Mars, Venus, and the Space Between Us

Summary: Take two! A boyfriend takes his lovely girl to a beautiful hill top. His idea of romanticism becomes her springboard for a discussion of life in general. Will he be able to get a kiss in edgewise?

Once upon an ordinary day, a couple sat poised high on a hill with the sunset behind them. The stars are beginning to poke through the darkening blue of the sky, and the city lights twinkled against a blackish grey. Only a thick crème quilt cushions the boy and girl from the harshness of the cold rock beneath them. The moment a delicate hand, decked out in mismatching fingernail polish, tugs a classic red button up coat tighter to her chest, well, the boy sees that as a fine excuse to gently enfold her into his lap. His arms circle her, his legs are on either side of her and she idly draws circles in the dirt with the points of her dainty leather boots.

Mentally congratulating himself, he peers into her face and sees the picture of contemplation. A frown in her forehead, her eyes focused firmly on the urban life rapidly taking place below. Her hand was distractedly tugging on the end of the electric blue scarf she'd crocheted for him and her bright red lips were pursed.

Completely undeterred and even attracted by the intentness of her expression, he thought to kiss her but instead, she spoke.

"Babe?"

"…yea?"

"How can we be sitting here right now?"

"…what?" He pulled her nearer to him, pleased to no end with how he could wrap his arms almost double around her tiny waist. She brushed her bangs from her eyes and shifted a bit before she continued.

"I mean, how is all of this even possible? Watching all of these tiny people living their lives, knowing were up here living ours…I don't see how any of this can just be coincidental..." She had the sense that her words were being carried on the wind, perhaps to someone else considering the same vein of thought….

"Things happen for a reason, I suppose." As he spoke, he edged her around into his lap so that he'd have a better vantage point for the next step in the plan.

"And on top of all of those things, don't you ever marvel at how well were put together?" She gently unlocked one of the hands that had been fastened around her waist and placed it toward the left side of her ribcage. "We have hearts that pump our blood and a brain that can come up with words to express it all. Am I the only person who's amazed by this anymore?"

He raised the hand that had felt the lump—thumping of her heart underneath its palm, brushed the pearl necklace at her throat and used two fingers to tilt her little face up to his. He allowed her proximity, the fragrance of her hair, the nature of his thoughts to color his tone with the intimacy he was feeling. "You just aren't taking anything for granted. But you do know what I marvel at the most, don't you?"

Oh, he could no longer hold back his grin. Her eyes were large and spellbound as she softly shook her head in answer to his question. He glided the back of his knuckles from the vulnerable patch of skin under her left ear and back, smoothly.

"I marvel at how you make me want to be a better person. The way you take care of yourself, the way you think, it's incredible how all of me wants all of you more and more every day."

Perhaps with the absence of his voice and of his fingers feathering across her cheek, she might have stood a slight chance of snapping herself out of his trance. A chance he was not at all inclined to offer, however.

"I don't know what to say, I-" The last of her words faded into the feel of his lips. Quite startlingly, she became aware that she had been his intention all along. Curling her fingers into his shirt's handy front pocket, the girl was contented with the heat of his body, further emphasized by the chill in the air. She figured that there would be other times to puzzle out the cosmos. She apparently, was something to marvel at all on her own.