we have the time we make.

Avery Chase

They did discuss Thanksgiving. Whether they should share it somehow, but they both have traditions, and Calden could sense in Avery some tremor of uncertainty about asking him to abandon his own family for the holiday to spend it with hers, resistance to the idea of doing so herself, and a hint -- a wisp -- of anxiety about how briefly they've been seeing each other, in the grand scheme of things. Officially or unofficially; to Avery, it is a candleflame of a courtship still, and holidays with the family aren't something she's prepared to share just yet.

So, perhaps lying together in her bed or his, Avery naked atop his chest, drowsing in his arms as his fingertips move slowly up and down her spine, they discuss Thanksgiving, and make plans for afterward.

--

And this is how, on a weekday no less, they have come to the Botanic Gardens. The entire space is awash with lights of every color. Some displays are muted and gentle, others a cascade of rainbow light. Sculptures and pathways and secretive kissing spots are all delicately lit like all the stars in the sky have come to rest upon the branches and leaves of everything here, providing color to flora that has gone silent for the winter. It is crowded, but not overwhelmingly so. There are families with children, couples, groups of friends. Many people -- Avery included -- wear pairs of paper glasses that turn every single point of light into a particular shape. Many children choose Santa or Elves or Snowmen; Avery chose stars.

Everywhere she looks, she sees stars, and the effect is so delightful and dizzying that she is laughing, laughing, long before they go inside to the cafe to get hot chocolate spiked with peppermint liqueur, sipping as they stroll.

Avery is a vision. Her knitted hat is green, her hair curled and spilling out around her jawbone. She is wearing grey slacks and boots with a low heel, a heavy white peacoat over it all and a scarf that gleams with silver and green mingled together. She could do without the coat, and the hat. She could do without the soft gloves that wait in her pockets, and does. But she likes to wear these things, even if she burns so hot, feels so warm even without the cup of cocoa in her hand.

The gardens are lively but serene, lovely but not overserious. People laugh and talk. Inside the cafe there was music, but nothing more than piano music, and not even solely carols. The themes are not strictly Christmas; there are no carolers marching through to interrupt anyone. Everyone is there to simply enjoy the gardens, enjoy the lights, and delight in these things. Avery may as well be walking on air every time she and Calden hold hands.

But that happens regardless of season.

She keeps looking at him, ridiculous in her paper glasses, beaming. "You have to try these," she says, of the $1 trinket. "I imagine it's what being high feels like. I feel so giddy."

Calden White

The other day, Calden thought of the night he met Avery. He didn't think of the way she looked when he first saw her in human shape. He didn't think of the way her eyes gleamed as she came around a shelf in his cellar. He didn't think of how she leaned over the back of his game room couch, or how she kissed him at the end of the night, both of them ragged from pleasure and exhaustion, waiting for her taxi in his truck.

No; he thought of her writing H2O in the dirt with her paws, and the thought was so endearing and so funny that he laughed aloud,

sitting in the saddle of his favorite quarter-horse,

a stone's throw from Ian who looked at him like he was crazy.

That's what love does to him, he supposes. Makes you a little bit crazy in the best sorts of ways. Makes you remember random things about your lover at random times under random circumstances, makes you smile, makes you laugh, makes something warm glow in your chest for no good reason at all.

A little like being high. A little bit giddy.

--

So now he's strolling the Denver Botanic Gardens. There's a chill in the air, but all those lights strung through all those trees casts a certain warmth all its own. The rest is provided by a hot drink, a moderate crowd, and of course: the woman holding his hand or winding her arm through his as they stroll. They look at the greenery. They look at the lights. He buys her those ridiculous glasses, and she buys him a mug of spiked hot chocolate.

They sit for a while. There are armchairs and couches by the window; they pick one made for three, though no third wheel is so socially blind as to join them. Calden sips his hot chocolate and Avery insists on peering through those glasses of hers. He slings his arm around her shoulders. She tells him he just has to try those, and he laughs at her. At her, mind you; though it's a gentle sort of teasing, without malign intent.

"I'm afraid I'm going to let you be the trendsetter," he says, smiling. "I don't think I could pull the starry-eyed look off. Too dignified."

Avery Chase

In her glasses, which look not unlike old-school 3D glasses, it's still not hard to make out her eyes. The plastic film between them is mottled with stars but he can still make out, just barely, the color of her eyes. She looks at him with a thoroughly dignified, very disappointed stare, a bit of a how dare you mingled with o rly.

Without a word, she reaches up, takes them off, turns them around, and puts them on his face.

And smiles at him. All around her, the lights on everything turn to stars in his view, swirling and twisting like a kaleidoscope, hazing his vision with something psychedelic. She is smirking.

Calden White

Calden is grinning when he gets that look, and grinning all the more when she pulls those glasses off and turns them around. There's no resistance on his end: he even bends a little to make it easier for her to slip them on, his eyes closing trustingly as she hooks the little paper earpieces behind his ears.

Then he opens his eyes again. The world is suddenly awash in stars, every point of light diffracted into a pattern. For a second he's just looking around, getting used to it, turning his head this way and that. When he looks back at her she's smirking.

He doesn't miss a beat. He bumps his brow against hers, returning that smirk. Murmurs into the quiet warmth between them:

"Well, now you've literally made me starry-eyed for you." And kisses her, soft and quick.

Avery Chase

Avery, surrounded by her aura of multicolored stars in Calden's eyes, just scoffs at him, rolling her eyes gently as she leans over to him, following that catlike forehead-bump with a soft kiss. It's a delicate thing, tender, but they are in public. People walk by every few seconds. Avery is not the sort to make out with her boyfriend in public; it means something that she holds his hand so freely, so happily, because she wouldn't always do that. It depends on the environment. Here, tonight, she is comfortable even giving him that soft kiss, smiling at him as she withdraws from it.

"You are a fool," she says, quiet and adoring.

Calden White

Avery is not the sort to make out with her boyfriend in public. Avery is the sort to pull her boyfriend into the back of a truck and make him see stars a wholly different way -- but that doesn't really count as being in public. So: these kisses are delicate and tender and subdued, the sort of thing you wouldn't be embarrassed for a friend or a family member to witness, that comes and goes without deepening.

"A man's entitled to be a bit of a fool for the lady he's sweet on," Calden replies, smiling. His hand squeezes hers, and then he lifts the glasses off his face and returns them carefully, gently to hers.

"How have you been?" A little more serious now. "Somehow I feel like every time I see you, it's always been too long since the last time."

Avery Chase

"Ah," Avery counters, "but you are not a bit of a fool. You are entirely one."

She smiles at him as he puts the glasses back on her face, but she actually reaches up to remove them after a moment. They may be hilarious, but it's hard to focus on his face while wearing them. She sips her cocoa, tipping her head a little as he tells her how long it feels.

All she can do is nod. "I know how that feels," she says quietly. "Though I think that may be because we do see each other somewhat seldom." She shakes her head at him. "Why can't you just raise your cattle in downtown Denver?"

Calden White

She is teasing, but Calden answers seriously. "You know," he says quietly, "I've actually thought a few times about turning the business over to my cousins. Taking more of a broad-strokes oversight role, moving south to the city to be closer to you. But I just can't really see myself doing it. I can't ... see myself doing this as a desk-and-phone job from a hundred miles away. That land is a part of me, and a part of my history.

"But god, sometimes it scares me to think, too, that maybe one day I'll look back on all this and wish I'd done something differently. While I had the chance."

Avery Chase

That... was not what Avery expected to hear.

Not the thought, even as a glimmer, of moving to Denver. Calden doesn't even pretend to mince his words, doesn't hide his reasons at all: to be closer to you. Nor was she expecting him to be so clear in his own heart that he couldn't leave that land, that it's a part of him.

Avery is very still as he speaks, caught off guard but not completely stunned. She breathes in after he finishes, exhaling slowly, and then sets her cocoa on the bench beside her. She leans over, wrapping her arm around him, burying her face in his neck for a few moments. Or his scarf, if he's wearing one, nuzzling either the heavy fabric or his warm skin.

She stays like that for a little while, feeling the strength and liveliness of his body against her own, her arms barely making it around him in this form. She nuzzles him one last time, then, drawing back to look him in the eye. Her brow is stitched, tight and a little sad.

"The land is part of you," she says quietly, in agreement and certainty. "But it means something to me that you would even consider leaving it just to have a little more time with me."

Her hand lifts, coming up to stroke his jaw, the backs of her fingers light and soft as they stroke down the bristle that comes in so quickly even after a good shave. "You are not losing anything by staying where you are. It's not a chance that will pass so quickly."

Calden White

He leans into that embrace as easily and uncomplicatedly as he's ever gone to her. Never, not even at the very beginning, was resistance for the sake of resistance a part of Calden's character. She buries her face against his neck -- it is his skin and not a scarf under that thickly-lined shearling jacket she will see him wear again and again this winter -- and he leans his cheek against the top of her head. They stay like that for a while, his thumb stroking along the side of her hand.

She looks a little sad. He feels a little sad. Somehow it makes him sadder still that she agrees with him. Doesn't argue. Reassures him. Thanks him, in a way.

"We don't really know that for certain," he says softly. "And even now I know that if it was land and cows on one hand and you on the other, I'd be a fool not to reach for you."

Avery Chase

"And you could upend your life and move to Denver and it will not make anything more certain," Avery tells him, with that soft, sad, but sort of amused little smile. She wrinkles her nose, going on touching his face the way she is, stroking him thoughtlessly, the way animals touch.

"If you are looking for someone to convince you to leave your land, it will not be me, Calden," she murmurs. "It is not your land and cows on one hand and me on the other, with a choice in between them. You have two hands," Avery adds, a bit teasingly. "You may hold both your land, and your cows, and your girlfriend."

She leans over to him, resting her forehead on his. "We have the time we make," she whispers. "But I would not be opposed if we made a little more."

Calden White

"Girlfriend," he replies, softly, as though amused and wondrous at the very word. The very notion of it.

No one could possibly fail to notice they are lovers right now. They've scarcely kissed, but: the way their hands keep linking. The way they keep leaning into each other, nuzzling and touching like animals -- it's unmistakable.

"I'm not looking for someone to convince me," he adds, "and on some level I'm grateful that you've never tried. But... I wouldn't mind if we made a little more time, either. I do miss you when you're not around." That's a bit of a confession, there. Strange, but for all their affection, all their potent chemistry, all the maturity and certainty of their relationship, they are sometimes almost fearful of the absoluteness and suddenness of their bond. "I miss you quite a lot."

Avery Chase

Well, that's just math, she could say. She's not around quite a lot, and he misses her when she's not around, ergo...

Avery does not tease him. She couldn't. He's so earnest, and this clearly pains him: to be so far, to feel like there must be something he could do, but not something he truly wants and not something she wants for him. She senses that, but she does not empathize so clearly with his fear, his trepidation of their bond. Not tonight. Sometimes she does, sometimes she is even more frightened by it than he is. But the truth is: she gave in. During summer, during that fancy birthday party for some acquaintance, she accepted it. He is her suitor. He is her lover. And her boyfriend, yes.

"All you have to do is tell me when you want to see me," she says, smiling gently, laying her head on his arm, "and if I am able, I will do my very best to come to you. And all you must do to see me is come to Denver. Whenever I can," and they both know that won't be all the time.

He has his business. His family. His cattle. Storms. Work. Palm-pressing and meetings. She has the war, and her family, and her pack, and sometimes, even when all their other stars align, she has to contend with a madness that drives her away from everything she loves most.

Calden White

"I know," Calden says quietly. He draws her hand to his mouth: the bristles of that ever-reappearing beard scratch and tickle as he kisses the backs of her fingers. "I know that, love.

"I'm sorry," he adds. "I don't know why this is on my mind tonight, but I don't mean to ruin the mood." He picks his cocoa up from where he set it, sipping, sipping, then draining down the last of it. "Come on," he says, summoning up a smile. "Let's go wander around and look at the lights. And if we see them selling those glasses again, I'll buy a pair too."

Avery Chase

"Oh, darling, you haven't," is, naturally, the first thing out of Avery's mouth, ardent in reassurance. "A mood that is ruined by honesty is not a mood worth maintaining," she insists, as he kisses her hand. She watches him sip, then turns to lift her own cup.

She sips, but she's watching him from the corner of her eye, and the truth is, she's troubled. By how distressed he seems, under the surface. She wonders what he isn't saying about that distress. What, really, is at the heart of how badly he misses her, how torn he seems to feel. Avery smiles as she lowers her cup again, trying to hide the little wrinkle between her eyebrows. "Maybe you can get some that look like snowflakes."

She rises with him, holding her hot cocoa in one hand, but holding his hand with the other, lacing their fingers together as they walk into the lights.