The lights went down in the planetarium, and I leaned back in my seat to look upward at the rounded ceiling, now illuminated with the swirls of galaxies and endless stars. In another life, this could pass for a very romantic date. Stargazing without the cold and discomfort of being under the actual sky. After all, no one had ever accused me of being the outdoorsy type.
As a low, deep voice intoned about the big bang and the cosmic calendar, I found my attention wandering to the man sitting to my right.
I remembered another night, the two of us, side by side in a dark theater, watching exciting and brilliant images flash across the screen. We hadn’t been as nervous about touching back then. But it had all been so innocent. As far as we’d known.
So much time had passed.
I couldn’t help looking over at Cal, his face mostly in darkness, but just enough light to trace his profile, which annoyingly remained as appealing as ever.
Where had he been all these years? Sure, I’d filled in some of the blanks from articles and interviews and announcements, but the truth was that I really didn’t know what had brought him here, to this moment.
I barely paid attention to the show, my mind going over all the miscellaneous tidbits I knew about Cal, trying to put together a picture of who he was now. But the truth was, I was missing too many pieces to assemble anything.
The lights came up and we both sat there, waiting for everyone else to leave.
“I’m going to look at those big dioramas,” I said. “The ones with elephants and stuff.”
Cal’s shoulders sagged slightly.
“What?” I asked.
“That’s where I was going to go,” he said, somewhat sheepishly.
Of course.
“It’s fine,” he said. “I’ll go look at the dinosaurs again.”
We’d already run into each other there right before passing each other in the Hall of Birds.
“Don’t be silly,” I said. “Surely we can look at stuffed animals together without attempting to throttle each other.”
We’d slow danced together, after all.
He lifted an eyebrow. “Can we?”
“I promise to try,” I said.
He raised his pinky and wiggled it at me. I rolled my eyes, but hooked my pinky to his anyway. I ignored all the shimmering, shaky sensations that came from just that brief contact. Weird how it somehow felt even more intimate than dancing together. We both blew on our thumbs and released the other.
We walked toward the Hall of African Mammals.
“So,” I said.
“So,” he said.
“You were dared to audition for CrushZone?”
He chuckled. “Whitney likes to take credit for my fifteen minutes of fame, but it didn’t take that much convincing.”
“You always did love the spotlight,” I said.
Cal snorted. “Yeah. Exactly.” He put his hands in his pockets. “It was more like, why not?”
“Why not what?”
“Why not audition,” he said.
“Did Whitney dare you to direct a Broadway show too?” I asked. “Another ‘why not’ situation?”
The question was a little too pointed to be taken as anything but an accusation.
Cal was quiet for a moment.
“Someone once told me I’d be good at directing,” he said.
My face grew warm with shame.
“I worked really hard to get to this point,” he said. “I took any and all jobs that I thought would give me the kind of experience I needed. Music videos, live shows, whatever I could get.”
“Do you still dance?” I asked. “For fun?”
Cal cast me a sideways glance.
“Sometimes,” he said.
It wasn’t fair how that single word—and its implications—sent electric thrills up and down my spine. Because it had always been a joy to watch Cal dance. He was someone who knew exactly what his body was capable of. Who knew how to move it.
“I mostly help other people,” he said. “Take what they can do and try to put it in the best light. Make them look good.”
“I saw the movie,” I said without thinking.
But then again, who hadn’t? It had been a big deal—the first American cast as James Bond—and Cal had choreographed the opening scene. A waltz that everyone had been talking about.
For good reason, I could grudgingly admit to myself. The dance had been sexy as fuck.
Cal looked a little too pleased with himself. “Oh, you did, did you?”
I scrunched up my face at him. “I was bored.”
“Mm-hmm,” he said.
Cal didn’t need to know that I’d seen it more than once. Bad enough that I’d confessed to seeing it at all.
“My big break,” he said, but it wasn’t prideful. If anything, it was a little bashful.
It annoyed me.
“Yeah,” I said. “Lucky you.”
Because, of course, Cal had gotten that break. That chance. He’d managed to escape the scandal without too many scars and had continued on doing the kinds of things that others dreamed about.
The air between us changed. What had been casual and somewhat cordial now became tense and fraught. Because it was impossible to talk about the past without talking about The Past. Or around it, as we were doing now.
Cal’s jaw was tight.
“Look—” he said, as if he was gearing up to say something more. As if he wanted to really get into it.
“I’ve seen enough,” I said, interrupting him before he could.
Because as annoyed as I was now, I had a feeling it would be a thousand times worse if I had to stand there and listen to Cal try to justify why he’d let me take all the heat back then. Why he’d felt emboldened to walk away without a second glance, to continue working with Ryan, to pretend like he was removed from it all.
I didn’t want to hear him say “You have to understand” or “Things were complicated” or “I had my sisters to think about.” Even if all of it was true, it didn’t matter.
“I’m going to go,” I said.
“Okay,” he said.
It was better this way. We’d gotten too close to the fire. Pretending like we could chat about the good old times as if we were just friends catching up. We weren’t. There was too much history. Too much anger.