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“Hey, Miller.”
Nick turned around to see Jess standing in the golden light at the mouth of the stairwell that led up to the roof. She was wearing her favorite fuzzy pink robe; her hair cascading in waves around her shoulders.
“Oh, hey, Jess. Whatcha doing up here?”
She closed the door behind her and began strolling towards him, pulling her robe tightly around herself against the chill of the night air.
“I hadn’t seen you in a while. Figured you might be out here,” she said.
“Really?”
“Mhm, yeah. I know that you come up here when you need time to think by yourself.” Jess moved to take a seat next to Nick, who was sitting crossed legged near the edge of the roof and looking up at the sky. “Really, I was getting a little worried about you.”
“Worried? About me?” Nick asked, adding an incredulous laugh for effect, “Why on earth would you be worried about me?”
“I don’t know! Angie dumped you, and you seemed kind of upset about it earlier today. But in a way where you were clearly trying not to seem upset.”
“Okay, first off, she didn’t dump me. We weren’t officially dating exclusively or whatever. She just…left.”
“You do get how that’s worse, right?” Jess asked, her brow furrowing in confusion.
“Oh, stuff it, Day.” Nick reached over to swat her on the arm, Jess laughing as she dodged his half-hearted attack.
“I’m only bringing it up because I care about you, Nick. You don’t have to pretend like you’re over her if you’re not.”
“I am over her! I was never under her! Wait…” Nick paused, “...that came out wrong. But you know what I mean!”
“Sure, sure.” Jess laughed and playfully nudged him in the side with her shoulder. Nick tore his gaze away from the night sky to look at her, taking a moment to appreciate her broad smile and the outlines of her faint dimples. Her eyes seemed to reflect all of the starlight; capturing it only to bounce it right back to him. Jess met his gaze after a moment and gave him a funny look before abruptly turning back towards the stars.
“I’m sorry I even invited you guys on the trip. If I would have known what could happen, I wouldn’t have made you take that risk,” she said.
“Nah, it’s okay. What else were you gonna do, spend a weekend playing cards with your hot doctor boyfriend without me and my stripper girlfriend there to spice things up?”
“You know it was kind of demeaning to constantly refer to her as your ‘stripper girlfriend’, right?”
Nick looked down at the concrete roof, somewhat bashfully. “Yeah. Sorry, I’ll stop.”
Jess reached over to lift his head back up by taking his chin in one hand, smirking when she was able to lock eyes with him again. “Hey. You should let yourself be sad now if you want to be sad. And then you can get back out there! You’re Nick Miller, and you’re gonna make life your bitch.”
“Thanks, Jess,” Nick said, giving her a genuine smile, “Maybe I am a little sad. I mean, she left in the middle of the night and only left a note behind to explain. Who does that?!”
“Her, I guess,” Jess replied, laughing again.
“Yeah, I guess!”
Nick joined her in laughing for a moment; the sound of their joy mixing together being music to his ears. They were meant to harmonize like this forever, he thought. This was meant to last forever, whatever this was.
They gradually calmed themselves down, their gazes eventually settling on one another. Jess always looked perfect no matter what she was wearing, no matter the time of day, no matter how much effort she put into looking nice. It was all the same to Nick; she was never not gorgeous.
He briefly thought that maybe he should tell her so. However, he quickly decided that was a poor idea, and instead, turned his gaze back up to the sky.
“You see those stars there? The three big ones right above us?” he asked, pointing in their general direction.
Jess’ eyes followed his finger up to the points of light in the sky. She nodded slowly upon identifying them.
“Yeah. What’s special about them?”
“That’s Orion’s Belt right there. Just hanging right over us.”
He looked back down in time to see Jess turn and give him another broad smile.
“I had no idea you were into this kind of thing!”
“Yeah, well…I’m not really into it. I just know some stuff,” Nick said, rubbing the back of his neck.
Jess’ smile widened as she leaned in and threw her arms around his shoulders, trapping him in a tight embrace. “Yeah. It’s cool, anyways.”
Nick looked down at her and became acutely aware of the fact that there was only a few centimeters between his face and hers. “Jess? Why are you hugging me?”
“Oh! I meant to say that I’m here for you if you need anything first. I guess that didn’t quite come out.”
“No, it didn’t,” Nick said with a laugh, “but I appreciate the sentiment. And the gesture.” He looped his arms around Jess’ small frame and pulled her in even closer, resting his head on top of hers as he did so.
“There’s a better girl out there for you, I promise.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Nick murmured, craning his neck to steal a glance at her before looking back up at the stars, “I’m sure there is.”