The Happy List (Better With You #1) - Briar Prescott Page 0,101
I say, concentrating on the view.
“Okay,” Gray says. “I did something. It’s stupid and completely useless, but I went ahead and did it anyway because that’s what I do now. So here’s the thing. You’re looking at the Gray Loves Kai star.”
I whip my head away from the telescope and stare at Gray.
“What?” I say dumbly.
“I went ahead bought one of those name-a-star certificates.” He points to the sky. “The one you just saw, that’s ours. I named it the Gray Loves Kai star. It’s a highly original name that’ll live on in the minds of generations to come.”
My smile is so wide that it hurts my cheeks.
“You sap,” I accuse with a laugh. “You bought us a star?”
“Technically I wired money to a couple of scam artists, and they promised me I’d just named a star. I don’t believe you get to claim ownership to it, though.”
I wave him off.
“Might as well go all out and say that we’re the proud new owners. If we’re already getting scammed, it might as well be for something magnificent and awesome. Hey! We should totally buy the moon!”
“I’ll put it on the list of possible birthday presents.”
I take one more look through the telescope.
“It’s a pretty star,” I say.
“That’s why I picked it.”
“Did you?”
I can feel him as he stands behind me, almost touching me.
“Nah. They just gave me one. There’s a good chance there are twenty other people who are happily claiming our star as their own right now.”
I turn around and wrap my arms around him.
“Eh, we can share.”
He laughs and kisses me under the star-filled sky.
After a while, we lie down on the blanket Gray has spread on the ground. He takes my hand in his and holds it against his chest.
“Oh. A falling star,” he exclaims and points toward the sky.
I turn my head toward him.
“Did you make a wish?”
The smile on his face as he turns his head back toward me is pure happiness.
“I don’t need to. I already have everything I want.”
Epilogue
Kai
Seven years later…
“The eagle has landed. I repeat. The eagle has landed. Do you copy? Over.”
“Yup,” I say distractedly as I try to wrestle the duvet cover in place while holding the walkie talkie.
There’s a moment of silence on the other end of the line.
“Uncle Kai, we talked about this,” Katie says in a voice that clearly shows she’s not happy with me. “I repeat. The eagle has landed. Do you copy? Over.”
“Sorry. Affirmative,” I say quickly. “Copy,” I add just in case.
“Uncle Kai, you’re supposed to say over. Over,” Katie says.
“Sorry. Over,” I say dutifully.
There’s a small pause before my walkie talkie crackles again.
“The eagle is flying to the nest,” Katie reports. “He’s taking his bag.” I can hear Mon murmur something in the background and then Katie’s back. It’s hard not to laugh as she sighs dramatically. “Uncle Kai, we’ve got a situation. 10-32. Over.”
“Wait. What’s 10-32?” I ask, trying to remember the earlier tutorial.
Katie lets out another long-suffering sigh, reminding me of my absolute incompetence when it comes to walkie talkie etiquette.
My niece is a handful even at six. She’s an awesome, curious, super smart little girl, and I love her to death, but I’ll be ecstatic once the walkie talkie craze is over. I blame Gray. He’s the one who suggested buying those devil machines, dubbing them the perfect Christmas present. Of course, there’s a good chance walkie talkies will be replaced with something worse, but I’m not going to worry about it right now.
“Over,” I add, finally clueing on to the reason of Katie’s obvious disapproval.
“10-32, of course, means Mom needs to pee,” Ivo’s voice says snidely like the teacher’s pet he is. Ever since he aced Katie’s walkie talkie codes test, he’s been extremely smug. So yeah, I barely scraped by, but in my defense, Ivo had days to prepare while I only had about ten minutes. I really should have opened the email Mon sent me and studied beforehand.
“Oh. 10-4?” I’m not sure what I’ve just said, but I go with it anyway. Nobody scoffs or laughs at me, so I guess my 10-4 did the job of conveying… something.
“Over,” I add quickly at the pointed silence from the other end.
“We’re off,” Mon calls from somewhere in the distance. “The baby is using my bladder as a squeeze toy again. Gray is at the door in about twenty seconds.”
“Mom, it’s eagle,” Katie protests as I chuckle.
“Thank you guys for helping me out,” I say. “I really appreciate it.