Why Stars Chase the Sun

by C. R. Ellis

  Her eyes widened and she tried to pull free of my grip. “What?! I do not snore! You must’ve been dreaming. Or snoring yourself,” she insisted.

  I laughed. “You’re cute when you’re all flustered and dramatic.” I draped my arms around her waist and dropped my head down to nuzzle the crook of her neck.

  “Am not,” she huffed and crossed her arms.

  “Oh, come on. I think it’s adorable.”

  She craned her neck around to give me an exasperated eye roll. “Flustered. I’m not flustered, Emmett.”

  Like I said—dramatic.

  “Whatever you say, Tiny,” I replied with a grin designed to melt her resolve.

  She settled back into me, and I realized how accurate my nickname was for her. She had to be a whole foot shorter than my six-two frame. I couldn’t help but wonder how such a bright, fiery personality fit into such a small body. Hers was an anomaly, the kind of body only found in fantasies—perfect hourglass curves in all the right places, and toned muscle as evidence of her daily workouts.

  “Is that why you stopped us here?” she asked, tilting her chin toward the rope swing and giant boulder nestled off to the side of an abandoned alcove along the water’s edge.

  I nodded. “I figured we could have lunch over there and then anchor some floats with a rope and hang out here for a while. We don’t have to stay if you don’t want to.”

  She whipped around in my arms and shook her head adamantly. “No! This is great, Emmett. Plus, I’d do just about anything for food at this point. Somehow, I’ve managed to work up quite an appetite today.”

  “Anything?” I asked, tracing my fingers along her collar bone and waggling my eyebrows.

  “Oh, shut up. You know what I mean.”

  I chuckled and turned back toward the cabin, ready to fill up a water-proof cooler with the lunch I’d brought. “C’mon, pretty girl, let’s go get you some food.”

  Twenty minutes later we were sitting at an old picnic table, unpacking the contents of the cooler—chipotle chicken wraps, garlic and herb potatoes, and chocolate covered strawberries.

  “I don’t know if I’m just hungry or if these are that good, but this is quite possibly the best wrap I’ve ever had,” Jade exclaimed, licking her fingers. “Where did you find them?”

  “I made them. I told you, my uncle taught me a lot, cooking included. It’s become a hobby over the years. Plus, they may say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, but Em assured me it goes both ways; she said John wooed her through his cooking skills. Though I can’t take all the credit for these; they’re copycats of wraps from one of my favorite food trucks in Boston.”

  Jade’s expression shifted from surprise to a mixture of skepticism and disbelief. She dropped her wrap and leaned in close so she could graze my cheek with the tips of her fingers, searching my eyes.

  “Strange. You feel real. You sound real. And yet, now I know you’re some kind of bionic man. Abs of steel? Sure. Dreamy ocean eyes? Yep, I get that too. Gestures sweet and thoughtful enough to easily sweep any girl off her feet? Kind of a stretch, but okay. All qualities of a damn near perfect guy. But cooking, too? Come on, Emmett, that’s a dead giveaway,” she insisted, shaking her head but unable to conceal her smile. “No freaking way you are not a robot.”

  I nearly choked on my laughter until my lips settled in a smirk. She was studying me so earnestly. The jokes I’d had lined up evaporated when the smolder in her eyes conveyed her underlying feelings about me and loosened the tether around my heart.

  I pulled her hand to my chest, laying it over my heart. “In a lot of ways I live like a robot, but you make me feel human again, Jade,” I admitted, suddenly escalating our mood from light and playful to something dipping below the surface.

  Maybe it didn’t make sense to feel this way. Maybe I was selfish for giving Jade my honesty when today was all we’d share. But hearts don’t give a shit about what’s fair and what’s not fair. If they did, emotions like love wouldn’t have the ability to cause people the kind of pain from which they can’t recover.

  After a few moments, Jade pulled her hand away from my chest as an indecipherable look fell across her face. Up to this point, Jade’s eyes had always given me full access to exactly what was going on in her head. But now she blinked a few times and darted her gaze toward the water.

  “Everybody deserves to feel human, Emmett. Why won’t you let yourself have that feeling?” Her voice was soft and sad, and if I listened closely I could almost hear her heart break for me.

  The words crashed over me like an avalanche.

  I wanted to bury myself under them and never emerge.

  “It’s not that simple,” I countered defensively. My jaw clenched and my hands fisted in frustration. Frustration with the direction of the conversation, frustration with myself.

  “It’s as simple as you’ll allow it to be. You don’t have a monopoly on baggage, Emmett. Or on a past you’d like to forget. Or a fucked-up family. You say we’re all in control of our own destinies, but if you were truly controlling your own, you wouldn’t subject yourself to a life of solitude.”

  Jade stood abruptly and headed straight to the lake, leaving me frozen in place to digest the truth of her words.

  “Jade, wait!” Either she didn’t hear me or she wasn’t willing to let me respond because she splashed into the water and dove under, putting more distance between us. I hated myself for being so selfish and unfair, for not giving her the answers she deserved.

  I sucked in a deep breath and buried the questions and doubts about today racing through my head. My shirt hit the ground a split-second before my body crashed into the water after her.

  “Jade,” I called, finally emerging and peeling my eyes open to see her. She cut her eyes to mine and waited for me to go on. Only, the words refused to come to my brain. I tentatively narrowed the remaining space between us, gauging her reaction before being within range of touching her.

  I was about to apologize for being so withdrawn and guarded, but she shook her head as soon as my mouth opened.

  “Emmett, I’m sorry. I came today knowing your terms, so I can’t fault you for sticking to them. I don’t know what your reasons are, but I feel like I know you enough to be certain they’re valid. So I’m not going to press any more. If this is how today has to be, I’m going to embrace the time we have together.”

  Her voice was resolute, but I worried she was putting up a front for me.

  “Jade…” I started. She shook her head and launched herself into my arms to kiss me silent. I welcomed Jade’s lips like a drowning victim welcomes oxygen. She wrapped her legs around my waist and melted into my body. I was convinced if her lips were the last ones to possess mine, I’d be okay with that. If hers was the last body I held in my arms, I’d be content knowing I’d found the one that fit mine like a glove.

  “Favorite movie?” she asked, rolling off my chest and propping herself up on her elbows. We had to have sailed past the twenty questions by now, but I didn’t care. I wanted to know everything Jade would give me. I appreciated the way her questions were broad and basic for me, but I was desperate to know everything about her. I wasn’t playing fair, and we both knew it.

  “Easy. Goldfinger.”

  “‘My dear girl, there are some things that just aren’t done. Such as, drinking Dom Perignon ’53 above the temperature of 38 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s just as bad as listening to the Beatles without earmuffs’,” she quoted without missing a beat.

  “What just happened?” I asked.

  She shrugged casually, as if dropping lines from a James Bond movie was an everyday occurrence. “Girls can be Bond fans too, ya’ know.”

  Jesus Christ. Just when I thought she couldn’t get any hotter.

  “I’m gonna need more explanation than that, Tiny.”

  She smirked, presumably at the awe-struck look I still wore. I didn’t care, I was awe-struck that she was apparently a big enough Bond fan to quote Goldfinger
on demand.

  “My dad has always liked James Bond, so I grew up watching all the Bond movies with him. It’s kind of embarrassing how many times I’ve seen Goldfinger and Diamonds Are Forever. Among others.”

  I shook my head in disbelief.

  “What’s your favorite place to be in the entire world?” I wanted to dissect her Bond fandom, but my thirst for more information about her was too all-consuming for me to stay on any one topic for long.

  She huffed out a breath to blow the hair away from her eyes. “My parents have a bunch of land just north of the city, where they’ve lived since I was little. There’s a spot, a hill probably half a mile or so from the house, where you can see for miles over undeveloped areas of the hill country. I feel at peace when I’m up there. I keep thinking I’m going to lose the view one day, but so far it’s remained untouched. I took it for granted when I was younger, but now that I don’t live there, I appreciate having grown up with so much land.”

  The words were on the tip of my tongue to tell her I’d like to share that view with her one day, but I held them in. “Sounds like a pretty spectacular place.”

  She nodded and sat up to watch a boat pass by in the distance.

  “What’s your biggest pet peeve?” she asked.

  “Probably either when people don’t use their turn signals, or when people don’t recycle. We have one planet; I’ll never understand why people don’t do their part to keep it alive and intact.”

  “Careful, Emmett, you’re dangerously close to thinking like an Austinite.”

  It was a harmless comment, but my heart rate spiked at the thought of trading Boston for Austin. I should tell her.

  But I just smiled back and asked about what she was like as a kid.

  Our conversation went on for so long we lost track of time. I’d ask her something increasingly personal, she’d answer. She’d ask me something she knew I’d be comfortable answering. By the time we made our way back to Esperanza, I knew Jade graduated magna cum laude from college after only three years. I knew her birthday was March twenty-fifth. I knew she grew up watching and playing sports, she loved being outdoors, but she also liked girly shit like spa days and shopping. I knew a trip to New York a couple of months ago for her brother’s thirtieth birthday was her only time away from work in the last four years. I knew her go-to, staple meal was a peanut butter, banana, and honey sandwich with sweet potato fries. I knew she had seen every episode of Criminal Minds and her biggest celebrity crush was Shemar Moore. I knew she volunteered at a local animal shelter in Austin.

  I also knew I was dangerously close to more than just thinking like an Austinite—I was dangerously close to falling for an Austinite.

  Chapter 8

  Jade

  Fact: Emmett can seriously cook. (Also a fact—he probably ruined me for all future picnics.)

  Fact: Emmett had a golden retriever named Athena growing up. (Also a fact—finding out he liked animals made my heart smile. Or something.)

  Fact: Emmett has been to twenty-nine countries. (Also a fact—my jaw fell about ten feet when he told me that.)

  Fact: Emmett has a six-month-old niece named Caroline whom he absolutely adores. (Also a fact—Emmett getting emotional when talking about her was the sexiest thing ever.)

  Fact: Peeling back layers of the Emmett onion was a double-edged sword.

  I wanted to celebrate the fact he was opening up to me, but the reality of our arrangement was never far from my mind. I wanted to know so much more about him, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask questions that dug too deeply.

  The realist in me demanded I open my eyes—I barely knew him, and he could be lying about any or all of the information he chose to share with me. But, since meeting him, that particular voice in my head that spoke sense to me had been put on mute. The voice was still there, trying to get me to think logically, but something in Emmett’s presence, in the words he did give me, demanded a degree of trust that wasn’t willing to let me question whether our time together was logical or not.

  Apparently logic goes out the window when your brain knows time is of the essence.

  “You’re sure we have to go back?” I asked Emmett, my eyes sweeping past the interior of the yacht to look back over the serenity of the lake. Out here on the water, reality seemed so far away. Once we got back on solid ground, I had a sneaking suspicion things would feel different, like the illusion we’d created by secluding ourselves away on the yacht would disappear and reality would come crashing down on us.

  Emmett freed one hand from the wheel to pull me into him until I was sandwiched between his body and the wheel.

  “Well, we have dinner reservations and a hotel room waiting for us to check in to, but I’m pretty tempted to keep you all to myself, right here,” he whispered, brushing his lips against my ear on the way down to my neck. He pulled his hand up to sweep away my wind-blown hair. The sensation of his lips on my skin pulled me back into our bubble, where reality wasn’t knocking at our door.

  “As long as you’re with me, Boston, I don’t care where we are,” I professed, leaving my own trail of kisses against his chest and neck.

  “Do you have any idea what you do to me, Jade?” he asked, angling his head back to meet my eyes. I was beginning to wonder if I’d ever be able to look into those eyes without feeling like I was free falling into an ocean. An ocean I’d been searching for all along, where he was waiting to catch me. “Your smile, your very presence, is my own personal sun, bringing light and brightness to the darkest, most desolate corners of my heart. You illuminate parts of my heart I never thought I’d find again. Promise me you’ll remember that.”

  I wanted to tell him an eternity wouldn’t be enough time for me to forget those words, that saying such things was sure to destroy me after he walked away.

  “I’ll remember every part of today, Emmett. I only wish you could see your own light; the brightness I see when I look at you. Whatever’s haunting you doesn’t control you. Promise me you’ll remember that.”

  Maybe a reality check isn’t the worst idea, a wary voice warned me somewhere deep in my mind. The voice was soft and distant, but the message stuck. Secluding ourselves wasn’t going to make things any easier tomorrow. I needed to be back in a world where everything didn’t hinge on having only Emmett to occupy my senses.

  “On second thought, let’s get back to the marina before I commandeer Esperanza and your brother-in-law never sees her again.” I plastered on a teasing smile to my request, hoping he wouldn’t realize my real motivation for wanting to get back to solid ground.

  “Whatever you want, Tiny,” he acquiesced, reaching beyond the wheel to adjust some dials and reach for the radio.

  I stepped back to let him take control, but he tugged me back to the wheel until I was sandwiched again, this time my back pressed against his front and his hands guided mine to the wheel. “Your turn to navigate.”

  “Emmett, I can’t…I have no idea what I’m doing here!”

  His hands covered mine, and I felt the heat of his chest at my back. “Yes, you can. I’m right here. Just keep the wheel straight, and I’ll tell you what to do. You got this,” he murmured into my hair, voice low and reassuring.

  “What if I crash? We’ll be fish food.”

  He snorted and gently squeezed my biceps. “Pretty hard to crash in the open water, Jade.”

  “Uh, you’d be surprised. I had to wear layers of padding while learning to ride a bike in an empty parking lot because of how much I fell down without a single obstacle in my way.”

  “And what about now? Do you still fall when you ride a bike?”

  “No, but I have the scars on my knees and elbows to prove how much practice I put in.” I had to admit, there was something empowering, yet calming at the same time, about being in control of this massive vessel. Looking out over the water, seeing the ripples left in our wake was somehow mesmerizing. Feeling Emmett at my back might’ve had something to do with it.

  “
Know what else those scars prove?”

  “I’m a glutton for torture?”

  I felt his chest rumble with low laughter. “No. They prove you’ve got the grit, the determination to master anything you set out to do. You’ve proved that time and again. Graduating early with honors? Check. Building a successful business from the ground up? Check. So I know you can do this.”

  How does he have all the right words? Words that empower me while drawing me into him even more. Emmett made me feel like there was nothing in this world I couldn’t do if I tried. Nobody had ever made me feel this confident, this capable before. When Emmett built me up, his words weren’t empty encouragement; the conviction in his voice reached down to the depths of my soul and left a permanent impression there.

  I shook my head. “How is this possible? You just met me. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “I can’t answer that, pretty girl. But I do know what I feel for you can’t be quantified by the amount of time that’s passed since you came into my life. It doesn’t make sense, you’re right, but I’m not going to question these feelings. Not when having you here feels so fucking good.”

  The logical part of my brain, the conveniently muted part, was screaming at me to remember I’d just created a set of rules for relationships forbidding me from going down a path leading to a dead end.

  But I couldn’t think about those rules right now. Not when being here with him felt so right. Like this was exactly where I was meant to be, rules be damned.

  I swallowed the lump in my throat and nodded, focusing my attention on the water. “You’re right—today isn’t about logic.”

  “Good. Now show me what you’ve got,” he commanded, stepping away from me. I would’ve panicked, but he was only moving to the seat right next to me, eyes never leaving my profile.