“Right.” Emilio said, taking deep breaths to drive away the tears. “I am pertty smart, right?” He said, hiccuping before continuing, “I mean, I haven’t run Everhart Industries into the ground like everyone thought I would. Right? I-WOW! Benj look up! The sky is so...wow.”

“Hey, Emilio," Mateo said as he got to his car, "You tell me where you are and I’ll take you to this really nice hill and we can watch the stars all night. How about that?”

“Really?” Emilio’s voice hyped up, right before breaking again. “I-I don’t deserve to-I’m- I'm awful, aren't I? I'm so-so shell-fish. I'm shellfish... I don't deserve the starfish. Patrick. Patrick... I’m not a good Spongebob.” Emilio said, water in his eyes once again as he continued looking up at the starry night.

“Emilio," Mateo said, taking a deep breath as he started his car, "Do you know what would be really selfish? Not telling me where you are."

"Oh," Emilio said.

"I mean, I woke up at three am, got dressed, ran down eight flights of stairs, and now I'm sitting in my car. And I just really want to go pick you up buddy. But how am I supposed to do that if you won’t share that information with me?”

“Sharing is caring,” Emilio confirmed, nodding his head.

"Yeah... exactly."

Emilio tore his eyes away from the stars and read off what the nearest street signs said.

“Okay buddy, just stay right there. It’s not that far from me, I’ll be there in a bit okay.” Mateo said as he put the address into his trusty old GPS.

“Come on, pick up!” Mateo was on the block Emilio had readout, but there was no sign of him. He called again for the tenth time.

He knew he should have tried harder to keep him on the line, but Emilio had begun singing to the stars and it had made him miss a turn. When he told Emilio to give him a second, so he could double-check the GPS, Emilio got bored with him and hung up.

And now, he wasn't picking up.

Mateo drove slowly, looking out the window, hoping he didn't look suspicious enough for the mansion owners to call the cops on him.

He turned a corner and there he was.

Emilio was standing smack dab in the middle of the road, he looked like a deer caught in the headlights.

“Mr. Everhart!” Mateo yelped, skidding his car to a stop.

Emilio’s jaw dropped as a hand went to shield his eyes.

“Hi,” he said, surprised, as if the lights on him had appeared out of nowhere, he squinted at Mateo's high beams. “Are you... God?”

“Mr. Everhart!” Mateo yelled, getting out of the car and rushing towards him.

“God!” Emilio yelled in a drunken excitement. Then he added in an apologetic tone, “I’m not religious.”

“Mr. Everhart, why are you standing in the middle of the road? You could have gotten hit!” Mateo said, looking around, thankful there were no other cars in sight.

“Sorry God. The-the-the man- the man from, on-on the phone, told me not to move.” Emilio said lifting up his phone as if for proof. 

Mateo noticed Emilio's other hand was clutching an empty wine bottle.

“Jesus Christ Emilio, how drunk are you?”

“Mmm” was Emilio’s response.

“Come on, let’s get you to the car. Do you know where you live?” Mateo asked, carefully guiding Emilio to the car.

“Okay, God,” Emilio said, letting his weight fall on Mateo, nuzzling his shoulder as they walked back to the car. 

“I’m bad person God,” Emilio said. He was curled up on the passenger's seat looking out the window.

“Emilio, your address, remember?" Mateo asked again, as gently as he could, "You were going to tell me where you lived."

He had already been driving for five minutes and he had no idea where he was going.

“Emilio?” He asked again, sending him a sideways glance.

Emilio’s head was rested on the window, eyes fixed on the stars.

“They're beautiful,” Emilio suddenly whispered, “every day we walk past beautiful things but we never stop to appre-app-app- to look at them.” He was near tears.

Mateo couldn’t take it anymore, he wanted to wrap the man in blankets and make him hot cocoa and vow to destroy whatever had driven him to this.

“Emilio..." Mateo asked as he pulled the car to a stop on the side of the road, "what happened?”

“Are we stopping?” Emilio asked, sitting up, a smile slowly spread across his face, “It's star watchen time? You-or—someone said we would watch stars!”

“Umm... right, Emilio it’s nearly four am. The hill I told you about isn’t that close. By the time we get there, it'll be daytime. Why don’t we do it anoth-Emilio, where are you going?” 

Mateo quickly unbuckled his seatbelt and followed Emilio out of the car.

“Don’t need a hill” Emilio hiccuped as he began to try to climb onto the hood of Mateo's car. “I’m genius. I just- I made our own hill.” He declared once he was able to climb on top.

"Emilio-"

“Come,” Emilio patted the space next to him, “don’t you wanna sit next to genius?”

Mateo paused. 

He felt his heart skip a beat and his cheeks warming up. He wasn’t sure if it was because of the cold air, his lack of sleep, or the fact that it was Emilio Everhart, billionaire genius who he’d been looking up to since he was a teen, staring at him with those big brown eyes of his. 

A part of him felt that it was probably all of the above.