Page 53 of The Star

“Stay out here and talk to me for a while,” he says with his eyes on the sky, and it sounds a lot like a demand rather than a question.

“What do you want to talk about?” I decide to humor him.

“What’s your favorite color?” he asks, dropping his head to his shoulder to look at me.

I laugh. “My favorite color?”

He rolls his eyes a little. “I’m trying to get to know you.”

“Why?” I question him. “Why do you want to get to know me?”

He groans under his breath a little, looking up at the sky again. “Why must you always be so fucking infuriating?”

That makes me laugh as well, and once the laughter has subsided, I speak again. “Blue.”

He looks at me. “Blue?”

I slip an arm under my head, my gaze moving back to the stars. “My favorite color is blue.”

“Mine too,” he says. “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

I chuckle. “When Igrow up?”

“There you go, being infuriating again,” he growls. “Just answer a question without giving me attitude for once.”

I grin to myself, rubbing circles on my leg with my finger to keep my hands busy. “You mean like, as far as a career?”

“Sure, whatever.”

I hum between my lips. “When I grow up, I’d like to be a veterinarian.”

“Yeah?” he asks. “Why?”

“For a while I wanted to be a doctor.” I sigh. “But then I realized that animals are better than people – less calculating and malicious, so I’d rather save their lives instead.”

He laughs. “That’s dark, but kind of cute.”

“What do you want to be?” I turn my head, finding him staring at me through the darkness. “Football player?”

He breathes for a moment, his eyes glazing over as he fights with whatever’s happening inside of his head. “I want to be a lawyer, like my mom, but I’ll probably end up in the NFL instead.”

My eyebrows pull down as I drag my gaze over his face, studying the way his emotions take over – sadness, struggle, uncertainty. “If you don’t want to play football, you don’t have to.”

He shrugs, changing the subject. “Did you have fun in Franklin this weekend?”

“Yes,” I answer him as I slip my eyelids shut. “I did.”

“What did you do?”

I open my eyes again, narrowing them. “Are you trying to get to know me, or are you being a caveman that needs to know my every move because I pissed you off by disappearing this weekend?”

He grins. “Fine. How are you liking Luxington so far?”

I snort. “It’s something else.”

He searches my face before he speaks again, like he’s trying to read between the lines of my words. His face softens a little before his next words fall from his lips. “How are you dealing with being a new member of the Dead Parents Club?”

I turn away again, feeling my mental walls start to lift higher. “I’m fine.”

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