Page 40 of The Sun and the Moon
Sydney
I wake slowly. My internal clock never really adjusts to time zones, so I almost always expect to either oversleep or wake up at some random, odd time in the night and think it’s morning.
The light is cool and bright as it slips through the partially opened slats in the blinds.
I slept well for the first time in days, and I know the reason why.
As my eyes adjust to the room, my mind skates back over the adventure of last night.
Cadence throwing the perfect bull’s-eye axe.
Our clandestine escape from the tent.
Every part of her body; her lips, my fingers, her moans, my orgasm.
And then I become aware that I am alone in this room. Not only is Cadence missing, but Old Man Chicken is gone, too. She must have taken him out for his morning potty break.
I slide out of bed and wander, naked, to the bathroom for my own pee break.
And all I can think about is how I don’t want to run away at all. Not from this love affair, not from the strange challenge of my dad’s engagement and all the change that will inevitably bring to both our lives. Not from my feelings.
And especially not from Ranger Girl, who I wish was still in that bed.
As I’m brushing my teeth, I throw on her t-shirt and my underwear, and I prop up my phone against the mirror, calling Joe on FaceTime.
After a few rings, he picks up. “Thank fuck, you finally called.”
I spit the toothpaste into the sink. “You could have texted to check in,” I reply with a scowl. I bend down to rinse.
“Since when has that ever been our dynamic?” he questions. He’s dressed in his scrubs, walking his way to work as he sips on his green smoothie.
“Joe, you didn’t get the Hailey Bieber smoothie again?” I am stalling. Maybe he won’t notice.
“Spill the tea,” he says, glancing at his Apple Watch. “I literally have less than a third of a mile left to reach work. Crunch, crunch.” He walks stupid fast. Mall walker–level fast. Olympic-fast-walker fast.
“It’s Saturday. Why are you working?” I ask. Still stalling.
“Ambition,” he says. “Tea!”
“I don’t know what you mean by tea.” I play dumb. I called to spill—he knows I did—I just like to draw it out for the thrill of suspense.
“You’re on location for Daddy’s engagement party, and last I checked you were panicking about some soulmate shit, so I can only imagine that you have plenty of updates.”
I sometimes loathe myself for the level of honesty that Joe is able to get out of me. And then I remember that I’ve seen his dick and have pictures in case he ever pisses me off.
“I fucked my future stepsister.” It sounds so messed-up to say it like that, but it’s true. If our parents actually stay engaged and get married, we will technically be related. Though, as far as I know, there’s no law preventing marriage. At least not right now.
Fingers crossed it stays that way.
He stops dead in front of the Equinox entrance. He always tries to sneak in a sweat session before work.
“Ranger Girl?” he asks, incredulous and extroverted about it. A man exiting the gym glares daggers, but Joe is too busy ripping off his shades and screaming to notice. “What happened—holy shit?!”
I sit cross-legged on the bed. He waggles his brows.
“Ooooh, you need to get comfortable for the tale,” he says, starting to walk again.
I tell him about the connection we feel despite being polar opposites and trying to keep shit platonic.
The tarot reading with Moira—how, despite my determination to take all things she said with a bucket of salt, it hit me like a ton of bricks.
I tell him about the Ten of Cups card Cadence pulled when she was with that tarot reader and her fiancée in the bar.
“She’s complicated, but I like it.” The words drop out of my mouth like little bombs.
“You want to see where it could go,” he says. It’s the one thing I never, ever care about usually. The endgame of it. The what-if scenarios. But with Cadence, I long for infinite possibility.
Not another goodbye.
Give me strings, baby. Tie me the fuck up.
“But I’m terrified,” I say, allowing the wobble of nerves in my voice, the vulnerability of this confession.
“Dramatic.” He smiles. Winks. He isn’t one to go for sappy.
“I don’t know if that’s what she wants.”
“You’re Sydney Sinclair. Who wouldn’t want you forever?” he says, and I snort at the irony coming from him. “Well.” He laughs. “Besides me.”
It’s not that Joe is wrong about the way it has historically gone with people vying for the role of romantic lead in my life.
I know I can capture the imagination, and because of that, people think it means they want to settle down with me.
Start a family. Have a future. Even after just a string of dates or a single hookup.
I am never the one fantasizing about babies and marriage and roots.
“Syd,” he says, breaking into my thoughts.
He’s stopped in front of his work building.
I can see a woman in a set of dark Prada glasses, with lips that definitely do not need any more filler, entering the glass doors behind him.
“If you want her, just tell her.” His eyes soften when they meet mine through the phone. “No games, no schemes.”
“Just the truth.”
“Fucking scary as that is.”
We hang up, him kissing at the screen and me cringing at the tenderness I feel as his proposition slices through my rib cage, puncturing my heart.
Us against the world was an excuse. My job is scaffolding holding up the crumbling walls of a life that hasn’t felt authentic for a long time, but I couldn’t see it that way until this weekend.
Flying commercial planes is steady work, and the fact that it keeps me in the sky, away from building a well-rounded life, hasn’t worked for years.
Even when I’m not in the air, work requires hours outside the plane for detailing flight plans, prepping the crews, assessing weather patterns. The work is never monotonous but somehow still tedious. It’s work that drains me as much as it feeds my need for adventure.
I’ve used work to explain away my reticence about long-term love.
But if Cadence wants to make a go of this thing, work will have to change.
For one of us, at least.
And it’s not just work that will have to change. I can see how every part of my life will be touched by falling in love with Ranger Girl.
Isn’t that also the meaning of the Sun and the Moon in tarot?
I looked up the meaning for myself, hoping for some other take besides Moira’s.
The internet said that when these two cards are together, the uncertainty of the Moon is given the warm light of the Sun, leading to clarity, change, and vision for the future.
Being with Cadence is like walking through the dark and out into the light. I feel capable of asking myself big questions and not steamrolling a half-truth as my answer.
This whole train of thought gives me another one.
If I only have a couple more days with her guaranteed, I want to make sure I make them count. I flip over onto my stomach, reaching for the brochure on the nightstand that details all the “romantic and relaxing” activities that Solvang and the surrounding area have to offer.
I’m going to take Ranger Girl on a real live date.
Just the two of us.