Page 96 of Never Too Late

“But what if it’s too dark and we can’t see anything?”

“Why can’t I look out of the window, what’s happened? Why are you acting strange?” he asks with both confusion and sadness.

“I mean, I am hiding something from you, but it isn’t what you think.” I sigh as I start to play with the dog tags around my neck.

His face no longer shows a combination of confusion and sadness, but now only shows the one I hate the most.

Pain.

I can’t hurt him again.

“Close your eyes.”

“If I close my eyes I can’t –”

“Jae Summers, close your goddamn eyes.”

His face instantly shifts from sadness into a shocked expression. “Bossy. I like it.” He covers his eyes with his hands.

Taking a hold of his forearms in each hand, I slowly bring him towards the back door, removing one to turn the handle, slowly pushing it open. I can hear his chest rising, faster and faster so I don’t want to keep his hands over his eyes for too long, sensing he’s uncomfortable.

Removing both of my arms quickly, I turn to face the lights and the flowers to take a final glance before I tell him to remove his hands, but completely forget to do so when all I can say is, “Wow.”

It’s not until I feel his arm come around my side, placing onto my hip that I realise he’s now removed his hands from his eyes too.

“Wow,” he whispers in disbelief. I look over to him, seeing his face light up. The colour of the lights reflecting in his eyes. “When did you do this? How did you do this?” His voice starts to break. “Why did you do this? I mean it’s beautiful. But you didn’t have to do any of this, Dax.”

“I know I didn’t, but I wanted to. I was going to suggest we could go to the cliffs together to see the stars but after talking to Ty, I thought I’d bring the stars to us.”

Above our heads, hundreds of small fairy lights are scattered up high, mimicking the stars in the sky. Some strings are wrapped around the branches in contrast to those hanging at different heights. Ty told me it wasn’t an easy job, I noticed it wasn’t when he came back looking at though he’d been dragged through a hedge backwards. We covered the lie, saying he’d been to the gym when Jae asked.

He’s too busy looking at the lights above, focusing on them twinkling in the dark to notice the flowers on the table in front of him, but I notice he’s finally paid attention to them when he lets out a shallow gasp. “How did you know I had my eyes on these? You wouldn’t have known, unless –”

“Who do you think asked Bernie to make the bouquet in the first place?” I beam. Feeling full of pride.

He’s speechless.

I’ve finally made him speechless.

He pads his feet across the ground, making his way towards the flowers, gently running his fingers across the petals, feeling the velvet texture on his skin.

And I can’t help but stand and stare.

At him, the lights, the flowers, the stars, everything.

“So beautiful,” he says, taking in everything around him.

“Yeah, you are,” I reply. Unable to take my eyes away from him.

I feel my heart starting to race, it’s as though the butterflies in my stomach have started to overtake and are now in full control of my body. There’s so much I want to say, so much I want to do. But I struggle to make one word come from my mouth.

As though he senses it without me saying a word, he turns his back to the lights and bouquet and makes his way towards me, taking my hand in his own. I move my head down to look at where they’re joined together. And fuck, my heart feels as though at any given moment, it could explode.

He completes me.

“Hey, pretty boy, what’s wrong? Breathe with me, okay? One... Two... Three.”

He always grounds me.

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