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“You didn’t panic.”
“If I panic, the horse does, too, and I don’t want to end up on the ground with a snake. She was a good girl and warned me, and we figured it out.”
“I like that you can handle yourself on a horse,” he says.
“I can handle myself just about anywhere.”
“I’m going to play games with Russ,” Jake says to Ryan after dinner. Once the others left after our ride, we watched a movie in the theater, and then I made the guys salmon for a late dinner. Jake and Ryan just finished the dishes, insisting that because I cooked, I didn’t have to clean.
I happily took them up on that offer.
“And,” Jake continues, “I’m not coming back out. So, if you kiss or something, I don’t have to see it. You did really good today, Polly.”
That lights me up inside because I know it’s high praise coming from this boy. “Thank you. I had a lot of fun. You’re talented with the horses, Jake.”
“Yeah, they’re my thing. Good night.”
He quickly raids the pantry for some chips and cookies, pulls two sodas out of the fridge, and then he’s gone upstairs.
“Drink some water, too!” Ryan calls after him. “He asked for a fridge for his room, and I told him no. He has to come out of there sometime to refuel, and I actually like seeing him.”
He pulls a bottle of wine out of a wine fridge, snatches two wineglasses from a cabinet, and then gestures for me to follow him up to the rooftop.
The sun is just starting to go down over the mountains, and I take a minute to close my eyes and breathe in the fresh air.
“It’s so pretty out here, Ryan.”
I sit on one side of the outdoor sofa and watch as Ryan opens the wine and pours two glasses, passing me one. There are twinkle lights strung all around the top of the glass, and they’re illuminated, casting a warm, pretty glow in the room.
“It’s my favorite place in the world,” he admits. “Up here, in this place. I love the whole property, but this is the one corner that I don’t really share with anyone. Jake comes up once in a while, but it’s not as interesting to him.”
“Have you always been interested in the stars?” I ask him and then feel my eyes go wide. “Oh, shit, are you going to be one of those billionaires who builds a rocket ship to go into space? Don’t be that guy, Ryan.”
He laughs and shakes his head. “No. I’m not going to do that. If I want to go to space, I can pay to do it. I didn’t always find it interesting. I was in Hawaii a few years ago at the largest and highest observatory in the world, and it just fascinated me. So, like I always do when something sparks my interest, I dove into the science and read up on it as much as I could. There’s so much I’ll never know because I just don’t have the time to learn, but this telescope is great because it has an app that allows me to plug in what I want to see, and it adjusts itself to show it to me. It takes a lot of the guesswork out of it.”
“That’s cool.” I sip my wine and admire the telescope. “Can you see Saturn?”
“I can see past Saturn,” he says. “I’ll show you when it gets a little darker up here.”
“How often do you take quiet days like this?” I sip my wine, lounging back in the soft pillows, watching him. “No work, no calls, just a little fun on a horse and looking at the stars?”
“I don’t know if I ever have. But I like it. I should do it more often. Arthur would have a heart attack.”
I laugh with him and slip my feet out of my sneakers so I can tuck them under me. “What did he do today?”
“He mentioned spending it with his husband.”
“Good for him. I hope he had as good of a day as we did.”
Ryan reaches for my hand. He never goes long without touching me. “I do, too.”
He pulls me into his lap and smiles softly down at me, pushing my hair off my cheek. He takes my glass from my hand to set it aside, frames my face, and pulls me in for a sweet kiss.
“You’re good at the kissing,” I murmur against his lips. “Like, really good at it.”
“It takes two,” he reminds me as his hand roams over my T-shirt, down my side, and under the hem to touch me, skin-on-skin. I feel the goose bumps and he must, too, because his eyes flare as he stares down at me. “You’re fucking incredible.”
“Aw, shucks.”
