Taking a Bite from the Big Apple (Complete)

33

Cheryl shrugged and let herself be lead up more flights of stairs, until there were no more left and they were standing in front of a door that had ‘roof’ written on it. Toni kicked the left corner of the door three times, then turned the knob, opening it.

“Little OCD there, baby?”

“This door’s been broken for years,” Toni chuckled, “It won’t open unless you do that.”

“That has to be a fire hazard,” Cheryl commented, then drew a sharp breath as her girlfriend walked her onto the roof-top, twinkling lights from the surrounding buildings all around them.

“Over here,” Toni said as she brought them over around a large metal contraption to where a blanket was laid out with two pillows on top.

“When did you do this?”

“Before you woke up. I wasn’t sure I’d get a chance, so I slipped up and set it up then went back and snuggled into you and, well, you remember what happened next. I’m just glad it didn’t rain.”

The brunette had laid them both down while she was speaking, Cheryl’s head resting on her shoulder.

“The idea was that I’d end what I’d hoped would be a romantic birthday with some further romantic star-gazing, but I kind of forgot that we live in New York…there’s way too many lights on to be able to see them.”

“So we’ll neon-light gaze. Just looking at the sky is beautiful as well, honey,” Cheryl replied, giving the taller girl a kiss on the cheek, “When I was home for the holidays, I used to look at the sky and imagine you were looking at it too. Made me feel closer to you.”

Toni felt a rush of love and entwined their hands, resting them on the redhead’s stomach before something caught her eye.

“Hey! There’s a star! Bright one, too,” she said, pointing just below the left of the moon.

“That’s Jupiter,” Cheryl replied with a smile.

“Jupiter?”

“Yep. Jupiter.”

“But…but I thought Jupiter was green.”

Cheryl looked her girlfriend, raising both her eyebrows, a small smile tugging the sides of her mouth.

“Green? Um, no. It’s like swirls of orange and brown…and white if I remember correctly. Anyway, from this far away it just looks like another star, bright though, like you said.”

“So I’m guessing it doesn’t have the little green men on it either?” Toni asked jokingly.

Cheryl giggled and shook her head.

“I doubt it. If it did have life, the temperatures would be too high for them to be like earth humans-”

Toni snorted at the words ‘earth humans’ and Cheryl hit her playfully.

“But,” she continued, smiling, “There could be water-based life there. Or ammonia-based. Jupiter is like a gas giant.”

“How’d you know so much about it?”

“I took classes on Ancient Mythology and stuff back at home, my dad loved teaching me it. Jupiter was a Greek God, the Roman equivalent of Zeus and the professor talked about the planet itself as well.”

“Smarty-pants,” Toni teased, good-naturedly.

“Says the girl who’s going to make a living by writing, you have to literally create a new world when you write baby.”