He reaches for me, and I’m surprised by how perfectly my hand fits into his. He blushes, “Sorry, I know my hands can be a bit rough.” They are, but he got his calluses honestly. His father runs a logging company and employed his son as one of the loggers. His father sounds a lot like my grandfather, who’s always spouting clichés like, “Hard work builds character.” I think that this is just an excuse for my Papa to get me to do all the chores, but he’s old, so whatever. I don’t know if the hard work is building any character, but it’s certainly building some muscles on my skinny butt, which Calvin, my rough-handed new boyfriend, certainly appreciates.

I squeeze his hand. “I like your hands.”

He blushes even more. I swear, the boy is like a firetruck on a hot summer’s day. It wasn’t hard to figure out that he liked me. For such a big guy, he acts so shy and small. Before he asked me out (but after I figured out that he liked me), I would love to tease him. I’d pretend to pluck a piece of fluff off his face or make sure to sit real close to him in the cafeteria and watch him dissolve into in a sputtering, red-faced, nervous wreck. Cruel, I know, but when he finally did summon the supreme courage to ask me out, I immediately said, “yes.” So, all is well that ends well. Right?

I kiss the top of his head like the gentleman that I am. “Thank you for taking me here.”

“No p-problem,” he sputters cutely.

By “here,” I mean the logging yard. Not exactly the first place I would think of when I thought “romantic,” but with him, it somehow is. The yard is completely dark and out in the middle of nowhere. If Calvin wasn’t the epitome of a walking, talking cinnamon roll, I would have been a little worried when he proposed this idea. But he said that this is the perfect place to stargaze and he’s right. It is perfect. In the back of his pickup truck (yes, he has a truck, he’s a good ole country boy through and through), we could even see the Milky Way. I never realized there was so many stars until we got here. It’s like magic. It doesn’t even seem real. Even that field trip to the planetarium didn’t prepare me for this spectacle.

“Wow,” I say, because no matter how long I stare up, I still don’t get bored. It’s really spellbinding.

“Yeah, wow,” he says, but when I turn to him, he’s looking at me. Such a cliché, I couldn’t help but to think. Still, it’s a sweet one. I give a peck on the lips and he beams like he just won the Nobel Prize. “To me,” he says. “You’re like these stars. You’re so bright and beautiful and I wouldn’t mind staring at you forever.”

I giggle. “Oh my god, just how corny can you get?” He starts to turn away, but I hold his face in my hand. “It’s okay, I like that about you.” I kiss him again, this time for real. His kiss makes me feel like I’m swallowing the Milky Way, impossibly magical.