Written in the Stars

by Alexandria Bellefleur

  Too perfect. Scary perfect because nothing this good could last forever. It never did.

  Elle’s smile didn’t just light up her face, it lit up the whole room. “Yeah?”

  Darcy stepped over the tree and grabbed both of Elle’s hands in hers. Elle’s fingers were frozen, so Darcy laced them with hers and drew her closer. Elle slid forward, her pajamas gliding against the hardwood, their toes bumping. Darcy used Elle’s forward momentum to her advantage, ducking her chin and stealing a kiss, lingering. Just a little more, for a little while longer.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I think it looks . . . nice.”

  Elle cocked her head, studying the tree, not that there was much tree to study. The branches were twiggy and the needles sparse. None of the ornaments matched—a glittery Barbie-pink Jeep hung beside a camouflage snowflake, and several branches down a cranberry-filled snow globe bumped up against a felt stocking and a hideous papier-mâché elf. But at least the tree had come prestrung with lights, none of which were burned out.

  Darcy must’ve pressed a button on the switch because the amber-colored lights flickered, and suddenly, the room was bathed in a rainbow of colors. Pink and teal and orange and violet bulbs winked from the branches like little colorful pinpricks of light.

  “That’s—”

  Darcy threw her head back and laughed. “I love it.”

  For someone who had a seemingly bottomless well of hope to draw from, Elle was hopeless when it came to Darcy. Hopeless in that there was no cure for how she felt. Hopeless in that, each time Darcy laughed as if taken by surprise by her own joy, Elle’s insides turned to marshmallow fluff. Hopeless in that she wanted to make Darcy laugh so often that the novelty of elation would wear off, but that it might never lose its appeal. Elle was hopeless and she didn’t want a cure.

  She tugged on Darcy’s sleeve, yanking hard as she knelt in front of the tree. “Come on. Get down here.”

  Without so much as a single gripe, Darcy lowered herself to the floor and looked at Elle with one brow raised as if to say now what?

  Leading by example, Elle scooted backward toward the tree and then lay flat when she had just enough clearance to do so without bumping her head. Wiggling beneath the lowest branches was a precarious feat, but she did so without knocking a single ornament.

  Staring up at the brightly lit branches didn’t quite have the same appeal as it did when she was a kid, probably because these branches were relatively bare, but it was still nice. Especially when she scrunched her eyes and the lights twinkled like stars. Even nicer when Darcy joined, snuggling close and tangling their fingers together.

  “Didn’t they do this on Grey’s Anatomy?” Darcy whispered.

  Elle huffed softly. “Yeah, but I did it first. I used to make Jane and Daniel crawl under the tree with me. Drove Mom crazy because we’d ruffle up the tree skirt and get pine needles all over the place.”

  “Brendon and I never crawled under the tree, but I remember trying to climb up it once.”

  Elle sputtered. “What?”

  “Well, we forgot the star on top.” Darcy’s shoulder bumped against hers when she shrugged. “I guess I saw it as a wrong I needed to right and Brendon was smaller so I sort of . . . shoved him up there.”

  “Was he okay?”

  “Of course.” Darcy sniffed. “I’d never let him fall. Besides, Grandma caught us when he was barely off the ground.”

  Elle laughed, stomach muscles burning at the mental image of a little Darcy shoving Brendon up a Christmas tree to place the topper. Plastic pine needles from the lowest branch tickled her nose, a renegade needle managing to go up her nose. A suspicious burn built in her sinuses and no. It would be the worst if she—

  Elle sneezed, catching a face and mouthful of pine needles. On second thought . . . “Maybe if we’re going to talk, we shouldn’t do it under the tree.”

  Darcy hummed her agreement and wiggled out from beneath the tree first. When they were both free and clear and leaning against the sectional, she bumped Elle gently with her elbow. “Thanks. Not for encouraging me to climb under a secondhand tree that could be full of, I don’t know, bedbugs, but—”

  “Oh my god. Lighten up, it doesn’t have—”

  Darcy pressed a finger to Elle’s lips. She was smiling. “I’m kidding. About the bedbugs, not my appreciation. It means a lot that you came, let alone thought to bring the tree and decorations, and then to actually do it?” She shook her head, but didn’t drop her hand. Instead, she traced the bow of Elle’s mouth with the pad of her fingertip, so gently Elle could feel the delicate friction of each ridge and whirl in Darcy’s fingerprint.

  Elle shivered and kissed the tip of Darcy’s finger because she could.

  Breath speeding and eyes darkening, her pupils widening—or maybe that was just a trick of the light—Darcy dropped her hand, not to her lap, but to Elle’s knee. Warmth from her palm sank through the flannel of Elle’s pajamas. “I, um, I hope I didn’t mess up any plans you might’ve had.”

  “Plans,” Elle echoed, eyes dropping to her pajamas. She hadn’t bothered to throw on more than a jacket—the jacket—after Darcy had hung up. She hadn’t seen the point, not when it had felt like time was of the essence. That Darcy needed her, needed her right then. “I was just messing around, making memes. I wasn’t busy.”

  “Can I see?”

  “Seriously?”

  Darcy simply stared, waiting.

  Elle fished out her phone, the LED light flashing with a notification. Another text from Daniel and two missed calls from Mom. Her chest went tight as she ignored them both and opened the note she’d made, the one she’d finished in the Uber on the way over. She passed it to Darcy, watching, lip trapped between her teeth as Darcy read down the list.

  The Zodiac Signs as Christmas Songs

  Aries—“Jingle Bell Rock”

  Taurus—“The Twelve Days of Christmas”

  Gemini—“Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays”

  Cancer—“I’ll Be Home for Christmas”

  Leo—“All I Want for Christmas Is You”

  Virgo—“The Christmas Song”

  Libra—“Walking in a Winter Wonderland”

  Scorpio—“Baby, It’s Cold Outside”

  Sagittarius—“Santa Baby”

  Capricorn—“White Christmas”

  Aquarius—“Do They Know It’s Christmas”

  Pisces—“Last Christmas”

  “‘White Christmas.’ Are you kidding me?”

  “What’s wrong with ‘White Christmas’? Everyone loves that song. It means you wrap your Christmas presents with the precision of one of Santa’s elves. Or Martha Stewart. And you probably buy into charming, old-fashioned traditions like mailing handwritten Christmas cards and roasting chestnuts or something. Whereas Margot and I hide a pickle in a plastic tree and I take the fairy lights off my wall and repurpose them for a month.”

  “Well. Not everyone loves that song. I don’t.”

  “How? It’s about snow.”

  “Exactly.” Darcy nodded. “And I hate snow.”

  Elle covered her mouth. “What? How? Why? Darcy, who hurt you?”

  Darcy wrinkled her nose. “Have you ever spent thirty minutes scraping ice off your windshield?”

  “That’s ice, not snow. Snow is pretty.”

  She stuck out her tongue. “Oh please. For all of ten minutes before it turns into gray sludge that refreezes into black ice that’s responsible for twenty-four percent of weather-related vehicle crashes, injuring over seventy-five thousand and killing nearly nine hundred annually.”

  That was depressing and yet, something about Darcy’s ability to rattle off random statistics—morbid as they were—was oddly hot. Disconcerting competence porn. “Bah fucking humbug. I’ll change your song.” Elle snatched her phone back. “How do you feel about ‘You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch’?”

  “Funny.” Darcy’s face didn’t so much as twitch, but her eyes had a bright twinkle that b
elied her deadpan expression. “I’m not a grinch because I don’t like snow. San Francisco never gets snow, or at least it hasn’t in my lifetime, and the weather’s rather temperate. The year I moved to Philadelphia, we had four snowstorms in the span of one month. And it was freezing.” Darcy shivered as if just thinking about it gave her a chill. “I hate being cold.”

  Elle leaned into her side. “Is that why you’re always trying to get me to wear a jacket?”

  “Not that I don’t like seeing your bare skin, but it makes me cold just looking at you.” Darcy smiled, looking at Elle from the corner of her eye. “You can keep ‘White Christmas.’ I do like traditions, especially holiday traditions.” She stared at the tree with its oddly colored lights, her throat jerking on a hard swallow. “I know ornaments are just . . . things. Twine and felt and glass and—it feels a little ridiculous to be upset about Mom getting rid of them, but I am.”

  Elle’s attachment to material items had always been more fleeting, her most precious keepsakes few and far between and more likely to be photos than anything else. But that didn’t mean she didn’t understand. “They were . . . physical embodiments of memories. It’s not ridiculous to be upset, Darcy. Whatever you feel is justified, okay?”

  Darcy nodded. “That’s exactly it. It’s the memories. Those ornaments were all one of a kind and priceless and we even had these fragile glass balls with each of our names written on them in gold paint. It’s a wonder they never broke.” She huffed. “Came close, though.”

  “Climbing the tree?”

  Darcy shook her head. “No, it’s silly.”

  So far, all of Darcy’s most silly secrets and stories had been revelations. “Tell me.”

  Darcy licked her lips. “I was . . . twelve? I think I was twelve, or maybe I was about to be. Brendon was either seven or eight. We had this tradition where we’d bake cookies with Grandma. Always thumbprint cookies and we used homemade jam. Strictly strawberry.” Darcy’s lips curled in a smile. “We’d set out the cookies and a glass of milk beside the fireplace for Santa. Dad would slip downstairs and drink the milk and eat a few cookies. Until that year, when I was twelve, Dad was gone on business. He was flying in that night, Christmas Eve. I didn’t believe in Santa anymore, but Brendon still did, so I lay in bed waiting for Dad to come home so he could drink the milk and eat the cookies but eleven o’clock became midnight became one then two then three and he still wasn’t home. I guess his flight got delayed.”

  “Did he make it in time? For Christmas?”

  Darcy shook her head, a forlorn smile on her face like she was remembering the disappointment. “For Christmas, but not to be Santa.” She choked out a laugh. “I was Santa that year. After three o’clock, I snuck down the stairs, extracareful to not make any noise since I swear to God, every step creaked. I inhaled six cookies and then I reached for the milk only to remember we put dairy milk out because Dad’s not lactose intolerant, but I am.”

  Her eyes widened, seeing where this was going. “No.”

  Darcy grimaced. “I didn’t know what to do. I was twelve and trying to be sneaky. I grabbed the glass and was going to head into the kitchen and pour it down the drain when I thought I heard someone on the stairs. I panicked, chugged the milk, and ducked behind the tree. One of those glass ornaments fell, but in the best twist of fate, it hit my slipper, which cushioned the landing. I hid there for at least twenty minutes before sneaking back upstairs. Brendon was fast asleep and none the wiser. And I lay in bed with stomach cramps for the rest of the night.” Darcy’s smile went fond and her voice dropped to a whisper. “But Brendon believed in Santa for another year, which was all I cared about.”

  Elle could picture it perfectly. A too young Darcy sneaking around behind Brendon’s back. She was still doing it, still taking care of him, even now.

  Elle bit the inside of her cheek to get a handle on herself. “You really love him, don’t you?” She laughed. “I mean, duh. Of course, you do. I just meant, I love my brother and sisters, and as contentious as things between us can get, I know they love me, too. But I can’t imagine any of them going out of their way to do anything like that for me.”

  Darcy shrugged. “I learned about Santa too soon when I was six and realized Santa used the exact same gift tags as Mom and Dad. I wanted Brendon to believe as long as possible. With Dad gone half the time and Mom either traveling with him or being obvious about how she wished she was, it wasn’t much, but it felt like the least I could do.”

  There was nothing small about it. Darcy didn’t do the bare minimum, she went above and beyond, more than any sister should feel obligated. Driving him to school, fixing him dinner, making sure he believed in magic for just a little while longer.

  Darcy glanced at Elle and squeezed her knee, smiling softly before turning back to the twinkling Christmas tree. It was a quick look, but in that brief moment when their eyes met, something rearranged itself inside Elle’s chest, all her maybes becoming certainties, her anxious musings about what this was and what it meant, resolved.

  Darcy was sitting there, lips pursed so prettily, completely lost in thought, oblivious to how the earth was teeter-tottering under Elle, shifting and turning and spinning her around like those nauseating teacups at Disney she rode each time she visited without fail, because apparently, her memory was a fickle friend.

  But Elle wouldn’t forget this, her ass falling asleep from sitting on Darcy’s floor, her heart stuttering and speeding, mind spinning, and her stomach swooping.

  She swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. “You take care of your brother. You take care of everyone. Who . . . who takes care of you?”

  All she could think about was the night she’d sat on her floor beside Margot after that disaster date. Hopeless and raw, and so damn tired. How she’d decided to pack it in, take a break, quit looking for love and let it find her.

  Boy, had it ever.

  Something like panic flashed in Darcy’s eyes, a fleeting, frantic flicker. She shook her head slowly, shoulders sagging, mouth opening and shutting before a desperate laugh that sounded almost like a sob burst from between her lips. “You’re doing a pretty good job of it.”

  No one had ever said that to her before. Elle had never been put in the position of caring for someone, not really, not beyond a weekend of babysitting. Margot was too headstrong for it, and no one else trusted Elle enough to let her take care of them.

  Stomach jittering like it had the first time she’d seen a meteor shower, watched while celestial debris fell from the sky, Elle reached out, cupping Darcy’s jaw. She turned Darcy’s face toward her and leaned in, brushing a kiss against her mouth that immediately made her stomach drop like she was one of those stars, falling, falling, gone.

  Quitting grad school and pouring herself, heart and soul, into Oh My Stars hadn’t been easy. Making that leap into the unknown had been terrifying, but it had always felt right, because she wasn’t one to settle. She wanted more. This, kissing Darcy beside the rainbow lights of a Christmas tree with more heart than pine needles, was the closest Elle had ever come to experiencing real magic, the kind that sparkled inside her veins and electrified her from the ends of her hair to the tips of her toes.

  Hands drifting, Elle sneaked her thumbs beneath the fabric of Darcy’s untucked blouse, needing skin, needing more. She traced her nails over the thin skin on Darcy’s hip bones, making her suck in a quiet breath.

  Darcy drew back, lashes fluttering as her gaze immediately dropped to Elle’s mouth like she already missed kissing her. Maybe Elle was giving that look more credence, maybe it was just a look, nothing more, nothing less, but speculating made her heart pound.

  “Elle, I—” For a moment, Darcy looked utterly and completely lost and all the more terrified for it. She blinked twice, her breath shuddering from between parted lips that twitched into a smile. “We should go to my room.” Darcy reached out, fingers tracing the plains of Elle’s face, each brush of her fingers driving Elle’s need for her up a notch. She
wanted her touch, wanted Darcy to touch her everywhere.

  “Oh yeah?” Elle let her fingers drift to the hem of Darcy’s skirt. “What for?”

  Fingers brushing the soft skin of Darcy’s inner thighs as she slid the fabric up her legs, Elle bit the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling when Darcy practically panted. Skin. Now Elle was biting her cheek for a whole other reason. Darcy was wearing stockings, the band of her lace only going so far.

  Eyes slipping shut, Darcy’s tongue darted out to wet her bottom lip. “Elle.”

  She leaned in to Elle’s touch, hips pressing into Elle’s hand like she was trying to get closer. Elle slipped her hand higher, fingers dipping inside Darcy’s underwear and through her curls until she found her clit.

  Darcy let loose the softest, greediest little moan as her nails bit into Elle’s arm, her hips rocking against Elle’s hand, squirming. Darcy slipped down until she was no longer resting against the couch but instead splayed against the rug. She glanced up at Elle from beneath heavy lids and thick, dark lashes, and the hungry look in her eyes robbed Elle of the air inside her lungs.

  “Kiss me,” Darcy panted and used her grip on Elle’s arm to pull her down to the floor on top of her. She kept her there with both arms banded around Elle’s shoulders.

  Leaning in, she nipped the swell of Darcy’s lower lip. Ghosting her mouth over Darcy’s chin, Elle slipped lower, trailing kisses down her throat, tongue darting out every so often to taste the silk of her skin. When her lips reached Darcy’s neckline, Elle sat up on her knees and grabbed the hem of Darcy’s blouse.

  Darcy leaned up and helped her strip it off. Once her top was gone, Elle took a minute to appreciate all the new skin on display. Her bra was pink and polka-dotted and sheer. Her nipples pebbled against the fabric, begging for attention.

  Elle ducked her head and laved her tongue against Darcy’s right nipple through the delicate lace, teeth closing around it and biting gently, then harder when Darcy’s hand flew to the back of Elle’s head, fingers tangling in her hair and holding her there, encouraging her with little whimpers. Drawing back a bit, Elle blew against the pebbled flesh, grinning when Darcy’s hips bucked, her back arching.