Chapter Text
Every time I look up at the stars, I wonder if they make sounds.
“Excuse me,” a deep, distinctly male voice booms over us. “May I have everyone’s attention please?”
The pleasant chime of clinking glasses uniting everyone in attention is the closest answer to my pondering I’ve found thus far.
Several feet from where I stand in the crowd, the largest marine I’ve ever personally seen stands on the backyard deck raising a glass of freshly popped champagne. My own glass is filled with Diet Coke since Cassian’s dad is as strict about underage drinking and rule breaking as his illustrious military career would suggest.
Sometimes I forget Cassian’s just a kid graduating high school. He’s always seemed so looming to me since the moment I met him, in both personality and his hulking frame. But standing up on the deck next to his dad, who is still just a hair taller and beefier despite the age difference with his son, Cassian looks like just a kid to me. Maybe for the first time ever.
But his back is straighter than I’ve ever seen it. And for once, the cheeky grin he keeps forever in the pockets of his mouth is gone. His father clears his throat and the crowd settles. Cassian is as calm as they come.
“When I enlisted 35 years ago and joined the United States Marine Corps,” he begins, “I thought that was the proudest day of my life. Little did I know I was getting married a year later.” Polite laughter breaks out across the room. “My wife and I have been through a hell of a lot over the years. We’ve survived a military life that took us around the world to places that were wonderful and others not so much. We’ve had five children who have given us many blessings and many challenges. There have been years of plenty and many, many years of hardship. And we have survived it all together.”
At this point, Cassian’s mom doesn’t even need her husband to pick up her hand and kiss the back of it (which he does) to start crying. Murmurs around me suggest she isn’t alone.
“I know now that retiring here with you all today - my friends, my family, my brothers and sisters at arms - means that the day I enlisted, I was wrong. That was not in fact the proudest day of my life. Today is. But it’s not because I am setting aside a career that has given me so much.” Cassian’s mom steps aside as his dad moves over toward him and claps him on the shoulder while gripping Cassian’s hand in what is clearly a tight embrace. “Son, you were my first born. My first true love in this world for both your mother and I. The first to follow in my footsteps - even if it is the army .” More laughter, but Cassian’s focus is razor sharp on his dad. The connection forces a churning in my stomach I’m not quite sure what to do with.
“And now you are my proudest day. Because I know the future this day will give you when you ship out. I am... so proud of you.”
The rest of the speech, if there even is one, was a bit of a blur. All I could see was Cassian and his dad, both of them trying to hold it together while they had this heartfelt moment in front of what felt like the whole world.
The whole world - and Rhys.
Who had gotten caught across the crowd at the buffet table where the world’s largest cake ever sat. And naturally, he’d been making faces at me the entire speech, including one very suggestive air blown kiss that was more tongue than it was lips.
I sighed. And could practically feel Rhys from across the room chuckling down my neck before winking and taking a sip from his own drink as Cass’s dad finished off the toast. Inappropriate? Absolutely. But my body relaxed all the same.
It’s just a speech , I reminded myself, not a lecture directed at my own complicated family melodramas. Be happy for your friend .
Your friend who’s leaving-
Stop it, Feyre. Focus on Rhys - Rhys and his damned tongue skimming the rim of that glass...
“What you see in him, I’ll never understand.”
“You’re cousins,” I said, swallowing the soda and enjoying the burn of it down my throat as it went to wash away the pang lingering in my stomach. “I don’t think you’re supposed to understand the attraction.”
On my right, Mor scoffed before leaning forward past me and making a much ruder gesture toward Rhys, which he replied to in kind enthusiastically.
“You two are impossible,” I said, going in for another sip. But neither my best friend nor my boyfriend stopped the charade. I glanced to the casual, dark frame across from Mor. “You can help with this anytime, you know.”
Azriel, Mor’s boyfriend with whom she was moving in with in a month for school up north, betrayed nothing of his attitude as he cooly handed me his glass and strode in front of Mor, slid his hands over her face, and consumed the tongue she’d been sticking out at Rhys with his mouth until they were enveloped in a deep, long kiss. My lips parted in awe that he’d so readily taken me up on the request - in public, no less. But then again he’d changed a lot since I’d met him. Any thought of pestering her cousin appeared instantly forgotten from Mor’s mind as she grabbed a tight fistful of Az’s hair.
“Yep, well...” I started, nodding my head with pursed lips. But they didn’t stop kissing. “Okay, I’m just gonna go over and um... yeah whatever.”
I left, but not fast enough to avoid hearing the kiss break and Mor whisper, “ Az” with a hushed giggle. I supposed I should have been grateful to hear it. In another month, I’d have to wait patiently for holidays and vacations to see my friends make a spectacle of themselves wherever they went.
The cake at the buffet table really was a spectacle in and of itself that could have given anyone, even Mor and Az, a run for their money. Four tiers and covered in perfect replicas of every medal, badge, and emblem Cassian’s dad had ever worn I guessed. I didn’t want to know how many people it would feed, let alone how much it must have costed when I compared it to the cakes mom had ordered every year for Elain and her huge birthday parties.
“So,” a smooth, familiar voice from behind me said, curling up to my ear. “On a scale of one to ten, how horribly did Cass’s dad bother you with his speech?”
“I’m fine,” I said automatically, trying to play it off casually with a stiff shrug, but Rhys wasn’t having it. He turned me around, away from the glorious cake the catering staff was starting to cut, and had to lean down into his heels slightly to look me straight in the eye.
“You promised me you would tell me if something started to bother you, in case it, you know, made you start feeling certain things again.”
“I know,” I said and shrugged my way out of his arms so I could take a plate of cake from the caterer. “And nothing is bothering me, which is why I said I was fine.”
“Feyre-”
“A five, alright?”
“Ah.”
His eyes betrayed nothing, neither worry nor indifference.
When I started therapy midway through my final semester, one of the things my therapist suggested we try was to come up with a system for telling people I could trust how I was feeling without it having to be a huge ordeal since opening up to people was something I struggled with most. Rhys was naturally all over the idea and thus, the scale system was born. Only he and Mor know about it, but I’d begun considering telling Nesta and Elain since we’re moving in together soon.
“It’s not like it’s in the danger zone,” I offered.
Rhys took a slice of chocolate to match my own and followed me away from the table. Mor and Az were now dancing in the crowd, having abandoned their lip festival, and Cassian looked halfway en route to join them. It was a shame Nesta wouldn’t come tonight, but now that I was here having to face the inevitable farewells, I understood why she’d avoided it.
“No,” Rhys said between bites, “but it is only fifty percent.”
“Hmm.”
“You wanna talk about it?” I shoved a huge forkful of cake with a mound of cherry filling into my mouth. Rhys chuckled silently. “I’ll take that as a no.”
“Maybe later,” I admitted, when I’d managed to finish chewing. Rhys nodded, understanding. The best thing about being with him really. Instant acceptance. Instant okay. No fights or told-you-so’s or do this instead. Just… okay. “Let’s just dance, yeah?”
Rhys raised a brow. “With the cake?”
“Oh-ho yeah - with the cake. Better finish yours now or you know Mor will take it.”
Rhys looked down at his plate and frowned. “Shit.” I laughed, already a few steps away heading into the crowd, and sure enough Mor’s eyes lit up when she saw us and bobbed her way to the beat in our direction. I held up my fork and Mor excitedly opened her mouth.
“Give me!” she yelled over the music, but it was Rhys’s plate she stole.
“I’m definitely not going to miss you stealing all my food every day when I leave,” Rhys yelled back.
“Yes you are,” Cassian replied.
“Damn straight he is!” Mor agreed. “After all, what’s a president without his dutiful cabinet?”
She took another bite of cake and spun wildly into Azriel’s waiting arms, cackling as she went. Even Rhys had to laugh at that. “Here,” I said, shoving my slice, plate and all, on top of Mor’s so I could slink into Rhys. “You two enjoy. I just wanna dance.”
“Deal,” he said, his head ducking down to mine, his hands and eyes warm.
And so, for the last time, the five of us danced into the night.
The car ride back to Rhys’s was particularly quiet. Cassian stayed behind with Azriel to wait for Rhys to drop Mor and I off since the three boys were staying the last night together and Rhys was flying out with Cassian in the morning anyway. Though their final destinations were different, the flight to their layover they’d take together.
Rhys pulled into the driveway and instantly, the light in the living room clicked on. And suddenly, that pang in my stomach from earlier was back.
“I’ll tell him to give it a few minutes,” Mor said from the back seat. She unbuckled her seatbelt and leaned over the center console of the car to plant a fat kiss on Rhys’s cheek. If she hadn’t smeared most of her lipstick on Azriel already, Rhys’s cheek would have been bright red. “Knock ‘em dead for me, cuz.”
“Mor, I-”
“And you had better reply to my snaps!”
“Snapchat is-”
“Just texting on crack - I know. And I don’t care. Snap me back or I will fly out to NYU to kick your ass in person so I can Snapchat the photos to everyone.”
“Mor-”
“I mean it, Rhys!”
“I know, but Mor-”
“What?!”
Rhys shared a soft, kind smile with his cousin, the kind that said a million private jokes, a million sleepovers as kids, and a million moments together as cousins that I probably would never understand just sitting in the car observing their intimacy. How casual they made it seem. The pang in my stomach both softened and hardened at the same time.
“I love you,” Rhys said finally and bopped Mor on the nose. She wrapped her arms around him and the hug lasted almost as long as they’d grown up knowing each other.
“I love you too, cousin,” Mor replied, her voice no longer flying at a million miles per hour. “See you inside, Feyre.”
Mor popped out of the car and was not halfway up the walkway before the front door was opening and she was holding up an explanatory hand to Rhys’s dad that I was eternally grateful for. The longer we held off going inside for Rhys to grab his bags and say goodbye, the better.
“Wanna go for a walk?”
Looking back to Rhys in the seat next to me, his eyes twinkled, which somehow made the moment even worse. “Five,” I said. He took my hand.
“Come on.”
Rhys’s neighborhood was quiet at night, the way mine always had been growing up. As a kid, I thought it was because rich people were boring. But since the last year of school when I finally found pieces of myself I hadn’t seen before, I discovered it was only because everyone rich and poor alike are trying to see the stars. We just have different ways of doing it. And tonight the stars were brilliant and full of hope, not a cloud in the sky. The quiet surrounding them was oddly peaceful.
“Can I ask you what’s going on inside that smart little head of yours or are we going to spend the last few minutes together getting cited for public fornication?”
And just like that, the little pangs I’d been fighting all night started once more to recede because being with Rhys - it was just that easy.
“I’m fine.”
“You keep saying that. It’s alright not to be, you know.”
“I know, I just...”
“Five?”
I inhaled a deep breath meant to be followed with words that explained everything in some nice, neat synopsis so Rhys could nod and we could go home happy, but nothing came out and I bit my lip instead. My eyes started to sting.
“Hey,” he said, stopping mid stride and tugging on the hand he held so gingerly. He gave it a slight squeeze. “Feyre - hey, it’s okay. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to talk about it, though I hope you’ll tell someone. You and Mor will have all night, you know she’ll do it.”
I shook my head, letting him stand in front of me so I could brace myself on his chest. “And in another month, Mor won’t be there anymore either.”
“Ah, so that’s what this is about then? Everyone leaving?”
I looked up, my chin perched against him, and refused to let the tears fall. “I’m just sad to say goodbye, that’s all. I finally found people I could trust and now-”
“We’re leaving.”
I nodded. “While I stay here.”
“I told you I would stay if you wanted me to. I don’t have to go back east for school. My dad can adopt a new son to be his company lawyer for all I care if it means-”
“No!” I stepped back, my heart thundering in my chest that we were about to have this disagreement again. We’d been having it all summer since graduation. Since Rhys had gotten his acceptance to one of the best law programs in the country and his dad had casually suggested he accept with a new set of car keys in one hand and a fat tuition check in the other.
“I told you, you can’t stay like that. I can’t be your excuse for doing what you want when your dad tells you otherwise.” I watched Rhys’s chest deflate somewhat. Maybe… maybe he had his own stomach pangs going on. But selfishly, I pressed on. “You have do decide you want to be here on your own, just like you told me, remember?”
Rhys took the opportunity to stare at our hands between us and run small circles over my palm before answering. “You’re sure you’ll be okay? I just don’t want you to feel alone again. I know it’s hard for you, but Feyre - you’re not alone. Never alone . You know that now, right?”
I sighed. “It is hard, but I’ll be fine.”
“I want more than fine,” he said, shaking me a little for the emphasis. “And you do too.”
A part of me - some awful, twisted part of me that sprang to life at the thought of hope and change - protested that his words were inherently wrong. But as much as I couldn’t deny that personal truth to Rhys’s face because of my own stubborn pride, I had to offer him something.
“Maybe fine is all there is for now?” Rhys’s brow quirked. “Maybe fine has to come first before good or even great, and if it does, then fine is enough for me. One step at a time.” This time, I shook his hands and leaned further into him. “New York may be on the other side of the country, but it’s still only a plane ride away, same as everything.”
“Look at you,” Rhys said, repressing a smirk. “You didn’t even need my help. You’ve... sorted your own solution out.”
It took a second for his words to sink in, but when they did, my heart swelled with a small amount of pride for the confidence I’d been working on building for the past seven months. Hours and hours of therapy, letting go of being my dad’s caretaker, getting ready to move out on my own for the first time (even if it was with my sisters), it was all coming to a head. And it would work. I would be better. I had to. “I am pretty amazing like that,” I said without holding back.
Rhys snorted. “And spending too much time with Mor. Maybe I shouldn’t leave you alone with her for a month or I might come home to find my cousin has an accomplice to help her kick my ass.”
“Nah, Mor doesn’t need my help doing that.” I pinched his waist, same as I had once a long time ago when he’d helped me move and I’d started to wonder about this boy. I grinned and teased, “You’re easy pickings.”
A small giggle followed by a gasp was all I was allowed to let loose before Rhys’s return tickle descended into a searing, sweet kiss at my mouth that burned as brightly and wonderfully as the stars above us. The last kiss, I felt it in my heart. So I released his hands before any more sadness could set in and wrapped my arms around his neck, and felt Rhys welcome me with his own embrace. His touch scattered down my back in a shower of stars and wind until we were so wrapped up my skin no longer shivered, but was pleasantly warm pressed up against him as our lips worked feverishly against one another.
The kiss couldn’t go on forever, even if it felt like it could. But just the taste of him on my tongue, my lips, my cheeks... and it was enough to reassure me Rhys would always be there no matter how many art galleries and school semesters and states separated us.
“I am very glad I met you, Feyre,” Rhys said, leaning his brow on mine when finally we pulled apart. “And I will come back to you the second you need me to.”
“The second you want to, you mean,” I corrected and he chuckled. “Promise?”
His pinky found mine as though we were still little kids in elementary school who knew nothing and everything of the world at once. “I promise,” he whispered.
And there on that starry night, our last together, I believed him.
In the morning when I woke up next to a sleeping Mor who was tightly clutching the stuffed animal bat Az had won her at the grad night fair, I rolled over and reached blindly for my phone, squinting against the sunlight. It was so early, the light wasn’t too intense yet, but I wanted to tell Rhys I missed him all the same before his flight took off for Chicago where he and Cass would part ways for none of us knew how long.
But when I unlocked my phone, there was already a text waiting for me and looking at the time stamp on it, he’d sent it just after I’d fallen asleep.
I miss you, too.
I closed my eyes, my heart feeling more at rest than it had all week, and sent a quick reply:
Thanks for stealing my line, prick. Have a safe flight.
Almost immediately, his reply came back:
<3
And all I could think as I fell back asleep, ghosting a touch over the sapphire ring on my finger, was what a long time it would be until Christmas break.