Vogue | Tony Stark

SIX - THE TREEHOUSE

"And what's that one? That one right there, see?"

Tony tilted his head, squinting as he followed his eyes down Estélla's outstretched arm and past her fingertips, both of them gazing up at the clear night sky above them.

They had been outside all day, basking in the golden sunshine on the white sand and pure waters on the coast of East Hampton. It was summertime and the days were long but they cherished them, waking up early and staying out late, sleeping for as little time as possible to make sure they didn't lose even a second of fun.

"That one's called Draco, I think," Tony said, "And the one next to it, can you see?"

"Where?"

A sixteen year old Esté was laid on the sand beside Tony, a beach towel beneath them and his hoodie covering her bikini while he chose to shiver in his shorts and t-shirt.

There was a fire roaring beside them and a gentle breeze, the smell of smoke and burning wood reminding them of all the summers they'd shared before, doing exactly the same thing in exactly the same spot.

"Look," Tony took hold of Estélla's hand inside his own, guiding it to point at the constellation he was talking about, "This one. It's called Ursa Minor."

"Oh," Esté smiled up at the stars, "I see it."

Truthfully she didn't have much of a clue what it was she was looking at, but she enjoyed listening to Tony talk about space all the same. The sky was pretty and the stars reminded her of diamonds, and although she was envious that Tony was able to see something that she wasn't, she believed what he told her anyway.

"I wonder what it would be like to hold a star," Esté pondered out loud, watching as they twinkled above her.

"Probably awful, they're almost entirely made up of burning hot gas and-"

Esté turned her head away from the stars to glare at Tony. He too pulled his eyes away from the sky to meet her unimpressed stare, one so powerful it silenced his intellectual rambling instantly.

"I'll get you one some day and you can find out yourself, how about that? I'll go up into space and grab you whichever one you want."

Esté smiled. They lay beside each other, both with one hand resting on their midsections but the other laying between them, fingertips brushing together that neither of them pulled away from.

"Really? You'd do that for me?"

Tony laughed quietly to himself, a smile spreading across his cheeks. He stared at her with moon-drowned eyes and felt his heart slowly beat less and less until he was sure it had stopped, though his breathing came in sync with the rise and fall of her own chest, feeling as though in that moment, she was all he needed.

"Yeah," he whispered, a sudden flash of bravery making him gently lace his fingers through hers, clasping their hands together beneath the stars, "I'd do anything for you, Stella."

"Hasn't changed at all, has it?"

Tony drew in a sharp breath when Esté joined his side, both of them standing at the French doors that ran the full length of the back side of the house, staring out down past the patio and the pool, along the green grass to where the pearly sand met the ocean.

The Goldwyn's vacation home in The Hamptons had been the one property in the United States that her parents had kept. They'd sold their home in Manhattan when they made the move to Europe, but decided to keep the beautiful beach house upstate.