Page 37 of Not This Night

"Fine," she clipped the word, letting it hang between them, an unvarnished truth.

The desert air was a blade, slicing through the warmth of day now lost. Rachel leaned on the terrace railing, her gaze fixed on the void beyond. She felt the vibration in her pocket, the hum of an incoming message breaking the stillness.

She glanced down, frowned. Just another notification of Dawes’ voicemail.

Persistent.

Now that the dam had burst, he seemed intent on catching her ear.

She slid her phone back into her pocket, blocking out the intrusion. Dawes could wait. This moment of respite was more vital. She felt Ethan's eyes on her, but she didn't turn to meet his gaze.

“Quiet, but pretty… I never get tired of the stars,” Ethan murmured.

Rachel tilted her head back, following his gaze. She hadn’t noticed the sky until now – hadn’t seen the blanket of stars that stretched out far and wide in the unpolluted sky. They shimmered and winked thoughtfully in the abyss, an eternal play enacted by celestial bodies. It was dizzying – the sheer scale of it all. The vastness of the universe contrasted sharply with their shared solitude.

"I guess... it's one of the few perks of this place," she replied, her voice softening as she let herself be captivated by the cosmic display above them. The desert was harsh, deadly even, but it also offered them moments like these—quiet, under a tapestry of stars.

"Makes you feel small, doesn't it?" Ethan asked, his voice barely a whisper in the night air. There was an odd comfort in his words, an acknowledgement of their shared insignificance in the grand scheme of things.

"It does," she admitted. Her fingers brushed against his, sending a jolt up her arm. His hand was warm against hers, grounding her amidst the infinity above.

"Never was much for stargazing," she confessed after a moment. "Too busy looking for tracks on the ground to bother with what's up in the sky."

Ethan chuckled quietly beside her. "Guess that's why you're such a good ranger then."

The compliment hung in the air between them, warming Rachel more than any fire could have done. She offered him a small smile, grateful for his understanding.

They lapsed into silence again.

Ethan had an awed look in his eyes as he smiled his dopey grin at the sky. And Rachel found her own lips turning in a smile at the expression of jot on her partner’s face. She looked up once more, following his gaze to the sky.

"Doesn't look like this back in Austin," she acknowledged, her tone softening as her gaze swept across the cosmos overhead.

Ethan chuckled lightly. "Guess that’s the upside of being somewhere so desolate."

Rachel turned towards him. His face was bathed in soft, ethereal moonlight, making his features appear softer, almost dreamlike.

"What was it like growing up with so many?" she found herself asking, her gaze drawn back to the stars. Her voice held an unmistakable note of curiosity tinged with longing—a contrast to her usual curt style. It wasn't unlike looking at an old photograph and wondering what it would have been like to be part of that world.

She knew how he’d grown up… and he knew her story.

She’d been orphaned. An only child, raised by an aunt who now thought very little of her. It had been a lonely childhood, and if she was honest, it had been a lonely life.

Rachel swallowed, the vulnerability of the moment catching up with her and making her regret the impulsive question. But Ethan showed no discomfort, only a small, smiling curiosity as he took in the question.

“Weird you out at all?” Rachel added when she started to feel a twinge of embarrassment at the drawn silence.

“What’s that?” he asked. She noticed that his Southern accent grew more pronounced when the two of them were alone.

“Being alone,” she said. “Like this.”

“Not alone here.”

“You know what I mean. You come from a big family, don’t you? Is it weird not being around them?” she glanced at him, then looked away again.

Ethan chuckled, a soft sound that echoed faintly in the expanse of the desert night. "Yeah," he replied, his voice betraying a hint of nostalgia. "I mean, big families can be pretty chaotic."

"But good?" she probed, her tone implying more than just simple curiosity.

---