Jack had been staying at Landon’s for three nights. That was three nights that Callum had spent alone in a bed that smelled like mountaineering Swiss men and the fading musk of sweat and cum.

He equal parts hated and appreciated the fact Jack was giving him the space to work and the time to maintain his schedule the way he needed. But it was Monday now, and he didn’t have work. He had a date.

Jack knocked on his door and it startled him. He didn’t know it was Jack, but he assumed it was, since they had a date and no one else came over unannounced. He opened his front door and there was Jack, as expected, as hoped for.

He was wearing slim-cut black trousers and a simple looking red v-neck tee. He had a single, long-stem red rose in one hand, held casually at his side. He displayed it between them with a smile that melted Callum’s heart.

“Kitten,” Jack greeted him.

“Daddy.”

Callum took the rose into his kitchen and pulled a pilsner glass from a cabinet, filling it with water and dropping the stem in.

“Where are we going?” Callum asked, coming back to face Jack in the doorway. Jack twined their fingers together and lifted their hands, dusting a kiss across the top of Callum’s knuckles.

“You’ll see.” Jack pulled him into the hallway.

“Am I driving?” Callum asked, closing his front door and locking it.

“No.” Jack led him down the hallway and out to the street, pulling a set of keys from his pocket.

“You bought a car already?” Callum asked, a little shocked Jack had moved so quickly.

“Nothing fancy,” Jack assured him, pressing the fob.

The lights on a shiny black Range Rover blinked.

“Nothing fancy,” Callum deadpanned.

Jack dropped a kiss against his forehead and opened the passenger door with a flourish. Callum jumped into the plush leather seat and smiled as Jack closed the door. He walked around the car and climbed into the driver’s side, keying an address into his nav without any indication to Callum as to where they were going.

“How was your day?” Jack asked, pulling into traffic.

“Anti-climactic,” Callum snarked.

Jack barked out a sharp laugh. “Good.”

“What about yours?”

“They made me an offer at the hospital.”

“That’s good!” Callum replied happily. “When do you start?”

“Next Monday.”

“That’ll be nice,” Callum replied conversationally before lapsing into an awkward silence.

Jack reached across the console and took his hand, steering with the other through the Los Angeles night.

“I’m sorry,” Callum blurted after a few miles. “I don’t know how to do this.”

“Do what, kitten?” Jack looked at him quickly before turning his attention back to the road.

“Go on a date with you.”

“Well, you’re sort of doing it,” Jack reminded him with a hint of tease in his voice.

“The whole point of dating is getting to know someone and I feel like I know you already. Do we really need to do this?”

“You know me, and you don’t,” Jack said, driving up a winding hill. “You know the things I’ve told you, the me I want you to know.”

He looked at Jack dubiously.

“Not to imply I’ve misrepresented myself, because I haven’t. But, of course, online you cherry-pick the things you share. You want to be your best self, and if this is going to last, Callum, if it’s going to work in the real world, then you need to know my worst self too.”

Jack parked and reached into the back seat, returning over the console with a picnic basket and a blanket.

“Are you taking me on a picnic?” Callum asked, unlatching his seatbelt and getting out of the car.

“I’m taking you on a picnic. I’m giving you the world.”

Jack took Callum’s hand with the one not holding the basket and that was when Callum realized where they were.

“Shit. Are you serious? The Observatory?”

They were only in the parking lot, but Callum tipped his head backward anyway to look up at the sky. Jack tugged his hand, leading him toward the public telescopes. Callum was giddy with excitement and he sidled up to Jack and leaned up to press a kiss against the side of his neck.

“Can we look now?” he asked, practically jumping.

“Let’s eat first.”

Jack set the basket down in an out-of-the-way spot and fanned the blanket out. He took a seat and patted for Callum to do the same. He helped Jack open the basket, finding wrapped meat and cheese inside, along with a loaf of French bread and some cans of sparkling water. There was even a package of brownies.

“You’ve thought of everything,” Callum praised, leaning over the basket for a kiss, which Jack gave him.

Jack unwrapped the meat and cheese, laying it out in front of them, then broke an end of the bread off and passed it to Callum.

“Are you excited about the new job?” Callum asked after taking a bite of salami and Swiss cheese.

“I’m looking forward to having an income again,” Jack agreed. “Plus, it’ll be nice to have a routine.”

“What’s it like staying with Landon and Verity?”

“Not as good as staying with you,” Jack admitted.

Callum wanted to protest. So badly, he wanted to beg Jack to come home with him, but he bit his tongue. “Oh.”

“Kitten,” Jack chided. “This is our first date, don’t be sad.”

He smiled at Jack and took another bite of cheese.

“I’m not,” he said after he swallowed. “I’m just so full of want.”

He put more emphasis on the last word than he’d intended, but it rolled out of his mouth like hot butter. Jack noticed, his nostrils flaring in the dim light. He reached into the picnic basket and opened the brownies.

“Tell me about when you were younger,” Jack said, but Callum snatched a brownie from him and wagged his finger.

“No, no, Daddy,” he said. “I went, now it’s your turn. Tell me something about you.”

Jack shrugged. “Uhm, I don’t know. I’m thirty-six; I have a PhD from Columbia…”

“You have a PhD?” Callum interrupted.

Jack chortled and nodded. “Comes with the career path, kitten.”

“So I’m fucking a doctor?” Callum said, his voice dropping low.

“A doctor is fucking you,” Jack corrected.

“For now,” Callum smirked, popping the brownie into his mouth.

Jack gave him a disdainful look in response that sent him into a fit of laughter. “It’s not bad, Daddy,” he said leaning across the basket. “I promise I’d make you feel so good.”

Jack blinked, a slow and heavy movement of his eyelids in response to Callum’s words.

“Don’t get me wrong. I love the idea of all that,” Callum said, “but your job isn’t who you are. I want to know about you.”

Jack tilted his head and squinted at him for long enough that Callum was able to eat three more bites of meat, one slice of cheese, and a brownie.

“That hard?” he finally asked.

“It’s just been me for a long time, kitten, Just me and my job.”

“You’ll have to think further back then. Tell me about your first kiss,” Callum suggested.

Jack laughed and rolled his eyes. “Lori Monarch, behind the bleachers after homecoming our freshman year.”

“A girl?”

“Is that shocking?”

“I just assumed…”

“I’m not gay, Callum. I’m pan.”

“Equal opportunity.”

“I’m attracted to people, kitten. Who they are, the way they make me feel, the way I can make them feel. The parts are inconsequential.”

Callum’s blood heated at a memory of the way Jack made him feel.

“When did you know you were pan?”

“I didn’t realize there was a word for it until I was in college. Until I met Verity, actually.”

“Are you attracted to them? Shit. Have you ever?” The idea of Jack having been with Verity, or Landon for that matter, was enough to threaten to send his picnic meal back into the basket.

“No!” Jack exclaimed with a raised voice. “No, kitten. Never. Not with Verity or with Landon.”

Jack pushed the basket out of the way and took Callum’s hands, pressing kisses against the tops of his knuckles and staring at him earnestly.

“How can you say it so matter of fact?” he asked. “Verity is fucking hot.”

Jack exhaled a relieved sounding laugh and smiled at him. “Verity is not my type.”

“What is your type?” he asked, feeling like his lungs were too big for his chest.

“Messy brown hair. Green eyes.” Jack licked his lips and was silent until Callum found his eyes. “Vers.”

Callum inhaled a shaking breath. “Don’t say things you don’t mean.”

The idea of being strung along by someone like Jack was too much to handle. It had been one thing with Ian, one thing with all the other dates he’d had that ended with misconceptions and letdowns but, God, please not with Jack.

“I’m inclined to give you anything you’d ever ask me for and you know it, so don’t act like giving you that is any different.” Jack squeezed his fingers. “Just not yet. Not right now.”

“I can live with that,” he assured Jack.

“Good. Besides, you’re stuck with me. I crossed this continent for you!” Jack let go of his fingers and stretched his arms out like he could encompass the sky in his embrace.

Without warning, Callum found himself overwhelmed by the importance of what Jack had done for him—for them. Inexplicably, it hadn’t seemed like such a big thing until this moment, but maybe it was something about the way the moon reflected off Jack’s cheeks or the way his arms looked so strong in the starlight. Jack looked at him and his eyes were fathomless galaxies ripe with a future that may have never been tangible if he hadn’t gotten so sick.

Callum launched himself across the blanket, taking Jack’s face into his hands and sealing their mouths together. He kissed Jack like it was the first time and the last time all wrapped into one, digging his fingers into Jack’s cheeks and pouring himself into his mouth, unrestrained.

When he’d had enough, he leaned back and smiled, finding Jack dazed but content.

“Show me the world now?” He breathed against Jack’s mouth.

Jack took his hand and guided them to the telescopes, situating Callum in front of him and pulling the telescope toward his face.

Callum squinted through the viewfinder, the stars looking infinitely brighter than they did to the naked eye. Jack’s chest against his back tethered him to the earth, but he felt overwhelmed by the vastness of the moment. So small and so large at once.

“What do you see?” Jack breathed into his ear.

“Stars.”

One of Jack’s hands skated its way up Callum’s stomach, fingers dancing along his chest. “What shape are they in?”

“There’s a triangle,” he answered, eyes searching out constellations he didn’t know the names of.

“Triangulum.”

“Are you just making that up?” Callum laughed, leaning into Jack’s chest.

“No, that’s its name.” Jack traced a triangle on Callum’s sternum. “There’s planets inside that constellation, galaxies even.”

“Are you serious?” Callum turned and flattened his hands against Jack’s chest, staring up at him.

“Mmnhm,” Jack confirmed. “Almost three million light years away.”

Callum turned back to the telescope and refocused on Triangulum.

“Your freckles remind me of the stars,” Jack whispered against his cheek. “It was the first thought I had when I saw them. Un-discovered and unexplored territory.”

Jack’s fingers made soft circles around the splattering of freckles on his chest.

“I made my decision then,” Jack told him.

“What decision?” Callum’s voice was scratchier than normal. He cleared his throat, hands shaking against the telescope.

“That I was going to be the one to explore them. To map the topography of your skin.”

“I thought we were talking about astronomy,” Callum mumbled.

“We’re talking about you,” Jack corrected, hands drifting down to Callum’s hips and settling there like his fingers were made to fit against his bones.

Jack held him that way while he searched out more constellations, with Jack offering the names and stories when he could, but Callum didn’t remember a single one besides Triangulum.

Later, they packed up the picnic and returned to the car. Jack drove him home and walked him to the door, boxing him in against the wall and kissing him until he couldn’t breathe. Callum reached between them, fumbling for the button of Jack’s pants, but Jack stopped him, stepping back and ending the kiss.

“Not on the first date,” Jack reminded him.

Callum licked his lips an stepped forward. “The second?”

“Maybe.” Jack pressed a chaste kiss against his swollen mouth.

“Tomorrow?”

Jack laughed and put more space between them.

“Very soon, kitten. I promise.” He took three steps down the hall before turning to watch Callum make it into his apartment.

“Goodnight, Daddy,” he said weakly.

“Sweet dreams, kitten.”