“For the race?”
He nods and takes his suit jacket off. “Yeah, and then I had a meet-and-greet.” His face tightens, and he shakes his head. “I don’t like this part of it. I just want to do my job as the Sheriff and not convince Mr. and Mrs. Johnson why they should donate to my campaign over anyone else’s.”
I smile at him, body still tingling. He hangs his jacket on the back of a kitchen chair. Then he starts to roll up the sleeves on his button-up dress shirt.
And now I’m dead, lying motionless on the kitchen floor.
“That’s why you’ll be good at the job,” I say, words coming out thinner than I’d like. I tear my eyes away, trying to convince myself that Weston looks like the homeless man who used to sleep in our crawlspace instead of Chris Hemsworth at the Met Gala.
It doesn’t work.
“You want to do the job for the job. Not many people in politics are that way.”
He chuckles. “It doesn’t feel that political, to be honest. I’ll be the Sheriff of our county, not governor of Indiana.”
“You’d be good at that too.” I put my mug in the microwave.
“How’d Jackson do at bedtime?”
“He was good. I ended up reading like four extra stories. Maybe I’ll get used to saying no when he asks for another with time, right?”
Wes smiles. “I have a hard time saying no to books, too. Someday he’s not going to want me to sit in bed with him and read.”
“Right. They don’t stay little for long.”
He holds my gaze for a moment too long, and blood rushes to my cheeks. He goes upstairs to change, and I take my tea back to the living room. I read a few pages, and already I’m imagining the alpha werewolf in my book to look like Weston.
Dammit.
“I have something for you,” he says, coming back down the stairs. He’s wearing black athletic pants and a Chicago Bears hoodie. I’m not a big sports fan, but I do support my city.
“You do?”
“Well, kind of.” He crosses the room. “Grab your coat.”
Setting my book down, I get up and hurry after him. “If it’s a cat, you should have waited until Jackson wakes up.”
He gives me a playful glare. “It’s not a cat.”
“Darn.”
We put our shoes on, and I grab my coat, following him to the back porch. There’s a telescope standing on the sidewalk, pointed up at the night sky. I pause, suddenly forgetting how to move my feet.
“So you can see the stars.” Wes is standing by the telescope, a smile on his face. He takes a cover off the lens and wipes away dust. “It was mine when I was a kid. It’s been at my parents’, and I grabbed it on my way home. I have no idea if it still works, but it’s not like these things go bad, right?”
I fumble with the zipper on my coat, and for some reason, I’m still unable to move. I stare down the telescope feeling the weirdest sensation prick at the corners of my eyes. And an even weirder one inside my chest.
Wes holds my gaze, waiting for me to come down the stairs. To say something. Anything. But I’m still standing there like a statue.
“Anyway,” Wes goes on, bringing his hand up to his hair. He pulls the band out and lets his long locks fall around his face. I can feel his eyes on me, and I know he’s waiting. The longer I go without reacting, the more he’s going to think I don’t appreciate the gesture or that I think it’s stupid.
Which couldn’t be farther from the truth.
He went to his parents’ house, which I know isn’t on the way home from anything. They live on the edge of Eastwood, away from the police station and the town hall where the council meetings are held.
No one has ever done anything like this for me before.
“Jackson might think it’s cool at least,” he says, and I shake myself.
“It is cool.” I inhale, finally get my zipper to go up, and dash down the stairs. I stand close to him, feeling the heat radiating from his large body. I look into eyes, seeing the stars reflected before me, and want to tell him just what this means to me. Attraction aside, this was the most thoughtful thing he could have done.
“How does it work?”
“I have to put a different lens on,” he starts and opens a bag. “We might have to watch YouTube tutorials on this.”
I laugh and use the sleeve of my coat to carefully wipe the dust off the metal. It takes us a while, but we finally get the thing ready. Wes goes inside to quickly check on Jackson and to turn off the back porch light.
“You know,” I say when he comes back. “We could totally spy on your neighbors.”
He raises his eyebrows. “Why do you think I wanted to get one of these in the first place?”
“Seriously?” I laugh.
“No. I went through a phase where I wanted to be an astronaut. Like all kids, I suppose.”
“Not me.” I bend over and put my eye to the focuser. “I wanted to be a professional mermaid.”
“That’s a thing?”
“Yeah. You swim around at aquariums or shows.”
“Shows?”
“Yeah.” I carefully move the telescope until I see the fuzzy bright light of what I think is a star. “Like carnivals.”
“You’d be a mermaid carnie,” he snickers.
“It sounds not as fun when you say it like that. But yeah…and come on. It sounds like a sweet deal. I’d get to swim all day, wear pretty seashell bras, and have lots of glittery makeup on my face.”
He laughs and helps me adjust the telescope. “When you put it that way, maybe I’ll be a professional merman.”
“We could make a career out of it, traveling the country together.”
“Clearly I chose the wrong profession.” His hand drops from the telescope, and he inches closer. I swallow hard.
“Oh, I see the moon!” I spend a minute adjusting everything, and it comes into focus. “Holy shit, this is amazing.” My heart hammers away in my chest, and a chill goes through me, but it’s not from the cold. I stare at the moon, and that weird feeling comes back. It’s so overwhelming I break away, telling Wes he should take a look as well. His large frame leans over, and he looks at the moon.
“Now I want to be an astronaut again,” he says after looking up at the moon for a moment. “It’s incredible.”
I’m looking at him when I agree. “It is.”
He straightens up and reaches back into the bag. “There’s a map of the stars. I never was able to make much sense of it.”
Another chill goes through me, and I’m unable to hide the shiver.
“Cold?” Wes asks.
I shake my head, not wanting to go in just yet. “I’ll survive. Let’s try to read this map.”
He unfolds the paper and gets out his phone to use as a flashlight. His lock screen is a recent picture of Jackson, and I just about die all over again.
“I can see the Big Dipper,” I say, pointing to the sky. “And that’s it.”
Wes smiles, still looking at the sky. “Same here.” We stand there in silence for another moment, looking up at the stars. Something streaks across the sky.
“Did you see that?” I gasp.