She stared out the window of the car, her grin widening as she watched the stars overhead.
“I’ve never seen the milky way before,” she breathed, her voice barely breaking the silence.
“It’s amazing what you can see when you get out of the city,” he replied, glancing up at the stars before looking back down at the road. In the middle of the Arizona desert on an empty road they were completely alone.
“Like the stars?” she whispered, turning her dark blue eyes on him.
“Yeah, like the stars,” he replied, grinning at her innocent question. The car fell into silence again, the road slipping under them. She watched the sky turn slowly and the pink of dawn start in the east.
“How long do we have to drive?” she whispered.
“You said you wanted to get away from all of the cities. We’ll have to find a small town,” he glanced away from the road, trying to catch a glimpse of her eyes hidden under the thin morning sunlight.
“You don’t want to leave the city?” she asked, leaning towards him.
“I want to go anywhere that you are,” he replied, reaching out and taking her hand. She smiled and threw her head back with a laugh.
“I want to find somewhere where I can see the stars,” she said, falling back into her seat. She ran her free hand through her auburn curls and stared up at the impossibly blue sky. “See the stars and hear no one coming or going. Be alone and safe in a little house with a big porch.”
He laughed at her innocent enthusiasm. He shook his long brown hair out of his eyes and smiled.
“I want to go someplace where you’ll smile like that every morning. Somewhere that you’ll always be smiling because you’re happy.” He whispered, his voice barely audible over the sound of the engine.
She slowly looked away from the window, staring at her lover.
“I’d always smile with you.”
“I know.”
He let go of her hand to drive around a long, gentle curve, watching the light catch on her hair out of the corner of his eye. She was just too beautiful to have fallen for him, and made even more beautiful by their secret.
“We have no idea what we’re getting into,” he said shaking his head but unable to shake off his smile.
“I know,” she said, her own smile falling slightly as her eyes stared without seeing. She chewed her lip for a moment before reaching out to grip his hand tightly. “But whatever we get into, we get into it together. Promise?”
“I promise,” he said, intertwining their fingers. “We do it together.”
