“Yes, that’s Jupiter…then Saturn, mhm.”

“So if you’re willing to meet in two weeks for the handoff…”

There were two distinct phone calls going on at once in the kitchen, and Eli had a perfect view of both from the table. Sherry and Ambrose wandered around each other in circles, coffees in one hand, phones in the other. Both of them wore matching frowns.

“Hey, Banneker.” Eli nudged the man slouched like a banana next to him. “I feel left out. Can I use your phone?”

Banneker pulled away, tapping at a game on his phone. “No.”

“No?”

“You stole my phone for hours last week—”

“What? Dawn had a lot of questions!”

“Neptune is next, that’s right!” Sherry held the phone away from her face and looked to Eli. “Is Pluto a planet?” she mouthed. Eli shook his head. “Yup, that’s it. You got all of ‘em.”

“If you could put me through to—? Yes, thank you.” Ambrose stopped mid-wander, waved to Eli, then resumed walking. As soon as a new voice rumbled through the phone, he immediately began conversing in French. Eli swallowed and kept his gaze on Ambrose. That was new.

“How many languages does Ames know?” he whispered to Banneker, who shrugged.

“I dunno. French, he’s pretty good at. His Spanish is passable. He was learning German at one point…”

“Okay, I get it.” Eli sunk into his chair. “Overachiever.”

Ambrose seemed to have heard, for he caught Eli’s gaze and wandered over, one hand over the phone. “Did you need something?”

“Hm?” Eli sat up. “No.”

“Oh.” Ambrose frowned. “You were looking at me like you needed something.”

Eli didn’t need anything. Well…not anything Ambrose could give at the moment.

“All good.” He forced out a smile, then watched Ambrose wander off down the hall, slipping back into another conversation in what sounded like Italian.

Eli crossed his arms and slouched further in his chair. Overachieving had no right sounding so attractive.

“Comets and what?” Sherry’s voice made him jump. He had completely forgotten about the other phone call orbiting the kitchen island. “Meteors? Ah. Hold on…” Sherry looked around wildly, found Eli, and handed him the phone. “Can you tell him the difference between comets and meteors, please?”

“What?” Eli held the phone like it was burning. “Who is this?”

“Davey, my nephew. Can you just—?” She waved him along, then went to follow Ambrose. Eli spluttered.

“Hello?” A little boy’s voice echoed from the phone. Eli quickly pressed it to his ear.

“Hi!” He shot a confused look at Banneker, who immediately stood and escaped to the couch. Eli stuck out his tongue at him, then turned back to the phone. “Sorry. I’m Sherry’s friend Eli. You wanted to know about comets and meteors?”

“Yes, please.” He heard papers rustling somewhere in the background. “It’s for my science project.”

Judging by the voice, the kid couldn’t have been older than eight. Eli grinned and sat back in his chair. “Sounds awesome. Can you tell me about the project?”

#

An hour later, Ambrose walked in as Eli paced in circles around the table.

“And then—and then—,” Davey had barely taken a breath for the last twenty minutes, “I’m gonna make asteroids out of clay and hang them with some string my mom got me!”

“Sounds incredible.” For a brief moment, Eli imagined Lily’s twins and their multi-colored clay jars, all marble-swirled and sticky. He fought down a knot in his throat and did another lap around the table. “You gonna make all of Saturn’s moons, too?”

“Saturn’s got moons?”

“Saturn’s got over eighty moons, my man.”

At the end of his lap, he looked up to find Ambrose smiling at him, eyes bright and soft. Eli cleared his throat. For some reason, it was difficult to hold his gaze when he was like that.

“Do all of them have names?” Davey continued. “Can I name one?”

“Sure, why not? Take one of the boring numbered ones and add your own name to it.”

He was about to start another lap around the table when a pair of hands gently held his hips still and lips brushed his forehead.

Then Ambrose bent down towards the phone with a smile that turned sharp at the last second.

“But what about the aliens?” he asked loudly.

“The what?” Davey shrieked.

“Oh my god.” Eli reached out to smack Ambrose, but he was already sprinting down the hall. Banneker’s laughter hooted from the couch.

“There are aliens on Saturn?” The decibel of Davey’s voice made the phone vibrate.

Eli sighed and flopped into a chair. “Okay, we haven’t actually seen any aliens on Saturn. But…if there were, what do you think they’d look like?”