Page 111 of This and Every Life
Caspian goes back to eating his pancakes. And I realize…
Finding out who this man is isn’t even an option, is it? It’s inevitable. A course I couldn’t correct even if I tried. He’s here, the gravitational pull of our lives now intertwined, one and the same.
No. Nothing is going to be as it was before.
And I think I’m absolutely okay with that.
Chapter 32
Caspian
“It’s starting.”
The call has me abandoning our drinks and hastening out onto the deck. Ezra is lying flat on his back, a blanket spread out under him. He chuckles when I nearly trip in my hurry to join him.
His hand brushes mine once I settle, a grin on his face I see briefly before looking up at the sky. It’s dark out, the navy above looking nearly black. Stars glimmer, so big and bright I could map hundreds, maybe thousands if I wanted. The moon is only a sliver, a curve of sunlight reflecting off its surface.
But it’s not the stars or the moon I’m looking for now.
Ezra points. “There.”
A streak of light flickers through the dark, followed quickly by another. We watch in silence for long minutes, the meteor shower its own kind of show. A spectacular one. There are no horns blaring here. No busy city noise or light pollution hindering our view. The air around us is quiet, this place our own little slice of secluded paradise.
Ezra’s voice is hushed. “It’s beautiful.”
I can only nod.
He lets out the softest of sighs, his words sounding the same. “‘For what is more beautiful than heaven?’”
I glance at Ezra in the dark, my eyes acclimated enough now that I can see his features. “Practicing your poetry, Copernicus?”
“My astronomy.” He grins in that way he does. Ezra has more wrinkles on his face than he once did. Some gray in his hair he’s done his absolute best to hide under a pristine dye job. He refuses to admit he’s aging. That we’re aging.
I, on the other hand, don’t much mind it. Not when I’m aging with him.
Yet despite the years that have passed, my friend hasn’t once lost the spark of what makes him…him. To his fans, he remains infamous. The great Ezra Gold.
To me, he’s still just…my Ezra.
Ezra’s expression is soft as his eyes drift over my face in turn.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Just that…sometimes I think heaven is here with you.”
My heart kicks, my chest warm and aching and tight.
He reaches out, his finger tapping a few points on my cheeks and nose. “You carry the stars with you, Gray. Your own constellation I can look at any time I want.”
“My freckles?” I ask hoarsely.
He nods, his brown eyes dark beneath the stars above. His fingers wrap around my own, and he brings my hand up to his mouth, pressing a kiss there. “Love you.”
He says it simply.
It’s not simple at all.
Our hands rest between us as the last of the meteors streak across the sky. My eyes never leave Ezra’s. “More than all the stars.”
