Free The Fall of Sky: Part One by Alexia Purdy Page B

of the couches, and a large wood coffee table, which appeared to be a slice of an actual tree, with a glossy finish sat in the middle of the sitting area with a variety of novels and architecture books strewed across it.
    The whole place smelled amazing, like walking into a Ma & Pa restaurant where homemade tortillas were being kneaded and flattened to slap onto the griddles. My stomach lurched, and I hoped Jonas hadn’t heard its rumbling as I stood, mouth opened and gawking at his home.
    It was so normal and lived in, definitely not as immaculate as I would’ve pinned Jonas to have chosen. In fact, I wouldn’t have been surprised to walk into a modern monochromatic theme with nothing but a sea of white and black with perfectly symmetrical furniture and not a spill of color throughout it. This was completely the opposite of that.
    “I hope you find it adequate.”
    I nodded, still speechless.
    “Great. Caridad has our meal ready. She’s my housekeeper and cook, but I mainly just love her cooking. It reminds me of my mother’s.” He waved at the tiny, chubby lady pouring soup into two bowls. She smiled and bowed her head toward him as she continued to put strips of tortillas into the soup and garnished it with cilantro.
    “Would you like it served now?”
    “Yes, Caridad. This time we’ll eat outside. It’s a beautiful evening.”
    “Si, Senor.” She turned back to another pot where she stirred the contents and proceed to pull out two cloth napkins and utensils.
    “Let’s go outside, Liv.” Jonas slipped his fingers through mine and gave me a gentle tug. It was enough to yank me out of my fascination with the entire set up he had going on here.
    Jonas took me through a large courtyard, which was the entire middle of the house. Along each side ran a covered walkway leading into doors which led to either rooms or the inside hall of the house. A large fountain sat along one wall where a table with four chairs sat surrounded by a lush garden of vines and flowers and a small vegetable garden off to the right. The splashing water made it serene, and I peered up to see the expanse of night sky in the open courtyard. The smell of fresh earth and cut grass lingered in my nostrils, and my heels sank into the dirt until I hopped back onto the flagstone path Jonas had led me to.
    It was out of a fairy tale, and I had no words to offer on how beautiful I thought it was.
    “Here we go.” Jonas pulled out one of the cushioned metal chairs of the patio set and let me sit down before he pulled out one for himself and sank into it.
    “This is really nice,” I managed to croak out, but I was still staring up at the sky, seeing an occasional star or two. We were still inside the city, where the lights obscured the stars with their overbearing glow. I missed the night sky, where all the stars were visible and lit up the darkness like twinkling Christmas lights. Even in darkness, they shone brightly and never made me feel afraid. Of course, those were days Audrey and I would pull off the road to sleep in our banged up station wagon. We’d put the pillows on the pull down door and laid our sleeping bags underneath us so the hard metal of the car bed wouldn’t dig into our bones too much.
    We’d had competitions on how many constellations we could name. When we first started this ritual, we could name the most popular ones, but only those. After studying a library book on astronomy, Audrey had been able to name several more than I could, but we’d compared the look of the stars to those in the pictures of the book under a flashlight and spent the night eating s’mores from a tiny fire we’d stoked as we chatted the night away.
    I missed those carefree days.
    “I hope you like Tortilla soup.”
    I nodded, my stomach flipping again at the mention of food. I’d barely eaten lunch earlier because my nerves were frayed to oblivion, knowing tonight was our first date.
    “Good. Also, we’ll be having potato tacos with cabbage