but he felt a little more comfort knowing his sister had also been kept out of the loop.
Luckily, dinner was served shortly after, and the conversation turned to more pleasant things. Without Jacqueline there, Will was able to slip to the other side of Fredric and used half of a pearl onion garnish to demonstrate the layers of a star without her cutting remarks interrupting him.
His eyes were bright and excited as he explained things that went entirely over Julian’s head, but he didn’t need to understand to see the way it shaped Will as a person. There was goodness in him that Julian was entirely unused to. A sort of uninhibited, selflessness as he conveyed information to Fredric in ways that not only made sense to a blind man, but offered him pictures of something that Julian had always assumed would be lost to his father.
“You have to think of the sounds like shapes,” Will was explaining as he pulled up his recordings. “Like echolocation. It sounds like music, but there’s a pattern to it that gives it form.”
Julian watched his father nod, watched the way Fredric’s eyes got a little misty, his hands both clenched in anticipation of something he hadn’t been able to touch in thirty years.
And Julian was awed by it, the moment Will pressed play. He never in his life expected to sit there and listen to the soft high and low pitches of gentle sounds like hail on a xylophone and let that paint the picture of the heavens from inside the very make-up of the universe itself.
“And which one was that again?” Fredric asked, his voice almost too soft for Julian to hear his words.
“Hydrogen,” Will said as he turned his phone off. “It’s one of the most common elements in the entire universe. It’s what starts the life of a star, it’s what sustains them for billions of years. It’s why I hate it when people insult the idea of common.”
Julian lifted a brow at him. “I don’t understand.”
Will met his gaze, fire in his eyes. “Because common or not, it’s everything. It’s the sole and entire reason why we exist, and that is precious.”
Julian bit his lip and looked down at his plate which was mostly empty. “Is it? I mean…would the world really be better off with all of us in it?”
There was a long pause, then Julian felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up to find Will there. “How about a dance?”
Only a handful of people were dancing, and they were all a lot drunker than him, but Julian let the man lead him out there and pull their bodies flush. One of Will’s hands eased into his hair, brushing his scalp lightly with the tips of his fingers. “Part of me wants to believe you were talking about Bryce or your cousin, because I have a hard time trying to come up with a reason why the world is better off with them in it.”
Julian felt his lips twitch. “And can you?”
“Yes,” Will said without a second of hesitation. “Without them, I probably wouldn’t have met you.”
Julian felt something squeeze behind his ribs, in the space his heart was meant to occupy. He wanted to remind Will this wasn’t a date, that they weren’t together. That at the end of this they’d part ways—Julian with his memories, Will with his payout. And if the universe was kind, maybe Will wouldn’t forget him, but it wouldn’t really matter in the end.
“I know you were talking about yourself though,” Will said, and the guilt must have been obvious on Julian’s face, because Will let out a sigh and used his other hand to cup his cheek, thumb brushing along his stubble. “I wish you could understand how many things had to happen to create you. How many big, bright, terrible things.”
Julian shook his head. “I don’t…”
Will tugged his hair lightly, his other hand cupping his face so gently, he wasn’t sure which one to lean in toward. “You’re star dust. Somewhere, probably millions of lightyears away—and millions of years in the past, there was a supernova. And the dust from that star—and from others—eventually helped create the spark that is your life. Right now. Carl Sagan used to call it star stuff, and I always used to find it so fucking romantic.”
Julian let out a tiny huff. “What does that even mean?”
Will’s hand moved down until the knuckle of his first finger was hooked under his chin. “It