When The Stars Align

by Jeanette Grey

  “Sorry.” The girl—Carol, she’d said her name was—shrugged. “Six of us and only three bedrooms here, so we don’t exactly have a lot of choice. You could try your luck over at the guys’ house, but I doubt that would fly with anyone.”

  She gestured toward the window and the other house across the way. The one that guy was slinking his way back to, and Jo had to force herself not to watch him. Even with the fake little limp he was probably putting on for her benefit, he had an amazing ass. And really broad shoulders, and a trim waist, and she always had been a sucker for the blond-haired, blue-eyed, all-American look on a man. She was even more of a sucker for the chance to mess that kind of perfection up—get that skin all nice and hot and sweaty between the sheets.

  She probably would have tried to tap that, too, eventually. If she hadn’t, you know, accidentally flipped him when he snuck up behind her. Or run over his foot.

  Fuck.

  “Listen,” Carol said, drawing Jo’s attention back. “It’s really not so bad. I know you’re the last one here and didn’t get your pick of rooms, but they’re all about the same, and I’m easy. I sleep like the dead, I promise I don’t snore, and it’s just ten weeks. It’ll be fine.”

  Right. Just ten weeks, in a tiny little room in a sweltering house on the edge of what looked like a jungle, rooming with a blonde who apparently thought a sundress was good moving-in-day attire. A blonde who Jo was pretty sure had Katy Perry streaming out of her earbuds.

  This was going to go great.

  “No. I mean, sure.” Jo forced a little smile, but it might have looked more like a grimace. “I’m just not used to sharing space with someone.” She hadn’t, not since freshman year. What a fiasco that had been. Both she and the poor girl who’d gotten stuck with her had kissed the ground once it was over. But this would be all right. Like Carol had said, it was only temporary. “Besides, we’ll probably be spending most of our time in the lab, right?”

  That was Jo’s plan, anyway. If she played her cards right, she could probably get another paper or two to add to her CV this summer, and then she’d be all set when it came time to get her grad school applications ready in the fall.

  Carol arched an eyebrow. “A bunch, sure. But we are in Puerto Rico, you know.”

  “So?”

  “So, how often do you get to visit here? And in all those e-mails we got from P.J., she said they had a bunch of trips planned.”

  Oh, great. So this girl was on a first-name basis with Dr. Galloway, then?

  “I don’t know. I’m not a big field trip kind of girl,” Jo hedged.

  “Suit yourself. I mean, I’m all about getting my job done. But life is about more than that, you know?”

  “If you say so.”

  Because life hadn’t ever been that way. Not for her. Not when she was a kid, desperate to live up to expectations that always seemed right about to crush her. And definitely not now.

  “I do,” Carol said. She smiled, and it wasn’t mocking or pitying or any of the other hundred belittling responses Jo had received over the years. “Just you wait. I bet you’ll end up having a great time in spite of yourself.”

  “Weirder things have happened,” Jo muttered. Louder, she sighed and gestured around the room. “So where should I put my stuff?”

  “Right-hand side of the closet is empty, and I left that whole dresser for you.” With that, Carol dropped to perch on the edge of her bed and pulled her laptop closer.

  Jo could work with that.

  Aware the whole time of the potential for eyes on her, she hauled her suitcases over toward the window and squatted down to tug the zippers open. She hadn’t really had a clue what she was packing for. Already, she could tell she was going to die of the heat, but she hadn’t worn anything but boots in years and wasn’t inclined to stop now. Somehow or other, she’d make do. She dumped her two extra pairs of Docs on the floor of the closet, then started loading socks and underwear and bras into the top drawer of the dresser. She checked over her shoulder to see Carol seemingly immersed in whatever was happening on her computer screen before slipping her vibrator in there, too.

  She really hadn’t been planning on having to share a room when she’d decided to bring that.

  Before long she was pretty much unpacked. She glanced at the closet to see her array of black and gray and brown hung side by side with Carol’s pink and yellow and purple. Cargo pants and canvas shorts against frilly skirts. It made a weird tangle unfurl in her gut—that mix of superiority at her own utilitarianism and uncertainty. Not for the first time, she wondered how her life would’ve differed if anyone had ever taught her how to be a girl.

  “You’re welcome to borrow stuff if you ever want to,” Carol said from behind her.

  Jo choked back a laugh. “Thanks. But I don’t think your stuff would really fit me.”

  “I don’t know. I’d say we’re about the same size.”

  That wasn’t what Jo had been talking about at all. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

  “Okay.” Carol was clearly waiting for reciprocity, but Jo didn’t see much point in offering. Jo’s clothes really wouldn’t fit Carol, either.

  Sometimes, Jo wasn’t even sure they fit her.

  Adam was sitting on his bed, leaning against the headboard, writing a letter to his grandmother of all the ridiculous things when a knock came on his door. He pulled out one of his earbuds and looked up to see Jared standing in the hall.

  “Hey,” Jared said. He jerked his thumb behind him. “Welcome session is down at the main building in half an hour. I was thinking about heading over and maybe poking around a little. Wanna come?”

  Do I ever, Adam thought gratefully. Capping his pen, he shrugged. “Why not?” He took a quick second to set his things aside and unhook his headphones before pocketing his (still-silent) phone and hopping off the end of the bed. “You ask Tom?”

  “Yeah. He passed.” Jared raised one eyebrow meaningfully, and Adam chuckled.

  “Shocker.”

  “Pretty much.” They headed out the front door and down the path toward the road. Jared glanced over at the other house as they passed it. “You been over there yet?”

  “Kind of?” Adam wasn’t sure exactly how much to say. “Met one of the girls when she got dropped off.”

  “Yeah?”

  “She, uh, made an impression.” An impression on the back of his skull, mostly. And his toes.

  “Good impression or bad impression?”

  Adam rubbed at his neck. “A little of both. It was… weird. I’ll let you make up your mind when you meet her.”

  “Okay,” Jared said, drawing out the last syllable. “Was she cute at least?”

  “Yeah. Sort of. No.” Not cute, exactly. “Hot,” he eventually decided on. “But kind of in a might-just-fuck-you-up type of way.”

  Jared made an appraising noise. “That’ll be something, huh? Six of them and three of us?”

  “Unusual, anyway.” Astronomy wasn’t as bad as physics, but there were still typically a lot more guys than girls in his classes. Being outnumbered would be a novelty. That probably wasn’t what Jared was asking about, though, considering the first thing he’d wanted to know was if crazy-girl was cute or not. “Why, you looking?”

  “Isn’t everybody?”

  “I’m not.” Not really anyway, no matter how he’d reacted at the first sight of those piercings and that hair and hint of ink. The way he was still reacting to the thought of it. Even after the way their meeting had gone—especially after the way their meeting had gone.

  After the past year of tepid sex, the idea of a girl who got up in his face like that, got physical with him… it had its own appeal. In another world, if he’d been another guy, he might have pushed right back when she had pushed him. She’d have looked so good shoved up against a wall. Felt so good pressed up against him, and he bet she would bite.

  All of a sudden, the walk was getting a little uncomfortable, and he tried to think of other things. Like the f
act that Jared had just asked him a question. “Huh?”

  Jared chuckled. “You got a girl at home or something?”

  “It’s… complicated.”

  “I’ve heard that story before. How’s ‘complicated’ working out for you?”

  His silent phone felt like it was burning a hole in his pocket. “I guess I’ll have to let you know.” He really didn’t want to get into the specifics right now, so he redirected. “How about you? Single?”

  “Free as a bird.”

  “Well, enjoy it.”

  “I always do.”

  The road rose up into a pretty steep hill that was going to be a lot of fun on his morning runs, but it was less exciting now, with the late afternoon sun beating down. His damp hair kept falling into his eyes, and he brushed it aside, only to have it slip right back down. After what felt like an awfully long time, the hill crested, and just like that, both of them stopped at once.

  “Damn,” Adam let slip.

  “You got that right.”

  The whole of the observatory campus spread out before them. In one way, it was like any facility he’d been to before, with clusters of buildings linked by asphalt paths, but in other ways it was a sight unique unto itself. There was no doubting they were in the tropics, with palm trees and lush greenery taking up all the unoccupied space. And that was just the beginning.

  Because beyond all of that, far off in the distance through the haze, lay the reason they were there. The biggest radio telescope in the world. From this angle, he couldn’t see the giant receiver dish nestled into a crater in the earth, but all the trappings of it were plain as day. The three columns rising from the edges of the dish, soaring umpteen stories into the sky, all connected by cables and walkways, and suspended from the center of them, a half dome of shining metal. Intellectually, he knew it was big enough to house equipment and full-grown men, but from here it looked like it could fit into the palm of his hand. And held inside it were all the optics and receivers and antennae a person needed to look into the vastness of the universe. Into an invisible world of darkness and stars.

  Adam gulped, making his throat work against the lump there. It was an inspiring sight. He was lucky to be here, seeing it in person. And yet he couldn’t help the little pang that went through him as he stared.

  He wished he had someone to share it with. Not Shannon, necessarily, because she wasn’t really into all the science stuff. But someone.

  Jared clearly had no such reservations. “Well, what are we waiting for?”

  Adam really, really didn’t know.

  They took the downward slope a lot faster than they had the upward one. At the gates, they had to stop and sign in. Adam checked his watch and saw they had a little time to kill. He pointed at a path to the right. “Wanna take the long way around?”

  “Sure.”

  As they walked, he kept track of the places they were passing, cross-referencing them with the campus map he’d grabbed at the guard station. Cafeteria, guest rooms for visiting scientists, maintenance building. A series of stairs leading up to more on-site housing and research facilities.

  The path eventually looped back around, depositing them near the main building where they’d been heading. Ahead, a few girls were walking along, talking amongst themselves. They were all about Adam’s age—probably part of the same program. Beside Adam, Jared whistled.

  Adam’s breath hitched a little, too. The girls were dressed in shorts and skirts and lacy tanks, and there was no denying the quality of the view. It didn’t quite get his blood boiling, though, not the way—

  And then he saw her. She was taking up the rear, a good five feet separating her from the rest of them. The front locks of her hair shone even more brightly blue in the sunlight, and unlike the rest of them, all involved in conversation, she was clearly taking in her surroundings, gaze piercing. Like she was missing nothing.

  Not even him, he realized, as she jerked her head forward, looking away from where he stood.

  It was a splash of cold water, pulling him from wherever his mind had been wandering to. Grinding his teeth together, he forced his gaze elsewhere, too, because he wasn’t a sucker. She’d been unpleasant and callous, and she was one of only four people he’d even met here so far, and she didn’t want to look at him.

  What the hell was he doing here?

  Apparently, following Jared, for the moment. The guy had moved to meet the girls, and Adam took a couple of quick jogging steps to keep up, swearing under his breath as he did.

  “I thought this was a Research Experience for Undergraduates program,” Jared whisper-yelled. “Not a modeling convention.”

  A couple of the girls ahead giggled and slowed, but the crazy one glowered, continuing to stalk forward and past the rest of them when they paused to wait for Jared and Adam.

  Jared leaned in closer and whispered, “That the one you were talking about before? The one that ‘made an impression’?”

  “What gave her away?” Adam asked drily.

  Jared shook his head, then turned on a hell of a smile as he spread his arms in welcome to the ladies. “Well, hello, hello.”

  “Hi, there,” a pretty redhead said, insinuating herself at the head of the pack. Her gaze was just as openly appreciative as Jared’s had been. “You guys here to do science, or did you get lost on your way to a surfing competition?”

  “Touché,” Jared said, and oh wow. Those two were going to be trouble.

  Rolling his eyes, Adam stepped forward. “Hey. I’m Adam.”

  The redhead smirked. “Kim.”

  “Jared.” Jared held out his hand, and if Adam had believed in such a thing, he would have said he actually saw sparks fly as Kim reached forward and accepted it.

  A blonde cleared her throat and stepped around them. “Carol.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Adam said.

  Adam smiled at each of them as they introduced themselves, reciting all the names over and over in his head, but without a whole lot of hope. Remembering names had never been his strong suit.

  “Shall we?” Jared asked, extending a hand toward the door.

  They filed in one after another, and as the last of them slipped through, Tom caught up with them, which prompted a whole new round of introductions, which at least was a chance to hear all the names again. All of them but one.

  As they wound their way through the hall, he ended up next to the girl he was pretty sure had said her name was Anna. “Hey,” he said, tipping his head. “That other girl who was with you before. What was her name?”

  “Jo? I think?”

  “Jo.” A man’s name on a hard-as-nails girl’s body. Fitting.

  The girl in question was already sitting in the middle of the rows of chairs set up in the library by the time the rest of them filtered in. A bunch of other people were milling around the edges of the room, all of them older and casually dressed, but no one else had sat down yet, leaving that one lone seated figure looking all the more isolated. For just a second, she looked up, and her sharp, dark eyes seemed to bore straight into Adam’s.

  He was the one to look away first this time.

  There was a little bit of chitchat and some snacks, but before long, an older woman in a light purple dress called everyone to attention and invited them to find a seat. Adam ended up in a corner toward the back, next to Jared and Tom, with a good vantage point to see not just the lectern but also the rest of the people looking on.

  The same woman moved to stand before them all, clasping her hands in front of her as she raised her voice above the chatter to say, “Good afternoon.” Once everyone quieted down, she smiled. “It’s so wonderful to have all of you here. Welcome to Arecibo Observatory. As you may or may not know, my name is P.J. Galloway.”

  Huh. So this was the person he’d been e-mailing with for the past few months. She wasn’t quite what he’d been expecting, but then again, he hadn’t exactly had a lot to go on. While the rest of the staff scientists had photographs of themselve
s on the place’s website, P.J. Galloway was represented by a cartoon picture of a turtle looking through a telescope.

  Then again, as he squinted, he supposed he could see the resemblance.

  “While you’re here,” she continued, “you’ll be working with some of the premier astronomers active in the field today. Many of you will be performing direct observations using the telescope, and all of you will have a chance to get to know the ins and outs of our facility. But that’s not all. We also hope you’ll form lifelong friendships with your peers, and we’re looking forward to introducing you to this magical island we call our home.

  “Most weekends, we’ll head out to explore a different part of the island, including some of our beautiful beaches and the only national park that is also a tropical rain forest. While the trips are not mandatory, they are highly encouraged.” She gave them all a knowing smile. “It’s going to be a busy summer, and a productive one, but we hope it’s one you’ll remember for the rest of your lives.”

  With that, she introduced one of the staff scientists, who stepped forward and asked for the lights to be lowered, then launched into a PowerPoint presentation, reviewing the history of the lab and the summer research program. Most of it was stuff Adam already knew, but hearing it like this made it feel real in a way it hadn’t before. It also brought back that pang, because this was all so cool, and he was going to be itching to tell someone about it later on.

  The lights came up once the guy was done, and P.J. took the floor again. “Now, I know you’re all excited to meet the people you’ll be working with, so we’ll go through some quick introductions. Then you’ll have an hour or so to talk to your advisors before you’re all invited to meet in the cafeteria for dinner.”

  One by one, she called off names, pairing up students with the research supervisors. With each name she recited, the person in question stood or raised a hand. They were almost at the end of the roll by the time she got to Adam, and it didn’t escape his attention that there was just one other student she had yet to call.