After the Fall

tailgate and picked up a couple of folded blankets I hadn’t seen sitting on the side rail.
    As he unfolded them and laid them across the bed, I said, “You came prepared, I see.”
    He glanced up from spreading the second blanket on top of the first. “I . . . well . . .”
    I folded my arms as best I could with a crutch and a cast. “Ryan, did you plan this?”
    “Uh.” He looked down at the edge of the blanket in his hands, his expression as sheepish as a kid who’d been busted pawing through the cookie jar. “Maybe?”
    I laughed. “As long as you promise not to chop me up.”
    “Scout’s honor.”
    With Ryan’s help, I managed to get onto the tailgate, and from there, onto the blankets he’d spread out across the bed.
    “I feel like an old man,” I muttered. “Could’ve sworn I used to be able to jump into the back of a pickup without thinking twice.”
    Ryan laughed and kissed my cheek. “I’m sure once the cast comes off you’ll be able to leap tall pickups in a single bound again.” He leaned forward and dragged something heavy and metallic across the truck bed. “Here. Put your foot up on this.”
    I pushed myself up onto my elbows to see what he was talking about, and he tapped the top of his toolbox. He helped me put my foot up. Then he joined me, lying back on the blanket with a wadded up jacket as a pillow. I rested my head on his shoulder, and he rested his hand on my arm.
    With any other guy, I would’ve been sure we’d come up here to “park.” That the stars and the silence were just convenient excuses to drive up into the mountains where no one would disturb us.
    But Ryan didn’t make a move beyond putting his arm around me. For the longest time, we just lay there, gazing up at the sky.
    I didn’t know how much time passed before he finally broke the silence. “This is one of the things I love about Tucker Springs.” His fingers ran back and forth along the edge of my sleeve as he stared up at the sky. “You don’t have to drive very far to see the sky like this.”
    “I guess you don’t, do you?”
    “Nope. You know, I once heard there was a blackout in Los Angeles, and people suddenly started freaking out about these weird glowing clouds in the sky. Turned out, it was the first time they’d ever seen the sky without all the light pollution, and what they were seeing was the Milky Way.”
    “Wow. You can really see the Milky Way?”
    “If there’s absolutely no light, and it’s perfectly clear? Yeah. And it’s amazing.” His fingers started moving again, slipping under my sleeve before trailing back and forth across my arm. “I don’t know how true the LA story is, though. I mean, if you turned off every light in southern California, you still have the smog to contend with. It has to be absolutely crystal clear to see that much.”
    “Like this?” I gestured up at the sky.
    “A lot clearer and darker. Just imagine if there was no light pollution here at all.”
    “I don’t see much all the way out here.”
    “It’s pretty dark, but you’ve still got that little bit of a glow from the city.” His fingers stopped moving, and he rested his hand on my arm. “You should see it when you get way out there in the middle of nowhere. Out in the desert or in the mountains without a single light for a hundred miles.”
    “I didn’t think places like that still existed.”
    Ryan turned toward me and lowered his voice, almost whispering like we were conspiring instead of talking about stars. “You just have to know where to look.”
    “And you do know where to look?”
    “Mm-hmm.” He was quiet for a moment. “I was hoping for a night like this up in Canada once while I was camping, and ended up with the most amazing view of the northern lights instead.”
    “Ooh, I hear those are incredible in person.”
    “They are. That was one of the nights I wished I’d had someone with me, though.”
    “Oh, yeah?” I turned a little, watching his nearly invisible profile. “Why’s that?”
    “It was so cool and so surreal,” he said, his tone almost reverent. “I wished I’d had someone there to say ‘yeah, this is really happening, and it really is this awesome.’”
    I didn’t know what to say to that. Silence fell again, and we both continued watching the sky.
    Barely whispering, I broke the silence this time. “So do you think you’ll ever settle down somewhere?”
    He shrugged. “I don’t know. There’s never been a place that felt like