellation’s blade shining the brightest.
Lee hums quietly. “Good night for stargazing, isn’t it?”
My heart pounds, and I turn my head to look at him, at the gentle smile on his face and the glimmer of moonlight in his eyes. My voice is only a whisper. “Yeah, it is.”
“They’re so bright tonight.”
The words are spoken casually, but Lee freezes the moment they leave his mouth. His head whips my way, his eyes wide and searching mine as he realizes this is the moment I told him about so long ago.
My smile wobbles. “Did you know when you look at the stars, you’re looking back in time?”
He shakes his head, a slow roll against the decking.
“By the time the light reaches us, years have passed. Decades, even. You’re seeing something from another lifetime.”
“Caspian…”
“When I look at the stars, Lee, all I see is you. My past. My present. My future. Every future on every star yet to shine. Always, it’s you.”
Lee reaches for my hand, his fingers wrapping around mine as the snow starts to fall once more.
There are flashes in my mind. Cameras shuttering and a booming laugh, a finger tapping the freckles on my nose, and my friend smiling at me as if I’m his whole entire world.
A room encased in glass, snow falling gently outside the panes and candles all around as my husband asks me to guide him in a dance.
A flickering oil lamp and heat-slick skin moving together, pleasure rising sharp and sweet, the roofless hideaway failing to keep out the cold but warm words pressed to my skin speaking of love and a forever I desperately wish to see.
There’s a time so long ago much of its history is lost, where water lapped at the shore and a warrior appeared, everything I didn’t know I needed.
There’s another time, not far from now, a woman named Penelope having grown and a familiar face beside me, wrinkled and handsome, his lips pressing a kiss to my knuckles as he tells me how lovely it’s been, a life spent with me.
There’s pain, and there’s joy, and there’s love.
Love.
Love .
My vision blurs as Lee squeezes my hand tight, his own eyes wet with tears. “You already know what I’m going to say?”
“Yes,” I admit. “But I’d like to hear it all the same.”
He brings our clasped hands to his mouth, his kiss on my skin proof he knows exactly who he is, who I am, even if he can’t remember.
“I won’t pretend to understand what it is that brought you to me, Caspian. I can’t see it as you do. But I know my own heart. And I know you’ve told me nothing but the truth.”
I swallow roughly as Lee smiles, his breath warm on my skin.
“This is where you ask me the question, Caspian.”
My laugh comes out as a croak, my voice much the same. “Do you believe in fate, Lee?”
His eyes hold my own, brown and gold mixing in a hue I’d recognize anywhere. Any time. “I believe in you , my love. Which is why I can say with absolute certainty… I love you. In this and every life.”
I inhale a shuddering breath, snowflakes drifting down around us like stars.
I remember the moment I first fell in love .
It wasn’t when I saw him for the first time.
It wasn’t even the first time we kissed.
It was simpler than all of that and infinitely more complex.
It was moments we gathered between us. It was intention and a little bit of chance.
It was a choice where I stood with my feet in the water and knew I could accept what was being offered or I could step away.
I wanted to be caught. Caught and kept close. I wanted to be loved, and I was. For millennia. Time and time again.
And I’ll be loved still, for an eternity to come.
I roll over Lee’s body, a snowflake suspended on his eyelash, his cheeks red from the cold. He doesn’t seem bothered by it, nor my chilled palm as I cradle his face in my hand.
“This and every life,” I repeat. My own promise. My own vow. The absolute and utter truth. “I am yours, my warrior. And I will love you until everything goes dark.”