“Sounds like you and your dad had the right idea.”
“I learned how to ski eventually,” she said. “When my legs were long enough to keep up. I love it now, but you know what my favorite thing about the mountain actually is?”
“Tell me.” I absentmindedly rubbed the soft spot above her thumb with mine.
Her baby blues sparkled and she took a long, hesitant breath. “The sky.”
My attention piqued.
“You can see every single star in what looks like the entire galaxy on a clear night. I used to do this really silly thing”—she looked down coyly—“where I would go out at night outside the cabin, lay on my back in the snow, and just stare up at the sky. There’s a moment where it’s deadly quiet and snowing and the flakes look like they’re stars falling toward you. It’s endless and mesmerizing, and even though your face is chilled to the bone, the cold is really the only thing tethering you to reality. You almost feel like you don’t exist.”
Somehow I could imagine exactly what she was describing on that mountain. We weren’t standing in a tropical greenhouse anymore—we were stargazing at the peak together. Merging our two separate and contrasting lives into a shared moment.
I was worried about giving too much of myself away too soon, but I realized that might be what Ophelia needed out of me. Good conversation, unlike what she was probably getting with the other men she entertained. Someone who would sit and talk to her about existential crises and conspiracy theories and space. Stimulation in more ways than sexually.
I’d never been caught in a snowstorm, or skied down a mountain, or swam beneath a waterfall. But we could pretend for a little while.
“You’re such a romantic,” I teased her. “I also love the sky. That’s why I spent ten years up there.”
“You and Mateo were in that top secret soldier crew together.”
“The Army.”
She rolled her eyes. “Delta Force.”
A memory of Cap and I bunked together in a tent the size of the cab of my truck crossed my mind. It was fuck all strange that Delta was what we considered the good old days now. The two of us and the Swan boys were either at each other's throats or on each other’s backs twenty-four seven.
“Ah yes, otherwise known as ‘top secret soldier crew’。 How could I forget that?” I winked.
“Did you always want to be in the Army?”
“No,” I told her truthfully. “I wanted to take care of my mom and help out my sister and the Army was the quickest way to make a lot of cash right out of high school.”
We sat on a bench while I went back and forth with myself, deciding how to broach the subject of my father, who I didn’t usually talk about. Rip the fucking bandage off, I guess.
“When my father passed, we really struggled for a while. The heart attack was sudden, and he was so young. I took on being the man in the house, but there was only so much I could do as a teenager. I worked at grocery stores to get discounts on our food and at the car wash on weekends until I saved enough money to buy us a used car. With the Army, I was doing what I knew my dad would have done—but I ended up loving it and making a career out of it.”
Ophelia didn’t pity me; she listened as if absorbing every word and breath in between. Talking about my dad didn’t make me emotional anymore like it did when I was a kid. In fact I hadn’t even had a moment of dejection over it since my last birthday, when I realized I was as old as my father had ever been.
“Sounds like you’re the world’s best son.” She nudged me with her shoulder. “I don’t know them, but your mom and sister have to appreciate you more than you realize. You basically gave your life to them.”
“No.” I laughed, having never thought of it in that way. “We’re family, we take care of each other. They are my life.”
“Look at us, pseudo-mom and pseudo-dad before we hit puberty.”
“Do you want kids?”
Her eyes flashed to mine. “Yes.” Then, she continued more seriously, “But I don’t want to fuck them up. I’m terrified to settle and get married and have kids with the wrong guy, and then repeat the same cycle as my parents. I can’t do that.”
“That makes a lot of sense,” I agreed. “You shouldn’t get on yourself for being picky or deciding not to date someone because you’re expected to. I’m nearly forty. I’m not married, I don’t have kids, but it’s not because I don’t want those things. It’s because it hasn’t felt right to do that yet.”
“Nat mentioned something about your ex.”
Discomfort panged in my chest.
Did I want to rehash the disaster that was the end of my military career, paired with the crumbling of a near decade-long relationship right then? Not exactly. We were having a thoughtful, insightful conversation that was going surprisingly well without dipping below depression level. I wanted to tell her, but I wanted to keep her smiling way more. I wasn’t going to let Vanessa creep in and overcast the sunshine sitting beside me with her fucking storm cloud.
“Rule number one is don’t talk about your exes on a first date.” I stood and pulled her along through the final bend of the aviary. “Nothing is going to dampen my mood. We’re surrounded by a thousand butterflies, and I’m currently courting the most interesting girl in the world.”
“That’s not true.” Her cheeks turned a dusty shade of rose. “I’ve lived in the same town my entire life, the craziest thing I’ve ever done is a keg stand, I have lunch with my mom every week at the same place and time, and I date endless, unsatisfying men.”
“I was in the military,” I reminded her. “Where interests are limited to drinking, fucking, and blowing shit up.”
“Bet that uniform got you anything your pretty face wanted,” she teased.
“Maybe, but it wouldn’t have gotten me you.”
I stilled, holding a palm out cautiously toward Ophelia and making a shushing gesture with a finger to my lips. She stopped walking, and I could tell she was tamping down a rush of unjustified panic. A giant Blue Morpho had landed right on the crown of her head and was sitting there like it’d found a new home.
“That’s incredible,” I whispered, slowly inching my phone out of my pocket to take a picture and show her.
“Holy shit,” she gasped. “What do I do?”
“They like when you sing to them,” I told her.
“Really? Like, what kind of song?”
“Like a slow jazz number.”
“Are you fucking with me?”
My mouth turned up on one side. “Give us your best Etta James.”
Ophelia rolled her eyes, and even more spectacularly, the butterfly started crawling onto her forehead.
“Oh, fuck. Oh god, I can feel its little feet on me.”
“Fun fact,” I started.
“No, fuck off with your fun facts.”
“Butterflies use their feet to taste,” I continued. “It’s probably sampling your skin juice to find a suitable place to lay its eggs.”
She curled in on herself. “Get it off me, respectfully.”