When Stars Collide

by Sara Furlong-Burr

  “Everyone felt sorry for me after the crash because I’d lost a decade of my life, but they were wrong to feel sorry for me—God, Elle, they were so wrong. Because from my perspective, losing those years was a blessing. Elle, I never want to remember a time in my life without you in it, not then, not now, not ever.”

  Then in true gentlemanly fashion, Luke knelt down on one knee in front of Elle, whose face had become obscured not by her hair, but by her hands covering her mouth in shock.

  “He has got to be in some kind of pain right now,” Peter observed. “His leg isn’t strong enough yet for him to stay in that position for long.”

  “What I’d like to know is how he was able to hide that ring box in those shorts he’s wearing,” I observed, watching Luke open the box to reveal a ring so brilliant the sparkle from the diamond could be seen from where we were sitting.

  “That’s because I picked it up from the jeweler right before your flight got in.”

  “And here I thought that bulge in your pants was because of me.”

  “Ellen Rae Sloan …”

  “Yes! Oh my God, Luke, yes!”

  “Will you marry me?”

  Elle jumped into Luke’s arms, toppling him over in the sand. Their bodies shook—a combination of laughter and tears. Peter and I rose to our feet at the top of the dune and watched them like proud parents, letting them have what was undoubtedly the happiest moment of both of their lives up to that point, all to themselves. Only eighteen months ago, I wouldn’t have thought this scenario possible. Now, it all seemed so surreal, like I was in a dream where fairy tales came true and happily ever afters were guaranteed. After all they’d been through—hell, after all the four of us had been through—we deserved to have a moment like this.

  “It’s about time you stopped giving that milk away for free,” I called out to Elle. Arm in arm, Peter and I traversed our way down the dune. “My God, I’m so happy for you.” I bent down to drape my arms around her, allowing her excitement to flow through my body like a current.

  Elle wiped tears away from her eyes. “You’re going to be my maid of honor, right?” she asked.

  “I’m sorry, was there someone else in the running? Of course I will. And with Peter as Luke’s best man, this wedding will be one big, sickening ball of matrimonial bliss.”

  “You do know that the best man routinely gives speeches at these things, right?” Peter added.

  I nodded. “As does the maid of honor.”

  Elle and Luke froze, stealing a glance at each other.

  “They’re right,” Luke muttered as though the thought had just struck him over the head. “Perhaps, we should think this one through some more?” He smiled conspiratorially at Elle, who echoed his expression.

  “Sure, you could do that,” I agreed, “then Peter and I wouldn’t feel pressured to stay sober during the ceremony.”

  “What makes you think we assumed you were going to be sober, anyway?” Luke countered.

  “Touché.”

  Peter slapped Luke on the shoulder. “I know it’s kind of early in the game, but do you have any idea when this shindig is going to take place?”

  Luke smiled at Elle, resting his hand on hers. “If I have my way, the sooner the better.”

  “I agree.” Elle smiled back at Luke, completely oblivious to the world.

  “Aw … you guys are gross. What month is soon in, anyway?” I turned to Peter inquisitively.

  He shrugged. “Falltober? Winterary?”

  Elle peered at Luke, perhaps attempting to read his thoughts via eye contact. “I’m thinking more during the warmer months. Spring or summer?”

  “If you say June, I’m withdrawing from this wedding. Everyone gets married in June,” I interceded, shuddering as I remembered the three weddings I’d attended in New York in June this year alone.

  “For once, I agree with Mena.” Luke nodded in my direction.

  “There really is a first time for everything.” Peter smiled.

  Luke appeared thoughtful as he spoke, “What do you think about May?”

  “May,” Elle repeated Luke in such a way that I couldn’t tell whether it was a statement or a question.

  “It’s a month rife with pain for the both of us. A wedding—our wedding—could really turn it around.”

  Elle reached up and brushed Luke’s chin with her thumb, leaving granules of sand stuck in his stubble. “May it is.” Her eyes widened suddenly. “Wait … May! That’s less than a year from now. Nine months, to be exact. There’s so much to do before then.” She jumped to her feet, her excitement and anxiety joining forces to propel her off the ground. “Mena, I’m going to need your help. There’s the venue, the caterers, the DJ, the flowers—”

  “And the booze, which I think I was promised before Luke put a ring on it.” I rested my hand on Elle’s shoulder. “We have time. Plenty of it. A lot can happen in nine months. An entire pregnancy, for example.” I nudged her playfully with my elbow.

  “Well, when you put it that way … but we really need to get started soon.”

  “And we will, just as soon as we get those drinks.”

  Luke stood up and brushed the sand from the back of his shorts. “Well, it seems as though the world has completely been turned upside down, because for the second time in less than five minutes, I’m in complete concurrence with Mena.”

  “Then it’s settled,” Peter clapped his hands, “let’s get this party started.”

  *****

  “It’s meant metaphorically, not literally.” I stumbled over the threshold of our suite into Peter’s outstretched arms, somehow feeling as though that validated my point that much more.

  “Baloney,” he countered. “The song goes: Life is but a dream. It clearly means that life is short and fleeting, like a dream—it’s here and then it’s gone. So, you’d better appreciate every last minute of it before it slips away. Why else do you think the composer would have us rowing our figurative boats so quickly?” He took a step back, almost losing his footing before steadying himself on the counter in the suite’s kitchenette.

  “Because the song would be rather tedious if it went: Row, row, row, take a break to scratch yourself, row. Not only that, but life itself is a dream. It’s unpredictable, maybe even a little frightening at times; anything can happen. Yet, even when circumstances appear bleak, everything can turn around the next night when we lay our heads down on our pillows. Because like dreams, life is a senseless series of experiences that can either be peaceful and pleasant or a downright nightmare.”

  “Did we seriously just argue over the philosophical semantics governing ‘Row, Row, Row Your Boat’ for the last twenty minutes?” Chuckling, Peter encased me in his arms and drew me in closer to him.

  “With all due respect,” I replied, holding onto him as tightly as he was to me, “I considered our little debate to be quite stirring, given our present state of inebriation. Especially since not a single bodily function joke was passed by either of us—no pun intended.”

  Peter kissed my forehead. If I were but a mere inch shorter, he would have to bend his knees to reach me. As it was, it had to be a major strain on his neck for him just to hold the position he was in. Regardless, his lips lingered on my skin.

  “I missed the way you smell.” He spoke so sensually that I felt goose bumps forming down my arms. As hard as I tried, as much as I fought it, he had me unequivocally, and it drove me crazy.

  “You missed the smell of sweat and sunscreen?” My fingers lightly traced the lengths of his arms, hoping that I enlivened his senses half as much as he did mine.

  “It’s more of an earthy, saccharine scent, yet the contrasts complement each other; not too musky, not too sweet. It reminds me of walking through the woods in the springtime after a good rain. Except tonight there’s a hint of rum in there, too, which only adds to the complexity.”

  “You’re saying that I usually smell like a bunch of wet wood, then? I suppose it could be worse.” I tilted my he
ad up until my lips were but a breath away from his.

  “Something like that.” He smirked. His arms wound their way around my waist, doing nothing to satiate my present situation. “I know it’s only ever two weeks between our visits, but it feels like the weeks, even the days themselves stretch out further and further every month.”

  “I know,” I agreed, brushing my lips practically imperceptibly against his. “Father Time can be an insufferable bastard sometimes. But you know, there are remedies for that.”

  “Mena.” The pain and frustration were more evident in his voice now that he’d let his guard down.

  “I know … I know.” My fingertips journeyed up his arm, winding their way to the back of his neck. “But I’m here now, and we only have until tomorrow to make every second count.”

  “Now that’s something I can do.”

  Peter lifted me up into his arms, groaning when I wrapped my legs around his waist. Steadying himself, he pushed my back against the wall, our lips desperately meeting each other, fulfilling a need we both had. His fingers, just as eager, deftly unfastened the buttons on the front of my blouse. Once undone, he pulled it over my head and allowed his lips to trail down my neck. The warmth of his breath ignited a fire within my body. I moaned, my breath hitching in my throat when his mouth reached my clavicle.

  “That’s another thing I missed.” I could feel his lips curling up into a smile against my skin when his fingers reached my bra strap and slid it down my shoulder. “Is this new?” he asked admiringly.

  “No, I’ve had this one for a while. You just usually have my clothes in a pile on your bedroom floor within five minutes after arriving at your apartment.”

  “Are you saying that from now on I should first engage you in witty banter when you arrive before stripping you naked?”

  “Now what sense would that make, since we both know that’s the second-best thing we do together?”

  “That’s so very true, but it’s a close second.” Peter pulled me away from the wall, carrying me across the kitchenette through the French doors that led straight to the bedroom of the suite Luke reserved for us at the Carlson Smith Mountain Lake Hotel as a thank you to Peter for helping him with the proposal.

  “Are you sure you’re steady enough on your feet there, Mr. Icanstillhanglikeatwentyoneyearold?”

  “Is that a challenge?”

  “More like a concern, considering I’m the one in danger of being dropped if something were to go terribly wrong.”

  “O ye of little—”

  Before he could finish his sentence, Peter stumbled over his own two feet. In the split second that it became apparent that he wasn’t going to regain his footing, and with me still securely in his arms, he managed to angle his body backwards, so that when he fell onto the bed, I landed firmly on top of him.

  “Nice landing, Captain Sully.”

  “Are you all right?” he asked, searching my body with his hands.

  “I’m fine … but I would be even better if there was less clothing involved.” Grasping the hem of his shirt, I slid it up to his chest. He took over from there by tugging it the rest of the way over his head.

  “That’s better. I may now forgive you for almost killing me.”

  I expected his usual smart-ass retort—that he would attempt to go toe-to-toe with me until our clothes had disappeared and we were expressing our passion in ways that would later make me flustered when I replayed everything over again in my mind back home in New York. But that’s the funny thing about expectations, they’re often just that, never becoming anything more. His expression softened, almost like the fall had succeeded in sobering him up, and he was looking at me as though he was truly seeing me for the first time.

  “I love you, Mena Straszewski.”

  My jaw dropped at around the same time my mind went completely blank. Every thought, each and every response, made a break for it, leaving me to fend for myself.

  “Never would I have guessed that I would ever see you finding yourself completely at a loss for words.” Peter chuckled, lightly rubbing my thigh with the tip of his thumb.

  “Peter, I … well, I—”

  “It’s okay. I know I just sprung that on you, and I didn’t expect you to respond in kind. In fact, I didn’t want you to respond at all.” He looked me in the eyes, his azure pools searching my face for any signs of betrayal that would provide him with a clue as to what I was thinking. “I want to know for certain that when—if—you ever say it back to me, that you’re doing so because you truly feel it and not because you’re afraid of bruising my fragile ego.”

  “Since when have you ever known me to give a hot damn about not only bruising egos, but flat-out annihilating them?”

  He smiled. “I just wanted to give you that disclaimer so the rest of this night wouldn’t get all weird and awkward, because then I would have had no choice but to make you sleep on the floor.”

  “How generous of you.” I laughed, tickling the side of his torso, near his ribcage. He squirmed, an open invitation for me to keep going.

  “Stop it.” He looked at me as sternly as he possibly could, but we both knew he was doing all he could do to keep from cracking up. Challenge accepted, I decided to push his buttons further, coming at him from both sides. “Okay, that’s it.” Sitting up, he wrapped his arms around my body, pinning my arms to my side.

  “Well,” I proclaimed, surveying my present situation, “I guess you showed me.”

  “And yet I don’t feel the least bit victorious.”

  He released me from his grasp, and I found myself brushing a wayward strand of hair away from his face. “In all seriousness, though, thank you.”

  “What are you thanking me for?” He traced the length of my jaw with his thumb as he spoke.

  “Thank you for never pressuring me into do anything I’m not ready to do. For being so understanding, so patient, so kind. But mostly, thank you for being so damn hot, because let’s be honest, your personality alone wasn’t going to be enough to get you laid.”

  “I really hate you sometimes.” He laughed in spite of himself.

  “You know I know that’s not true,” I teased him. “Now that you’ve shown me all the cards in your hand, there’s no turning back.” Still straddling him, my eyes drifted up to his face while my hands made their way down to the button of his shorts.

  “About that not pressuring you into doing something you’re not ready to do,” he began, stopping himself short when, perhaps, that little voice inside of his head planted the tiniest seed of doubt in his mind about his potentially broaching me to boldly go where our relationship had never gone before.

  “You wait until I just about have your shorts off to present me with that?” Eyebrow raised, a habit of mine I broke out whenever I was curious, nervous, or a combination of the two, I studied his face, searching for anything I could glean. “You’re into that kinky shit, aren’t you?” I asked, feeling the slightest bit of satisfaction when it was I who had taken him off guard that time. “What is it—whips, bondage, dominatrix fantasies?”

  “Not where I was going with that, but we will be revisiting that soon.” He took my hands in his, and I realized then the extent of how shot my nerves were from the day’s excitement. “I was just thinking that we’ve been together for a while now, and— Christ, Mena, don’t look so petrified.”

  “Who’s petrified? Not me, that’s who.” Stomach in knots, I hoped my face wasn’t reflecting how shot my nerves really were.

  “I think,” he continued, never tearing his gaze away from my own, “I’d like you to meet Jackson.”

  Relieved, I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. “Is that it? Thank God, I thought you were going to propose there for a second.”

  “What?” he laughed. “No. Not even remotely.”

  “You didn’t have to put it like that.”

  Even though a proposal was the absolute last thing I wanted to have happen right now, the way he responded—so incredulo
usly—plunged itself deep into my body, like a knife to the gut.

  “Wh-What do you think? Would you like to meet my son?”

  He was more vulnerable than I’d remembered seeing him before. So full of hope that was swiftly becoming overcome with fear with each passing second of silence he met from me.

  “Of course.” I cupped his cheek in my hand. “I would love to meet him. I’ve been wanting to for a while now, actually.”

  “Really?” His entire body relaxed around me. Up to that point, I hadn’t known just how tense he had been. In hindsight, he must have been tense all day, what with having to keep Luke’s proposal a secret, telling me he loved me for the first time, and then tossing whether to raise the topic of my meeting Jackson around in his head.

  “Yes, Peter, he’s a part of you. Why wouldn’t I?”

  Peter kissed me urgently, taking me by surprise—albeit a pleasant one. Though this time, there was no relaxing on his part as he hastily made quick work of the rest of my clothing. Succeeding in his mission, he took me in his arms and rolled me over, positioning his body over mine.

  “Any other surprises you want to spring on me tonight?” I slid his shorts down with my foot as his lips trailed their way down my bare chest.

  “I guess you’ll just have to wait and see.”

  He flashed a mischievous smile, lowering himself the rest of the way down on top of me; our bodies fitting together, our hearts content.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I arrived back in Queens shortly after six the next evening, greeted by the familiar sight of my roommate, Jo, scrambling to tidy up the remnants of her weekend scattered over our apartment. I’d made it a habit of sending her a text whenever my flight landed, as I’d walked in on one too many of her trysts over the last two years. She was too busy to notice me this time, scurrying around, picking up everything from an empty wine bottle to towels and a pizza box. Gone undetected by her on the floor was a crumpled article of clothing, which I picked up and quickly identified as not belonging to her. It was pink, and Jo was decidedly not a pink kind of girl. Waiting for her to notice my arrival, I admired the blouse, rolling the material between my fingers. It was sheer, probably silk.