Royally Kissed | ✓

13; the starry night

Owen cleared his throat. "Right−yeah, sure. So, uh, I'll see you tomorrow then. I'll come pick you up in the morning."

She grimaced. "No, I can ma−"

"I insist," he cut her off, "the park's just a ten-minute drive to the hotel."

"I'll bring my own car, Owen. Plus, I have to go somewhere important on my way to work."

"Well, I can drive you there."

She rolled her eyes, miffed at the fact that he was trying to be so nice these days, which was definitely unnecessary considering that she had another person to think about. Her boyfriend.

Paige sighed. "It's a no."

"Alright," he sounded a little too happy and she shot her eyebrow up. But then he said, "See you tomorrow, Paige."

"Wait!"

But the line already went dead. She gritted her teeth in frustration, glumly tugging her beret down her face. As soon as she put it back to place, her eyes landed on Arthur who was staring at her in amusement, and she blinked at him like a klutz she normally was.

After Arthur paid his orders and asked Martha if they could borrow two mugs, telling her that they'd dropped by anyway after visiting the camp, they soon said their goodbyes. Martha waved at them until they pulled out of the road, and Paige peeked at her outside the window, one hand glued against the top of her cap as she returned the wave.

The weather was quite chilly but it wouldn't suffice to freeze them to the bones. So it was just the perfect night to do some stargazing; Paige all but went hysterical when she laughed upon hearing that he'd take her to the known camp in this small town of Fairville−where people swing by to look at the stars.

"It's great out here," Arthur said as they entered a vast plain, which appeared to be affected by a drought, if the cracks all over the field was any indication. "There's little to no light pollution since we're a distance away from Bradbury City and even Rockstring. But you still have to account for the full moon though because it'll outshine the stars, s'little bit hard for you to see."

"I see," she said, out of breath, as she leaned over the window and looked up at the twinkling beauty of the cosmos. She then whipped back to the road sign that said Saturn's Camp in sheer wonder. "Why do they call it Saturn's Camp anyway?"

"That's an interesting question," replied Arthur, stepping on the brakes. Paige turned back to him with such growing interest that Arthur's eyes crinkled in amusement. "See, in Roman mythology, Saturn is the god of agriculture and vegetation. The farmers here had the highest hopes that this god will provide the sufficient rain for their plants to grow. Unfortunately, it's been going on for years that they just gave up altogether. People found this a good spot for stargazing though, so, yeah," he shrugged, "that's how it all started."

"That's strange," she murmured, a frown masking her expression. "I'm pretty sure I saw this field of sunflowers on the way here."

Arthur jerked his shoulder. "Miracles, I guess."

A minute later, Arthur unlatched the tailgate of the truck so that he could set up some unfolded boxes where he could place the blankets he'd taken from the backseat earlier. He then grabbed Paige by the waist and lifted her up so that now she was already sitting on the edge of the tailgate, her legs swaying back and forth.

He then paced back and hovered inside the truck and unloaded the thermos, grabbed the two mugs and the bag of crackers. Once he'd already laid them down next to Paige, he soon took out his radio, which she belatedly realized was also a cassette player.