Star Crossed (10 page)

At least, she didn’t mind it
much.

As the sun set he took her out to the edge of a pier and they watched the gulls harrying a heron. Boats sailed along the horizon and somewhere a child shrieked at his mother about something he had found on the beach. Skylar couldn’t tell if it was a delighted noise or a fearful one.

“So I’ve been thinking. About a lot of things, really, but mostly about you,” Grayson commented as he turned away from watching the water to look down at her intensely. His hold on her hand tightened and he smiled. “Almost entirely about you.”

She couldn’t help but blush and a flattered laugh escaped her. “What about me?” she asked coyly.

“I feel like you are the perfect person for me. I can be myself with you and the more I get to know you the more I fall in love with you. I’ve found that I get up in the morning and look forward to falling deeper in love with you, that I can do nothing but anticipate being with you. I can’t imagine a day without you and I want to spend the rest of my life looking forward to your smile. Though the day that that becomes reality for us may still be long in coming I want to promise myself to you.” He got down on one knee and pulled out a plush jewelry box to flip open.

Skylar put a hand to her heart as she saw the diamond ring nestled in the box. “Grayson,” she breathed in hopeful surprise. “Oh my god, really?”

“Of course,” he said, being bold enough to slip the ring on her finger. She allowed him to as she was still too surprised to stop him. “After all, I know I only want to be yours so why not make the promise now?”

“It’s perfect,” she gushed as she examined the ring on her hand. “This is so unexpected and romantic.”

“Hopefully it wasn’t too unexpected,” he quipped with a grin.

“Well, no, but I would have thought we would be together for longer. Not that it’s a bad thing, I just am surprised but not really but yes. Yes, I’ll marry you!” She threw her arms around his neck and held him excitedly. “Oh, Grayson. You’re so wonderful.”

“You’re better,” he said as he gently tipped her chin to kiss her chastely.

Skylar shivered and leaned in for another kiss, wanting to explore the foreign feeling of it more deeply. The way that he held her as if she was his most cherished possession caused a fire to burn in her heart and she felt the imprints of his palms on her back even after he let her go. He didn’t allow her to back up too far, though, but instead took hold of her hands so that he could look deeply into her eyes.

“You’re sure? I’m not moving too fast for you? I just feel so connected to you,” he admitted almost sheepishly. “I sit down to write a song and all I can think is that I’m in love with you.”

“How will marrying me fix that?”

“Well, if I have you with me all the time then perhaps there will be room for other thoughts to happen on the sidelines.”

Skylar giggled. “You always know just what to say to make me feel like I’m the only person in the world.”

“Good, that is my intention. I do like it when my missions in life are successful.”

She leaned in for another kiss and sighed contentedly. “I think I like it, too.”

~~~

            Steve chuckled as he watched his friend try to fade into the backdrop at his own graduation party. His family and friends kept trying to engage him in conversation and having to pull him out of his secluded corners. He appeared to take it in good grace but kept looking around as though there was someone that was missing. Steve’s eyes narrowed as he tried to figure out his friend’s behavior. His first thought was that his mentor had told him that he had something important to tell him about his thesis but he couldn’t see a sign of the professor anywhere.

            If it wasn’t the professor that was of interest then Steve started to catalogue who in his family was around. There were a few cousins, his mother, his grandparents. His father’s family was mostly absent since Chris was apparently some kind of painful reminder to them that they had lost his father. Steve didn’t recall Chris mentioning anyone that was important enough to cause him to be so inattentive and so Steve surmised that it must be because of a girl.

            After all, knowing Chris, the one thing he wouldn’t share would be embarrassment that Steve had been right. As much as he had been egging his friend on to find someone and as much as Chris had resisted it the only conclusion that made logical sense was that it was a girl.

He wished he could attribute his brilliance solely to the fact that he was a deductive genius. However, the fact that Chris continued to look more closely at people with longer hair was also a telling clue.

“Congrats,” he said as he pulled Chris aside from a discussion that vaguely concerned the economy in some fashion. “So what are you going to do now?”

“Everyone keeps asking me that, though you’re the first to imitate a talk show host while doing so.”

“Well, it is my duty as your friend to be the first to do several things in your life. Such as listen to a serious answer to my question instead of the usual cover story. Only the people that don’t know you buy that ‘totally have a plan and am on my way to figuring out my life’ stuff.”

Chris voiced an offended sigh. “I do have a plan. I’ve applied to several teaching jobs and have been offered a couple of interviews. I’m mostly conducting them over the computer since some of the jobs themselves are so far away.”

“So you have the work aspect covered, I figured that would be the first thing. What about having someone to make those trips with you?”

“Someone like...?”

“Well, you can’t always spend your life having Wing Tuesdays with me. You could, I guess, but that would probably lead to a lot of unhealthy habits. And what happens if you get a job in another state? I’d have to make special road trips out to see you and you’d just refuse to hang out with me because you’re nervous of my bike.”

“That is so not true, dude. If you can make a special road trip across the country just because some guy with weird hair on TV had a really good pulled pork sandwich there, then you can make a trip or two to see me. And just because you are around to visit does not mean I have to spend time with you when you’re on your bike.”

“I’d have Anna with me.”

“You bring her along to some of our trips and wings nights, anyway. What would that change, overall?”

“Not much on my end but won’t it bother you? My always having my girl and you always having some super cool fact that you found in a book?”

“Why do you keep ragging on the things that I like?”

“I’m not! I think it’s cool that you’re into... smart... things and that you like to spend time learning. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I can look at you and see that you feel like something is missing in that life you have built for yourself. There’s something else that you need to be happy and I don’t see you pursuing it and the only way I can get you to pay attention to me is if I light a fire under you.”

Chris was quiet for a moment and then smiled. “Heh, trust a biker to be the one to start talking fire.”

It was Steve’s turn to give him a flat look. “Very funny. Regardless...?” he prompted as he looked at him expectantly.

“All right, fine. I might have a crush on Skylar.”

“That girl from highschool that you always talk about?” He thought about what he had said for a minute and then grinned. “You always talk about her if you’re talking about a girl. How come I didn’t realize that before?”

“Must be the fact that I’m too clever to get found out before I want to be?”

“Nah, that’s not it. If you were that clever then I wouldn’t have to kidnap you.”

“Yeah, about that-”

“No, no, the more interesting matter is about her. What are you going to do about it?”

“I want to tell her but she’s been so busy lately. I was tempted to go and get coffee by her work since that’s where we usually bump into each other. I just don’t have any more research to do and thought it might be creepy for me to just hang around there hoping to see her.”

“Guys do it all the time, they just don’t like to admit it.”

“Well, I don’t want to be creepy.”

“It isn’t creepy to go for what you want. Besides, don’t I remember you saying that she was into you but you had to shut her down because you still had school to deal with?”

Chris sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose as he shut his eyes. “Did you have to bring that up?”

“Wow, it’s that bad, huh?”

“Steve!”

“Okay, okay, sorry. Do you want me to talk to her, then, and field whether she’s still an option?” Steve asked hastily.

“No, I’ll talk to her. I’m sure it’s not going to be too much of a problem since she’s had so much difficulty finding the person that she connects with best. She’s not the kind of person to rush into anything.”

Steve caught his breath as he gazed fixedly at a point above Chris’s shoulder. “Anything like finding someone that looks like he stepped out of a teenage high school movie?”

“She runs into people like that all the time. From the sound of it she never lets it get too far past talking since they usually do something to make her upset.” He was swishing his drink idly around the cup and hadn’t noticed Steve’s inattention.

“And she’s not the clinging to someone while batting her eyes out of their sockets at them.”

“No, not really. She’s more sensible than that.”

“And she certainly wouldn’t get engaged to anyone.”

“No, why are you asking...” he trailed off as he turned to look at what had caught Steve’s eye so thoroughly. His shoulders tightened but he did not otherwise react outwardly. Steve watched him warily as Chris took several measured breaths and then turned to shrug awkwardly at his friend. He smiled but Steve was pretty sure it was the last thing he wanted to do. “Huh. Well, I hope she’s happy.”

“You hope she’s happy? Chris, weren’t you just saying that kind of thing was out of character for her?”

“Maybe I don’t know her as well as I thought I did,” Chris retorted. The ice in his tone made Steve wince.

“Come on, man, it’s not that bad. Maybe she’s just here with him and happened to forget that she shouldn’t be wearing jewelry on her ring finger or something.”

Chris gave him another extremely flat look. “No girl just forgets that she’s wearing a ring on her wedding finger. At least, not any girl that I know.”

“It... could be a purity ring?”

“No, it’s not. It’s fine, if that’s what she wants then I am happy for her. Or I will be. I just will find something else to do rather than pursue her, so I guess I should thank her for settling that problem that I was having.”

“You don’t sound like you’re fine with it, dude.”

“Well, I can’t say I trust that guy she’s with. I don’t know anything about him and the way he’s holding her elbow all the time like she might wander off is not okay. Is he afraid she’ll wander off and start getting opinions of her own rather than just staying as close to him as possible and listening to him talk?” Chris watched them bitterly for a moment but forced his expression to be as neutral as possible when he saw Skylar notice him.

Steve glanced nervously at his friend as they watched her drag the guy she was with through the crowd towards them. “You sure you’re cool?”

“As a cucumber.”

“Chris! Congratulations!” Skylar said as she hugged her friend. She didn’t seem to notice that Chris was more rigid in her hold than usual. “I’m so happy for you!”