Page 131 of Windlass

“It isn’t August.”

“Still, that was insane.” She rubbed the horse beneath her mane, feeling the heat of Olive’s body and the pleasant scrape of coarse hair against her knuckles.

“Do you wish on meteors? Aren’t they essentially shooting stars?” Angie’s toe bumped her elbow gently.

“If wishes were fishes the sea would be full. That’s what my mom always says.”

“Starfish. Tell her she’s right.”

Stevie laughed. “I never thought of that. Ten-year-old me is so upset right now. I could have used that comeback so many times.”

“I give you full permission to use it any time in the future. Maybe next time I meet your mom.”

That would have to happen soon: the introduction of Angie to her family not as her best friend, but as her girlfriend. None of them would be surprised, least of all her mother. She grinned at the thought of her brothers’ inevitable ribbing.

“What’s that about?” Angie leaned down to touch the corner of Stevie’s mouth.

“Starfishes.”

A bird called out one last fleeting chorus as Angie slid off Olive in a smooth dismount. Olive didn’t flinch. “Hi.”

“Hi.” Stevie took in Angie’s sudden insecurity in the shift of her posture and the tightening of her shoulders. “You okay?”

“The sky is falling, but yeah. Um.”

Stevie waited, a strange, wild excitement brewing in her lungs. Something had changed with the passing of the meteor, something ineffable and imminent.

“I don’t need a wish,” Angie said finally.

“Angela Rhodes seizes her own destiny in defiance of astrology,” Stevie intoned. Her whole body thrummed with her speeding pulse, and she loosely wound her fingers through Angie’s, smelling apples on the breeze.

“Close your eyes.”

Stevie closed her eyes. “Um, why?”

Angie took an audibly deep breath, punctuated by the rip and tear of Olive’s teeth on the grass and the soughing of the wind through the branches. Angie’s lips landed lightly on each of Stevie’s eyelids, then the tip of her nose, her forehead, cheeks, and chin—everywhere but her lips. Those, Angie touched with a finger, silencing further questions.

“I just wanted to look at you.”

Stevie opened her eyes. Color flushed Angie’s cheeks, red against the gold of her skin in the dying light. Why was she blushing?

“You sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah. Stevie . . .”

“Yes?” Angie’s waist curved under the hand Stevie rested just above her hip, stroking the soft skin beneath her T-shirt. She kept her expression loose and easy, waiting for whatever Angie was struggling to say. She wasn’t afraid this time. Angie would get the words out eventually, whatever they were, and they would deal with them together.

“Fuck this.” Angie pulled a pen out from behind her ear, plucked Stevie’s hand from her hip, and scribbled something across her palm. It tickled. Raising an eyebrow, Stevie opened her fingers to see what Angie had written, and the breath left her body in a rush of apple-scented air.

I love you.

“It’s true.” Angie bit the corner of her lip and worried the delicate skin, which was Stevie’s job. “I do.”

“I know.” Would it be excessive to turn the words on her palm into a stick and poke tattoo? Probably. She could at least take a picture of it as long as it didn’t smudge before she got a chance. The roar of her heart burned her ears, and she thought again of the meteor burning up on impact, bright enough to emblazon the backs of her eyelids. Angie’s words burned through her just as surely. She searched Angie’s anxious face. “I know it’s hard for you to say out loud. It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay. I want to. I’m just—it doesn’t feel adequate. Everyone says it all the time.”

“It’ll sound differently coming from you.” Stevie held her breath and glanced at her hand. “It reads differently.”

---