Without warning, he strays from the concrete onto a small grassy hill and plops dead center. He motions for me to join him. “We’re already soaked from the show.”

My sneakers squish. I lift one shoe. “Well, these are probably trash anyway.”

“Lose ’em.” He pops his off one at a time and pulls at his socks until they peel away with a schlocky sound, and I follow suit. He must notice my horrified face when my bare feet dig into the muddy grass. “Not a nature person?”

“Oh, me? I love nature.” I offer a pained smile. “It’s textures I take issue with.”

Jack grins as he looks up toward the night sky. The clouds have started to dissipate like someone is pulling back a curtain to reveal the stars shining so bright above us.

“You know what I love?” he asks, and I hum, intently waiting on his answer. “That no matter what is happening on this planet, rain, storms, whatever”—he points up—“that is always there on the other side of the clouds.”

“Ahh, you’re a stargazer,” I say.

“Aren’t you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re an artist. So you always see beyond what’s right in front of you. Thinking about possibility. The unknown,” he says. “I know that when I write, I’m constantly thinking about the infinite ways a story can go.”

I lie back on the grass and shiver. Fuck, it feels like the temperature is dropping by the minute. I’ll probably wake up tomorrow with a cold or something. But I don’t care. I don’t want this to end. “Sometimes that trips me up. If there are so many possibilities when I create something, how do I know if I’m choosing the right story line?”

Jack lies back until we’re elbow to elbow. “I like that I can talk about this stuff with someone. Callum doesn’t get it.”

“People who aren’t artists don’t,” I say, a little annoyed that he’s bringing up his friend right now.

“Yeah.” He turns to face me. “You’re thinking too much. Good stories let their characters show their creators who they are.”

I can’t help but think about Professor McPherson’s assignment and how much is riding on getting that mentorship at the end of the semester. Yet I have zero ideas.

“Remember at the show earlier when the strobe lights were streaming over the crowd, and it looked like lightning?” he asks. “And I grabbed it and tossed it to you, and you just went along with it?”

“Yeah,” I say.

“How’d you know what to do?”

“Instinct, I guess.”

When Jack smiles, it’s heavy, and the edges around his eyes crinkle. I could drown in the moonlight-blue pools of his irises. “There’s your answer.”

We let that sit in the air between us for a while.

“The stars are so bright here,” I say, finally, my voice airy like a gentle whisper.

“Yeah, you can really see the dippers when the sky is clear.”

“Where?” I ask. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen them.”