STELLA
The Big Wide Open was even more beautiful than I remembered it. Though I hadn’t been to the ranch in ages, I hadn’t forgotten the old shortcuts that Grandpa had shown me. We took a frontage road that ran parallel to the highway, then an unmarked farm road by a rock that I’d always thought looked like a sleeping dog. We rumbled over the ancient cattle guard, and in the distance the house came into view, poking up from a shallow valley, low and plain with a red tin roof. It hurt my heart to imagine peeking through the windows without being able to go inside. So I had him turn left, on an old rutted washboard road that made everything in the RV squeak as we went down it. A few minutes later, he pulled in underneath the old grove of apricot trees, studded with fruit. Nick set up the generator as I changed out of my bad-girl outfit and back into my normal Chucks and jeans. Then I helped him level the RV. Though helped him was a pretty generous word for it, really. I sat inside and supervised a potato as it rolled around on the table, calling out directions, but he did say it was helpful, so that was good at least. He cupped his hand under his T-shirt and pressed the fabric to his face, showing off the ripples of his abs.
I actually whimpered. Right out loud.
From a storage compartment near the door, he took out a small grill. He caught me staring. “You OK?”
“Totally!” I said. “Just . . .” Oh for God’s sake. The man knew everything about me. I didn’t have to lie about anything with him. “Honestly, I was just watching you.”
He gave me a hey baby lift of his chin and looked me up and down. “I like you in disguise, but I like you just like that even better.”
I looked down at my rumpled T-shirt and my jeans and my old shoes. I’d never felt beautiful wearing this. Until now. I lifted my toes. I was trying to smile, but I think maybe I was cringing. I wasn’t used to all these compliments. “You do?”
“Oh yeah,” he gasped. “One hundred fucking percent.”
He winked, then turned his attention back to the grill. It was brand new, still with the label stuck to the outside. He carried the grill outside and filled it with charcoal. Then, as if all this playing house wasn’t swoony enough, he lit a match using the edge of his boot for the lighting strip. For a second, I just stared at him with a potato in one hand and a fork in the other.
Poke the potatoes and carry on, Stella! Even if he does make you swoon, he’s just a guy. Just a guy covered in tattoos who brought you to the Big Wide Open. Just a guy who knows all your secrets and is totally good with all of it. Just a guy.
Using a little roll of foil that I found in the tiny drawer by the sink, I wrapped up the potatoes and put them on a tray to go outside. I salted and peppered the steaks, and Priscilla walked around the kitchen with her nose up in the air. Realizing the time, I quickly put her dinner in a bowl, then turned my attention to project sangria. I dumped some ice, the peaches, the OJ, and half the bottle of wine into a huge plastic pitcher that said, ENJOY YOUR HONEYMOON!
The smell of burning charcoal wafted in from outside; Nick pushed it farther away from the RV using his boot. He studied the flames with his jaw flexing and finished off the rest of a bottle of water. But not entirely. What remained, he dumped into his huge palm and splashed on his face. His stubble glistened in the setting sun.
Behind him was the ranch that I had always ached to own. In front of me was the man who made my heart ache. And I realized that even though he was no rancher, even though he wore motorcycle boots instead of cowboy boots, and even though he wasn’t at all what I’d imagined for myself, he looked like he belonged here.
Like he was always meant to be here. With me.
The thunderstorm went around us, and we spent the evening outside on the lawn chairs. We ate, we talked, we laughed, and we ate ripe apricots right off the tree. Nick built a fire in the clearing, rimmed with old river rocks we found by the creek and using dead branches for kindling and old logs split by the dry air for fuel. Priscilla exhausted herself by chasing lemon moths around the clearing, sticking her fanny up in the air and barking at the breeze, finally collapsing in a heap at Nick’s feet, with her tongue lolling out onto his boot.
He took my plastic tumbler from my hand to top up my sangria. I couldn’t help but admire the contrast of thick, strong fingers and the glittery gel between the layers of plastic.
A peach toppled out of the pitcher and plopped into my glass. “So I was thinking about the payout again,” he said.
“I knew it.” I gave him a playful nudge on the side. “I keep telling you, I don’t need a knight, and I don’t need a hero. Fifty-fifty. It’s the best way. Equal pay for equal work.” My goodness. I sounded like some sort of feminist slogan machine. But I wasn’t kidding around. “It’s the only thing that make sense.”
“Stop that with your fifty-fifty,” he said. He set the pitcher back down on the ground between us and put my glass and his beside it. “I’m not talking about money.” He hooked his boot under the leg of my chair and pulled me close to press a kiss to the side of my head. I wrapped my arms around him and felt the steady, strong beat of his heart. And I felt his chest rumble as he said, “I’m talking about something way bigger than that.”
“Tell me,” I whispered, barely louder than the sound of the wind in the trees.
“I want a promise from you that when it’s all done, that won’t be the end of you and me.”
The very idea of it made my heart sink. I tried to pull my head away so I could look at him, but we were wrapped up so tightly together that I couldn’t. So instead, I held him tighter. I pressed my ear close against his chest and focused on that steady thump-thump-thump. He made me feel so happy. He made me feel so good. I never wanted to let go of him, and for a long moment I wished we could stay just like that forever. “I promise.”
“Then I’m your man,” he said, giving me another long and tender kiss on my temple. “For this. For that. For everything.”
After we did the dishes and got Priscilla settled in her bed inside, snuggled up next to the BE MINE pillow, Nick took my hand and led me back outside into the cool, fresh fall air. He guided me around to the back of the RV and climbed up the roof ladder, offering his hand to me when he got to the top. It reminded me of climbing out of a pool, the metal and plastic rickety like that. But on top, it was perfect. From up there, we could see past the apricot trees, and there was not a single light in either direction, an unbroken cloudless night, with a sliver of moon to the east.
He led me to the middle of the rooftop and wrapped me in his arms. He didn’t kiss me; he just held me, like he was cherishing me almost. “When was the last time you really looked up at the stars?” he asked, smoothing my hair off to one side. I looked up at the sky, at the swirls and sparkles. The Milky Way was a smudgy fog in the darkness, visible because there was no big city for miles and miles around.
To me, it was all magical chaos. “All I can find is the Big Dipper. But when I was little, my grandpa used to say this thing.” I remembered it so clearly, I could almost hear my grandpa’s voice in my ears right then and feel the way he’d always make sure the covers were smooth and straight. “He’d tuck me in and he’d say, ‘Go out there and bite the stars. For me.’”
Nick paused, like he was turning it over in his head. It was one of the things I was growing to like best about him—that thoughtfulness. The way he took it all in. “I love that.”
“Me too,” I said. “So much.”
He placed his hand on the small of my back. “Here. Sit down. I’ll show you a thing or two.”
I lowered myself so I was sitting cross-legged, and he came down to a crouch beside me. He took my face in his hands and leaned in for a kiss, cupping my jaw tightly. As he kissed me, both of us inhaled hard and held our breaths. When he let me go, he sat down next to me. He cradled my head and put it in his lap, carefully adjusting my hair so that it didn’t get pinned beneath me too tightly.
“OK, can you find the Little Dipper?”
No chance whatsoever. “I’m a Big Dipper girl myself.”
“Start with the Big Dipper. Trace the lip out, and you’ll find the Little Dipper.”
I squinted and couldn’t find it at first. He took my hand in his and guided my finger to where he had been pointing. Like it was one of those 3-D puzzles, the Little Dipper popped out at me. “Oh, there! Got it!”
“The end of the handle is the North Star.” He traced the line, and that popped out too.
It reminded me so much of when he’d had me find his pulse that it was almost déjà vu. “There it is!”
“OK.” He put his hand over my heart and said, “So let’s say this is the North Star.” The weight of his palm constricted my breathing, ever so slightly. “In Latin, it’s called Polaris. I put good odds on you already knowing what it’s called it Italian,” he said, glancing down at me.
That was one Italian word I knew, yes indeed. “Stella . . . something?”
“Stella’s the only part that matters.” He moved his fingertip along my sternum and made a zigzag over my chest, still looking up. “Right there, that’s Orion. Looks like this,” he added, and pointed to the warrior on his biceps, just visible in the moonlight.
“Oh my God.” Suddenly all the tattoos began to fall into place. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen it before. I followed the edge of Orion’s shield on his biceps and the line of his spear. I spotted a handful of the zodiac signs—the Gemini twins, the Aries ram, the scorpion of Scorpio. “You’re just full of surprises.”
He smiled and shook his head. “Once in a while.”
Using my body as a map and his tattoos as illustrations, we moved across the sky. He showed me Taurus and the Argo Navis and the Piscis Volans. With each new constellation, he led my finger to another tattoo on his arm, to the Centaur and Ursa Major and the undulating lines of Draco the snake.
“How did you learn all of this?” I asked as he made a triangle with one corner from my belly button, to show me the big and little triangles underneath Andromeda’s feet.
“It’s always fascinated me,” he said, two fingers on my abdomen. “All the shit in life can change, all the shit you think you know can fall apart. But you look up in the sky? And you can still find your way home.”
“Home.” I trailed my fingers up his forearm.
“Home,” he said again, and slowly slid his palm down my stomach, until his fingers passed the edge of my panties. He groaned when he touched them, and so did I.
With the night sky twinkling behind him, and without ever breaking my stare, he undid my jeans and slipped his warm and strong hand down farther, groaning again when he felt the wetness that was spilling out of me. I relaxed into him, my neck supported by his leg, his lap a perfect pillow that I never wanted to leave. But the more he touched me, the more I needed to leave it. The more I needed him all over again. Carefully, he moved my head out of his lap and stood above me, peeling my jeans off as he did. He took off my shoes and my socks and tossed them to the side. As I pawed for his jeans, he undid his belt and dropped his pants as well as his boxers. He lowered himself down on top of me, and the heat of his skin cut the chill of the cool night air. The wind shifted, and a hush spilled through the apricot trees.
Without looking away, he pressed into me. He didn’t talk. He didn’t tease. Very slowly, with that unshakable confidence and clarity, he got to the place where I needed him to be. It felt so good that the once-clear stars became blurry and dim.
It was heaven. I drew him as close as I could, entwining myself with him so fully that each shift of his body drew mine off the warm plastic roof of the RV.
He pressed his forehead against mine and cradled my face in his hands. “I’m fucking falling for you, Stella,” he said, all gravelly and hoarse.
Hearing the words made my heart tighten, almost. Pinch. Contract. As if it had skipped a beat, or maybe two. I hung on even tighter; I didn’t want even the cool night breeze between us. I wanted to make him understand that he was safe with me, that he could be vulnerable with me. To fall for me, as I was falling for him. “I am too, my love. I am too.”
He kept me still with his arms under my body and his hands hooked over my shoulders. “I’m fucking falling for you,” he said again, this time from between gritted teeth. “I need to fall for you. I need this. I need you.”
I pressed my thumb to his lips. He kissed it at first, then took it more deeply into his mouth, biting down on my finger as he drove into me. The pain echoed back through the pleasure, and even the North Star itself grew fuzzy and distant. It was only him and me in the universe. Nothing else mattered. Not the future and not the past. All that mattered was him. And us, right there, in my favorite place in all the world.
Eventually we made our way back down the ladder, naked under the stars. My legs felt like they would go right out from under me, but halfway down he scooped me up and twirled me, placing my bare feet gently on the soft desert soil, still warm from the heat of the day. We found Priscilla sound asleep inside, still tuckered out in her bed. I slipped on my nightie and he put on fresh boxers, softer than the ones he wore during the day, and together we got ready for bed in the tiny bathroom, hardly bigger than an airplane’s.
The little things about him were the most adorable: how he let me use the faucet first, how he watched me as I brushed my teeth, how he smiled at me with a foamy mouth around his toothbrush.
“Hi,” I said, also foamy-mouthed.
And he gave me a little pat on the tush and added a wink.
I rinsed out my mouth and splashed water on my face, then took the temporary tattoo from my makeup bag. We’d gotten two, just to be safe, and I left the second one next to my blush. Nick noticed what I was doing, nodded, and spat out his toothpaste. “Yeah, let’s do it,” he said, and I turned the water from cold to hot. I double-checked the instructions on the back of the package and had him wash the spot with soap and water. Then I dried it with a fresh hand towel. Very carefully, I slid the pinup girl out of her plastic packaging. Nick sat down on the closed toilet, and I stood between his parted legs. He watched me like a hawk, and the intensity in his stare gave me tingles. “You ready?” I asked.
He tipped his head back to give me a good angle on his throat. Though he had swoon-worthy stubble, it didn’t go all the way down his throat. It made a perfect gap. “Go for it.”
I peeled the paper backing away and placed the tattoo on his skin. Using the dampened hand towel, I wetted the back of the transfer until it was soaked through and very carefully pulled off the paper.
It looked awful, of course. Like a sticker. Nick hissed and looked at it in the mirror. “Jesus. That’s not going to fool anybody.”
I wadded up the wrappers and tossed them in the tiny trash bin. “Hold on now. Cool your jets. Let me work my magic.” I unzipped a compartment of my makeup bag and got out the tattoo shine remover. We’d bought it from a fabulously gay makeup artist in LA who had patented it—Fabulous Richard was his name. He was certainly fabulous, but so too were the goodies he sold. I shook the bottle hard, then unscrewed the lid and squeezed a little bit onto my finger. Very gently, I made small circular motions all over my doppelganger pinup. Beneath my fingers, I felt the rhythm of his pulse. The shine disappeared, and it looked . . . totally real.
“There,” I said, and stepped away. “How about them temporary apples?”
“Holy shit,” Nick said, turning his head this way and that to check it out in the mirror. “That’s insane.” He stood up from the toilet and leaned over the sink. “Looks like I’ve always had it.”
It really did look totally real, totally believable. And incredibly naughty and sexy. I stepped out of myself to imagine what it would be like to see the two of us together—how a stranger would lock in on that tattoo, then look at me and think, “Oh my.”
It was the perfect distraction.
I put the lid on the bottle and tucked it back in my bag, then pretended to dust off my hands. “All in a day’s work,” I said as I reached out my hand for him to lead him the two feet into the bedroom.
Together we got comfy in bed, enveloped in the pink satin sheets. With his forearm hooked over my hips, he pulled me close like I was part of him. He nestled his head against the pillow, with his chin touching my shoulder. His breathing became deeper and more peaceful, and I let myself relax into his arms. I was just on the dreamy warm edge of sleep when I whispered, “I love being with you,” expecting nothing but the crickets chirping as an answer.
He had heard me, and his hold on me tightened. He gave me a kiss on the side of my neck.
“Me too,” he said, his voice low and thick with sleep. But even still, it made me melt like warm chocolate in the sunshine.
That night, as I fell asleep, I didn’t have to imagine being back in the Big Wide Open. We were there, together. Big Dipper and Little Dipper, spooning under the desert sky. The crickets chirped outside, and the wind rustled the apricot trees. I felt happy. I felt content. I felt like it was all going to be OK. And like I would never be alone again.
“I think you might be the one,” I whispered. But he had already fallen asleep.