It winds up into the trees, and up higher still. Until we arrive at a grassy hillside, and my heart lurches. There are lanterns set up in a circle, and what looks like a picnic basket, and a blanket spread out on the grass.
“What is this?” I ask.
“A grand gesture.”
“Dallas…”
He kills the engine, puts the truck in park, and gets out. Then he rounds to my side and opens my door. “Come on. I’m giving you romance.”
Romance.
Allison told me that she prefers the romance to sex. I unbuckle, and he grabs me by the waist and lifts me out of the truck, holding me against him. I’m not sure I can say I prefer romance, but it all feels part of the same thing. Like he took the physical intimacy between us and made it bigger, more expansive. Like he added a new thing that we are. Because we are movies and friendship and trauma and protectiveness, sex and orgasms and romance, now I guess.
I think there’s something amazing about that.
He leads me to the blanket, and sits me down.
“I’m not a wine expert,” he says, “but my aunt owns a vineyard, and she is. And she gave me a bottle of what she says is one of their most popular wines.”
I don’t know anything about wine either, but this feels so… Fancy. Like something from someone else’s life. Can this really be me? Sitting with this man who is so beautiful when I look at him, I could barely breathe, with a beautiful view, glowing lanterns, wine, and a picnic basket? It doesn’t seem like it. There’s lovely food in the basket – also from his aunt’s winery- and he hooks his phone up to a Bluetooth speaker, and we even have musical ambience surrounding us.
“Please tell me you don’t do this with every woman you hook up with?”
“Never,” he says. “Just you. Because I want… I’ve never wanted so much to give someone everything. It’s like life was to you. I know what you actually deserve, and I want to make up for everything you didn’t get.”
“That would be pretty tricky to do. Might as well climb up there and grab some stars and bring down a handful for me.”
“I would if I could.”
He means that. I can see it.
The truth is, I bet if you brought stardust down to earth, it would lose all its shine.
But that doesn’t stop the feeling in my chest from expanding, so big that I can scarcely breathe around it. So big that I don’t know what to do with it.
The wine is wonderful, I wasn’t sure how I would feel about wine, and the food is delicious. We eat in silence, and there’s something comfortable about that.
I look up at him, at the way the waiting sun shines against the angles of his face, those glowing blue eyes in the twilight.
“You know you’re amazing, don’t you?” I ask him.
“Funny,” he says. “I was going to say the same thing about you.” When we finish eating, he reaches out and takes my hand, pulls me up. “We missed the chance to dance on your birthday. I do want to miss it again.”
I nod, and he pulls me up against his chest, then twirls me in a circle. I look up and watch the stars all blur together in the sky.
And when we finish dancing, we lie down in the field, just like we did back when we were kids,staring down at the city and trying to dream up futures that weren’t quite so dark.
Here we are. With each other.
Dallas and Sarah back then couldn’t have dreamed up anything quite this sweet. Quite this miraculous.
Thisis magic.
But I wonder if, much like the stars and stardust brought to earth, if the sun shines too bright on it, if it leaves its heavenly position, it’ll all disappear.
I wonder if something this beautiful can possibly last.
Because I’m still me.
