He Called Off His Wedding For Me, But We Were Never Meant To Be

The humid summer air felt heavy in my lungs, a stark contrast to the sterile, climate-controlled labs I’d grown accustomed to. I was home. And I was bored. Volunteering at the dusty local observatory my dad had loved so much felt less like a noble return and more like a punishment for having a few months between my master’s degree and the start of my doctoral program in Germany. My world was one of spectral analysis and gravitational waves, not explaining the Big Dipper to tourists for the hundredth time.

Tonight was the main event: the public viewing of Comet NEOWISE. And, of course, the primary telescope—a cantankerous old Celestron that was more sentiment than science—was refusing to align properly. I tightened a knob on the equatorial mount, my knuckles scraping against the metal. It was off by a fraction of a degree, a tiny error that was maddeningly persistent. To the average person, it wouldn't matter. To me, it was a failure.

“Got a bit of a wobble in the declination axis.”

The voice was low and smooth, coming from just behind me. I startled, dropping my wrench with a clatter onto the newly installed wooden deck. I turned to see a man leaning against the railing, arms crossed over a plain grey t-shirt that stretched taut across his chest and shoulders. He wasn’t a tourist. He had an air of belonging, of comfortable ownership of the space around him. His hair was the color of dark honey, waving slightly from the humidity, and his eyes, a warm hazel, held a glint of amusement.

“I’m sorry?” I asked, my voice sharper than I intended.

He pushed off the railing and walked toward me, his movements easy and confident. He gestured with his chin toward the telescope. “The mount. It’s not seated right on the pier plate. I noticed it when I was finishing the deck last week.” He knelt, his jeans pulling tight over his thighs, and pointed to a barely perceptible gap between the metal base and the concrete pier. “See? That’s your problem. Every time you adjust, it’s shifting just enough to throw you off.”

I knelt beside him, the scent of sawdust and something uniquely masculine—clean sweat and soap—filling the small space between us. He was right. The flaw was minuscule, but it was there. It was exactly the kind of detail I would obsess over.

“I’m Liam,” he said, his gaze shifting from the mount to my face. His eyes were startlingly direct. “I built the deck.”

“Elara.” My name came out as a breath.

“I can fix it,” he offered, his voice dropping a little. “If you’ll let me.”

I could only nod, suddenly unable to form a coherent sentence. He retrieved a small tool kit from a corner of the deck and got to work. I watched his hands—strong, capable, with clean fingernails and a smattering of faint scars across the knuckles. He moved with an unhurried precision, shimming the mount with a thin piece of steel he produced from his kit, his focus absolute. The quiet competence was enthralling. In a few minutes, he was done.

“Try it now,” he said, rising to his feet and offering me a hand up. His palm was warm and calloused against mine, and a strange current shot up my arm. I pulled my hand away too quickly.

I peered through the eyepiece, my fingers finding the familiar controls. The stars snapped into perfect, sharp focus. The comet hung in the blackness, its tail a ghostly smear of light. It was perfect.

I turned back to him, a real smile breaking across my face for the first time all evening. “Thank you. It’s perfect.”

Liam’s mouth curved into a slow, genuine smile that transformed his entire face. “Glad I could help. A view like that deserves a steady foundation.” His eyes held mine, and in the deepening twilight, I felt a connection that had nothing to do with astronomy and everything to do with the solid, steady man standing right in front of me.

That night became the first of many. After the last of the tourists had gone and I had locked the main gate, Liam would still be there, waiting for me on the deck, a thermos of coffee between us. The observatory became our private world, suspended between the dark earth and the infinite sky.

One evening, he pointed upward toward a familiar cross-shape of stars. “My grandfather never called that Cygnus,” he said, his voice a low rumble in the quiet. “He called it the Great Sawhorse. Said the gods used it to build the world.”

I smiled, leaning back on my elbows, the rough wood of the deck pressing into my skin. “It’s the Northern Cross, technically. The brightest star at the top, Deneb, is a blue-white supergiant. It’s so far away, the light we’re seeing tonight left that star around the time the first pilgrims were landing at Plymouth.”

He turned his head to look at me, his profile sharp against the star-dusted sky. His gaze was intense, unwavering. “A supergiant,” he repeated softly. “That fits.”

The air crackled. The space between us, which had felt so comfortable and easy, was suddenly charged with a tension that made my skin prickle. He shifted closer, the heat from his body reaching me before he even touched me. He lifted a hand, his fingers gently brushing a strand of hair from my cheek. The calloused pad of his thumb grazed my skin, sending a jolt straight through me.

“Elara,” he breathed, and it wasn't a question.

He leaned in, and I met him halfway. His lips were firm and warm, a stark contrast to the cool night air. The kiss started gently, a simple pressure, a discovery. But a low sound vibrated in his chest, and his hand moved from my cheek to the back of my neck, his fingers tangling in my hair, holding me to him. He deepened the kiss, his tongue tracing the seam of my lips, asking for entrance. I opened for him without hesitation.

A wave of heat washed through me, settling low in my stomach. The kiss became hungry, desperate. My hands came up to his chest, gripping the soft cotton of his shirt, feeling the solid, steady beat of his heart hammering against my palm. He tasted of coffee and something that was just him, something earthy and real. He angled his head, and our mouths moved together with a rhythm that felt both new and ancient. His other arm wrapped around my waist, pulling me against him until there was no space left between us. I could feel the hard length of his erection pressing against my hip through our jeans, a direct, undeniable statement of his desire. My own body answered, a liquid warmth pooling between my legs. We were two celestial bodies caught in a gravitational pull too strong to fight, our orbits finally, irrevocably collapsing.

But we didn't collapse. We pulled apart, breathless and shaken, the reality of my plane ticket hanging between us like an executioner’s axe. That single, searing kiss became the ghost in the room for the rest of my final week, a constant, silent acknowledgment of what we were both about to lose.

Now, on my last night, the air on the deck was cool and still. The comet was a faint smudge in the sky, already racing away from us, back to the cold, dark edges of the solar system. We sat on the bench, a careful foot of space between us, the silence stretching on, thick with everything we hadn't said.

“I have something for you,” Liam said finally, his voice low. He reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled something out, placing it in my hand. His fingers were warm against my palm for a brief second before he pulled away.

It was a small star, carved from a piece of pale, smooth wood. It was no bigger than my thumb, but the five points were perfect, the grain of the wood swirling through it like a tiny galaxy. I traced its shape, the edges sanded so finely they felt soft against my skin. It smelled faintly of cedar and of him.

“So you don’t forget the view,” he said, his eyes fixed on the horizon.

A painful lump formed in my throat. “I won’t,” I whispered. It felt like a useless promise against the thousands of miles that would soon separate us.

It was time to go. My father was waiting. I stood up, and he stood with me, the space between us seeming to hum with energy. The thought of just walking away, of this being the end, was physically unbearable.

“Liam,” I started, but I had no idea what to say. Don’t let me go. Come with me. Stay. The words were all there, a frantic jumble in my head, but none of them came out.

He closed the distance in a single step and pulled me into a hug. It wasn't like the desperate kiss; it was something else entirely. It was a deep, crushing embrace that felt like an anchor. His arms wrapped completely around me, one hand pressing into the small of my back, the other cradling my head, his fingers threading into my hair. I buried my face in his neck, breathing in the scent of his skin and his worn cotton shirt. My hands clutched at his back, holding on tight. I could feel the solid, steady beat of his heart against my chest, a rhythm I wanted to memorize.

For a long moment, we just stood there, holding each other in the dark. It was a hug that said everything we couldn't. It spoke of shared laughter on warm nights, of easy silences, of a connection so deep and immediate it defied logic. It was a promise that this was real, that it mattered. But it was also a goodbye. I could feel it in the way his arms tightened, a final, desperate attempt to keep me there. I could feel it in the slow, sad way he finally exhaled. When he loosened his grip, it felt like the severing of a lifeline. He stepped back, and the cool night air rushed into the space where his warmth had been, leaving me feeling impossibly cold and alone.