This was light-years beyond what her father would have ever led her to believe she could achieve.
The longest, most awkward pause followed her words, until there was the sound of a throat clearing from the middle of the table. She dared a glance up to see Adam putting down his utensils.
“I’m sure we’re all here on our own merits,” he said, his voice all quiet certainty and peacemaking, and everyone just seemed to hang on his words. “But they had a lot of applicants.” He shot his gaze over at her and then away, looking at each of the other people around the table in turn. “It only makes sense that they would give some weight to references from people they can trust.”
In other words, it wasn’t nepotism. It was just good sense. Right.
“And who vouched for you?” Jo asked.
For the first time since that afternoon, their gazes met, and Christ his eyes were blue. Clear and frank and deep, and for all that she was steel, cold and tempered, there was something in her that went molten in her core.
Keeping his chin high and his gaze steady, he admitted, “My stellar astronomy professor. He co-wrote a paper with Lisa last year.”
So he was making excuses for why it was okay that apparently everyone here except her had secured their place through some kind of connection, and he was just as bad as the rest of them.
And she didn’t know why that was the final straw. Today already, she’d embarrassed herself in front of P.J., made stupid assumptions, accidentally inflicted actual, physical violence on the most attractive man here, been forced to eat rabbit food, and now she was drowning in the consequences of how inbred this whole field of study was, and this guy—this perfect-looking, deep-voiced, peacemaking guy was looking at her like that. Like he had nothing to be ashamed of and like she was being ridiculous. And maybe she was.
Finished with her greasy rice and her overcooked vegetables and this whole conversation and this entire day, she gritted out, “Well, good for you.”
She rose without another look back, just needing some quiet and some space and a minute to think. She dropped her tray off at the window where the same man who had served her was loading dishes into the machine. And she did what she always did.
She retreated to the lab. To where she was safe.
“All right, you guys.” Adam put his hands on his knees as he levered himself up—mostly steadily—to standing. “I’m out.”
The whole gang, except Jo and Tom, had spent the evening in the girls’ house, sitting around their living room, sipping off a smuggled-in bottle of rum and generally just shooting the shit. They were good company, funny and smart in turns, but he wasn’t tipsy and he wasn’t sober, and it was late.
And he shouldn’t, but he had to give it one more try.
“Lame,” Jared said. His head was leaning against Kim’s thigh, and Adam was suddenly really glad he’d happened to pick the room that didn’t share a wall with his.
“I know, I know,” he conceded. He gave a general wave to the room as a whole as he picked his way toward the door. “See you in the morning.”
A couple of the girls were starting to look a little droopy, and they all had big days tomorrow. He felt sort of bad about starting the exodus, but he didn’t doubt things would have wound down soon regardless.
Low murmurs of conversation followed him outside, receding but not quite disappearing when he shut the door behind himself. He took a deep breath and stretched his arms up over his head. It felt good to fill his lungs, good to be alone for a second after a long day. Good to feel the cool, damp air.
Then he looked up at the sky, and “good” fell out of his vocabulary.
Holy shit. He’d been living in the heart of Philly for the past few years, and Tampa before that, and wow. If he’d ever seen a sky like this, he’d forgotten it. The darkness of it seemed to stretch out into infinity, and everywhere were stars. Stars and stars and the brighter lights of satellites and planets, and then this thin, misty wisp of a stripe streaking its way across the center of it all…
He laughed out loud when he realized it was the Milky Way. Their very own galaxy. He’d never lived somewhere with so little light pollution that he could actually see it before, and he ran a hand through his hair as he gazed up at it, staring until his neck started to crick. Christ, all the constellations were different. He picked out the Southern Crown and Delphinus, and then just about smacked himself when he saw what he’d overlooked.
Scorpius. It took up almost the whole damn sky, a perfect, looping spiral of stars, and part of him thought this whole mess of a trip might have been worth it just for this. For feeling like this, out in the night air, looking up at a sky so brilliant it made his chest ache.
This time he had to share it with someone.
He’d known he was going to break down and do it anyway, but it was with less heavy of a heart that he pulled out his phone and scrolled through to Shannon’s contact info. He pressed the button to dial and put the speaker to his ear, strolling over to sit on the bench between the two houses, out of reach of the front porch lights of either. Cloaked in that darkness and gazing upward at the countless points of light, he held his breath for the first two low-pitched rings.
By the third ring, he knew she probably wasn’t going to pick up, but that was okay. He collected himself the best he could. It was good just to hear her voice, even if it was a recording. When it was time to leave his message, he cleared his throat.
“Hey. Hey, it’s me. I know I already texted to tell you I got in okay, but I just… I wanted to say hi. See how you’re doing. Tell you how things are over here. It’s…” How did he describe it all? “It’s good. Hot as balls during the day, but there are some really great people here, and the facility is amazing. I got to meet with Lisa for a bit, too, and I just…” He paused for a second. “It’s so beautiful. I wish you could see it.” And then he broke down—said the thing he wasn’t supposed to say. “I miss you. If, ah, if you don’t have time to call me back, just shoot me an e-mail or text sometime, if you get a chance. Just to let me know you’re all right.”
It was too much concern, considering, but he’d never really been able to stop himself from worrying. Never been able to stop himself from caring, even when it would’ve been easier not to.
“Okay. Well. Good night.” He didn’t say “Talk to you later” because he didn’t know if he would. Instead, he took a breath and hung up.
He leaned back and scrubbed a hand over his face. “Well, that’s done,” he said to no one. To himself.
Movement from over near the girls’ house drew his attention. He looked over, and Jared was spilling out from the open door. He stumbled along and almost tripped over Adam before he seemed to spot him there.
“Oh.” Jared squinted in the darkness. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
“What’re you doing out here?” Jared glanced around, as if he were going to find some hidden source of entertainment he’d missed until then. He looked everywhere except up.
Adam chuckled and pointed at the sky. “Just taking a moment.”
Screwing up his face, Jared followed his direction and almost lost his footing in the effort. He righted himself and shot Adam the strangest expression. “Stargazing? By yourself?”
Adam shrugged, remembering Jared’s comments from earlier in the day about how he was an engineer and didn’t really know what he was doing here. “Maybe it’s an astronomer thing.”
“Whatever gets you off,” Jared said, shaking his head.
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
“Good.” Jared shot him finger-guns. “Because that would be super weird.”