Page 90 of Last Chance Cowboy
He didn’t want to say it. Didn’t want to say that it reminded him of being a kid walking through a house where no one was left alive.
But she seemed to understand.
And there was no reason to talk about any of that because the pasta was delicious, and the company was something singular for him, given that company was rare, by design, by virtue of trauma making it difficult for him to figure out how to interact with people. Whichever.
“I have some dessert.” She looked at him with a mischievous expression, and for a moment, he wondered if the dessert was metaphorical or literal. With Cara, it was difficult to tell. But then, she got up from the table, went to the fridge, and took out a layered-looking dessert.
“When I get home, the last thing I want to do is bake, but I really like desserts that are made mostly of cream.”
“Banana pudding,” she said.
He found himself being served a large portion, and then he helped himself to a second.
“You really ought to have this on the menu,” he said, scraping the bowl to get every last bit of the sweet, creamy dessert.
“I guess I could,” she said. “But it isn’t really good.”
“Do we have to be that literal about our desserts?”
She laughed. “I suppose not.”
She smiled, and he felt something shift in his chest. Felt something getting lighter. He wanted to follow that feeling. Wanted to extend the moment.
He wanted it badly.
She smiled softly. “It’s dark outside.”
“True.”
“You owe me some stargazing.”
She stood up, took his hand, and let him outside to the backyard. She had a porch swing out there and a couple of chairs.
She dragged the chairs out to the middle of the grass and wouldn’t let him do it for her.
And she put the chairs right next to each other, the arms of them touching, so that when they sat down, it was easy for her to put her hand over the top of his.
“Come with me,” she said.
“All right,” he said.
He should probably have his compass out. This should probably be a lesson. Another drill sergeant moment.
But she was snuggled up against him, and this made him think of the kind of ruse he might’ve thought of in high school if he had been a normal teenage boy.
Convince a girl that you were going to teach her how to identify constellations, do so, but use it as an excuse to be close.
There was something beautiful about it. Wholesome.
Wholesome in a way his life hadn’t been for longer than he could remember.
“That’s Polaris. The North Star.”
“I know that one.”
“Right there,” he said, grabbing her hand and guiding it upward, having her point right at the brilliant, bright star.
“If you ever have trouble finding it, look here,” he said, tracing the shape of the Big Dipper. “When you can find the two stars on the outer edge of the Big Dipper’s bowl, then you can draw a line through them, and you can find the North Star. If you can do that, then you can always figure out which way north is.”
