Page 52

EMORY

"Be careful!" Kayden spins to look into the backseat. "Mommy needs to remember that we have precious cargo in here. Yes we do. Oh yes we do." He coos.

I just roll my eyes. Not that he can see it in the dark. That's the problem. "I can't even see the road, let alone any potholes. Just be grateful I'm not driving us off into some field. Or maybe I am. I don't think I could tell the difference at this point."

"I offered to drive," he says.

"And like I told you, this is my truck. My truck, my driving." I guess he could maybe make an argument that it's at least partially his truck too, since he's the one who bought it for me. He didn't think a hockey star’s fiancée should drive around in a ten-year-old truck that had almost as many paint chips as miles. Not that I'm complaining. Everything about this truck is better than my old one. Including the headlights, if I could use them.

"We could have taken one of your silly Lotuses or whatever they are."

"I only have one Lotus and you know it. I would have driven the Pininfarina tonight. "

"Which seats two uncomfortably, so obviously you wouldn't have."

The dimmed lights of the dash are just bright enough that I can see him shrug in the corner of my eye. "I wouldn't have brought you."

I would flip him off, but I need all my fingers on the steering wheel in case I need to steer around something at the last minute. Like a moose. "How much further is it, anyway?"

"See that road up ahead to the right?"

"Oh yeah. The one that looks like a black line drawn on black paper in a completely lightless room? Yeah, how could I miss it? No, I don't see a road. Is there a road?"

"Have you not eaten a single carrot in your life? Yes, there's a road. Slow down. I'll tell you when to turn."

"Carrots only help if you're deficient in vitamin A," I explain. "The whole thing about carrots improving vision was a myth created by the British during?—"

"Oh my god, people aren't lying when they say you're as bad as me." He tosses up his hands. "Whoa, here it is, turn. Not so fast!" He looks in the backseat again. "Now, pull over to the right. There should be a flat area. I think. I can't tell."

I pull over where he says, and since we don't sink or go sliding down a hill, I consider it a success.

Once I turn off the truck, Kayden hands me a headlamp, matching the one he's worn on his forehead since we left home. When I click on the red light, I can't help but finally smile. "This is really supposed to be that good?"

He flicks his light on, and between the two of us, the interior of the truck is illuminated in an eerie red glow. "Not the best in the state, but yeah, it's supposed to be that good. Time to show my two girls a good time." I swear he actually winks when he looks toward the backseat. "But don't look up. Not until I tell you."

"You're so ridiculous."

He levels a glare at me as I slide out of the truck. "Shush, she'll hear you." Turning to the backseat. "Mommy doesn't mean anything by it. She still loves you almost as much as daddy does, even if she doesn't show it."

"No. I don't love her nearly as much as you do. Because I know a piece of metal can't hear me and doesn't have feelings. I still can't believe you brought that thing."

"I only get four days with the Cup, so while I have custody of her, she goes where I go. Isn't that right?" He unfastens its seatbelt and tickles it underneath the top bowl before hoisting it out of the backseat. "That reminds me. It's time to send the proof of life photo. Come get my picture." He wraps his arms around the Cup and sways side to side like it's his date to the eighth-grade dance.

It's been almost two weeks since the Sting won the championship. The town and the players are still buzzing, but none so much as Kayden. I swear he's barely slept since they won game five to clinch the title. On one hand, all his frenetic energy has been driving me crazy, but on the other, our house has never been so clean and I've never woken up to so many breakfasts in bed. So it's been a fair tradeoff. Until it was his turn to take the Cup.

The team has the Tucci Cup for one hundred days, and they decided that each of the twenty-two players, along with three of the coaches, will get custody of it during that time. Four days each.

Kayden insisted he should be the last to get it, but every other player threatened to forfeit their turn if he did that. So after the three coaches had their time, the Cup came to Kayden.

Along with its babysitter.

A few years ago, a player from Columbus used the Cup as a bowl at an all-you-can-eat poke buffet. Since then, the league has mandated that no one be allowed to take the Cup outside their house without a league representative present.

Somehow, Kayden talked the rep out of coming with us tonight. In exchange, Kayden has to send him a picture every two hours to show that the Cup is still intact—and isn't filled with ten pounds of raw tuna.

Once I send the proof of life picture, Kayden holds a hand out for me. "Ready?"

"You're not going to put that thing back in the truck?"

"She wants to come too." He takes my hand and leads me out into a field. A field which I can see only approximately three feet of since these headlamps are about as bright as the sun at midnight.

"Are you sure you're totally healed from your concussion? Maybe the MRI missed something."

Kayden laughs under his breath and then we walk in silence for a few more steps before he pulls me to a stop. "This is the spot."

Our dim headlamps illuminate something that looks like a giant pipe sticking crooked out of the ground. But then I see the eyepiece jutting from the side. "You had a telescope set up?" It doesn't seem fair to call this a telescope, though. That would be like calling the Wasatch Mountains a set of hills.

Kayden sets the Cup at his feet and puts his hands on my shoulders. "I want to bring you the stars, Nyx. Now you can look up."

The view takes my breath away. An entire sky of twinkling dots. Thousands of stars with not a dark space between them.

"Oh my god, Kayden." I reach blindly for him, unwilling to take my eyes from the sky. It's not until my hand finds his that I realize how much I'm trembling.

He guides me to a blanket spread beside the telescope, and we lie down and just stare up. No words as the cool night air settles around us. Just my hand in his with the weight of the stars pressing down. Reminding us that, to the universe, we're just particles of floating dust.

But that's how important we are. We're nearly nothing, yet the light of these stars wraps us like we're the most precious beings in existence.

"Is this what it was like when your dad took you stargazing?"

I feel Kayden's eyes on me, but I keep staring overhead. There are so many stars I can't even make out the constellations. "It was nothing like this. This is—" I gasp. "Those aren't clouds. They're not moving. Oh my god, Kayden, that's the Milky Way."

I grip his hand tight and point up at the band crossing the sky to make sure he sees it too. What I thought were clouds are the billions of faint stars that make up our galaxy. The dark lines snaking through them are clouds of interstellar dust.

"That's us." My voice is shaky, and I struggle to blink back my tears. "That's our galaxy. Our home."

"Yes, it is," he whispers. "That's home."

I roll my eyes, and it sends two streams of tears rolling toward my ears. "You did that romance thing again, didn't you? Where you looked at me as you said that?"

He squeezes my hand. "Yep."