When The Stars Align

by Jeanette Grey

  “It’s pretty,” he said, gathering himself. Turning their hands so he could intertwine their fingers.

  “Thank you.”

  Out of nowhere, he blurted, “I’m glad you came.” And it sounded stupid. This was her house after all. They had dinner here as a group more often than not. But usually, Jo found reasons to avoid it, to stay at work until the stars had all come out and everyone else had left.

  “Well, you’re about to go off on your big adventure, right?” She shrugged as if she didn’t care, but her eyes were pinched. “Won’t have a chance to give you a hard time for almost a week.”

  “What ever will I do?”

  “Whatever you want to.” It came out a little too serious. A little too real.

  And it wasn’t true. If he was going to do whatever he wanted, he’d be swooping in, closing that last bit of distance. Changing this push and pull into the press of bodies and a conversation of tongues and teeth and lips.

  Maybe he should. He grasped her hand more tightly.

  But before he could make up his mind to take that last step—to try his luck with this girl who seemed so impossible and yet so close—the air was broken by a sound. One even more unlikely than a kiss.

  Shannon’s ringtone.

  Chapter Eight

  Adam hadn’t even meant to do it. One minute he was holding Jo’s hand, leaning in to finally touch her, and the next he’d torn himself away. His palm felt cold where his skin had been pressed to hers, but that didn’t slow him down. He reached instinctively, immediately for his phone, his heart in his throat from just this one small sign of contact, this connection to home.

  And that was all it took.

  For a second, Jo’s mouth dropped open, her hand still in the air, confusion on her brow. Her gaze darted from Adam’s lips to his eyes to his phone. And then in a flash, her defenses snapped into place, every line of her going hard.

  Adam was an idiot.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, silently counting the rings in his head. He needed to pick up, now, or he’d lose Shannon.

  But turning his back on Jo felt like losing even more.

  Jo held her hands up, palms facing out. “No. You should get that.” Her voice went pointed. “Might be someone important.”

  She moved to shove past him, but he caught her. Clasped her wrist. “You’re important.”

  “Sure.” A bitter laugh spilled past her lips. “Tell your girlfriend I said hi.”

  “She’s not—”

  Shannon wasn’t his girlfriend. She hadn’t been for a while now, but he’d been clinging to the idea of her as if she were. And nothing about it was fair. Not to anybody.

  Disappointment darkened Jo’s eyes. She pulled her hand free with force, and Adam let her go. She brushed past him and headed toward the kitchen.

  In his palm, his phone buzzed, and he cursed, following Jo with his gaze even as he slid his thumb across the screen to take the call. He brought it up to his ear and froze, swallowing hard, taking in the stares of every single other summer student here. All focused on him.

  He was a bastard.

  Fuck. He’d have to deal with them later. For now, he ducked his head and made for the door. Tried to keep the hope out of his tone as he answered, “Hello?”

  “Hey, Adam?”

  And it didn’t matter that Shannon wasn’t his girlfriend anymore. Hearing her voice for the first time in almost a month had a piece of his chest breaking free—a weight he hadn’t even recognized suddenly gone. With a smile on his face and a lightness behind his ribs, he pushed through the door and out into the open space beyond.

  “Hi. Shannon. Yeah, it’s me.”

  Jo didn’t watch Adam as he paced around the little area between the two houses. As he trailed his fingers along the rail of the wooden fence at the back of the lot.

  She definitely didn’t obsess about what the hell he’d been talking about with that girl that had left him looking so damn relieved.

  Fidgeting, she scooped up a forkful of the rice and beans Anna’d cooked tonight. It was good, savory and flavorful and not full of bacon, and she gave Anna an approving nod of thanks. Nobody had had to accommodate Jo’s diet, but they’d each made a point of it whenever they decided to step up and make dinner. She just wished she could fully appreciate it.

  Then she caught herself staring out the window again, and she forced her gaze away.

  What the hell had she been expecting? Just because she’d dressed like a girl for once and let him touch her neck. Let him hold her hand and talked about her mother of all the ridiculous things. It didn’t mean he owed her anything.

  Finally, the door to the house swung open, and Jo trained her gaze on her plate. Across the room from her, Jared hopped off the end of the chair he’d been sharing with Kim, dumping his dish on the coffee table and taking his beer with him as he went to intercept. Jo didn’t watch the way he steered Adam toward the kitchen. She didn’t keep track of how long they lingered there, just out of sight.

  Around her, there was a conversation going on, but she couldn’t focus on it. Even if she could, she had nothing to contribute. So she sat there, mechanically eating and swallowing and taking less than measured pulls on her drink.

  She was so damn restless, this nervous fluttering sort of energy beating around inside her chest, and it didn’t make sense.

  When Adam and Jared hauled themselves out of the kitchen, Adam had a nice full plate and a drink of his own. Jo held her breath as he made his way into the room they were all gathered in, but instead of coming over to sit by her, Adam let Jared shove him into the seat he’d vacated next to Kim. And what the hell was that supposed to mean? Plunking himself down on the floor, Jared tucked back into his dinner, and Adam finally got to start his. Jo’s fork scraped porcelain, and she stopped, crinkling her brow when she found her plate empty.

  She chewed the inside of her lip as the agitation inside her simmered and brewed. She should’ve eaten slower, should’ve paced herself. Short of fiddling with the clinking ice cubes at the bottom of her glass, what did she have left to do with her hands?

  What reason did she have left to be here?

  These people didn’t know her; they didn’t care about her—she’d made sure of that with the way she’d acted. The only person who’d taken the time to push past her defenses, the one guy who’d looked at her as more than a fuck or a bitch or an obstacle in so long…

  He was leaving for a week. Going to see a girl he clearly wasn’t over.

  And all of a sudden, Jo couldn’t breathe.

  “Sorry,” she mumbled, pushing off the sofa and letting her plate clatter as she set it down. Half a dozen pairs of eyes turned to her, and the vise around her lungs squeezed tighter. “I need some air.”

  She didn’t look at Adam for real this time as she made her escape. She shoved through the front door of the house and out, not stopping until she hit the fence. Bracing her hands against the wood, she bent at the waist, pulling in air in great heaving gasps and closing her eyes.

  Stupid. Dressing like this and pretending to be part of their little club, hanging out and eating dinner like she was one of them. She should be like that weird guy, Tom—should just stay in her room and at the lab. Then she wouldn’t have to feel these kinds of things. Wouldn’t have to want what she couldn’t have, and what she usually went to such lengths to avoid.

  She’d just started to get herself put together again when the door to the house swung open. It banged against the frame, and she tightened her grip on the railing. Chances were, it was just Carol or someone coming by to check on her. Jo would tell her she was fine, and Carol would leave, and it would all be okay.

  The sounds of footsteps came closer and closer until they were right there. But instead of a quiet voice calling out, a body leaned itself against the railing beside her, settling in as if to stay. She sucked her lip ring between her teeth and opened her eyes. The body wore navy Nikes and tan cargo shorts. And it had really, really muscular ca
lves.

  Adam, then. Of course.

  Dread and anticipation twisted themselves in her gut, rising and falling and sinking and soaring. But for the longest time, Adam didn’t say a word. Jo bit down harder on her lip as she forced herself to look at him—really look at him. Not at his shoes, but at his face. The sharp jut of his jaw as he stared ahead into the trees in front of them. The golden cast of his skin in the fading light.

  After a moment, she couldn’t look anymore.

  With a sigh, she let her lip ring go. “You here to ask me if I’m okay?”

  “Would you tell me if you weren’t?”

  “Nope.”

  “Well. There’s your answer, then.”

  He said it all so matter-of-factly, like he hadn’t been expecting any other response, and a hidden warmth rose behind her ribs at the thought that he knew her so well. But it wasn’t enough to burn away the vulnerability, the achy-sticky feeling that had sent her running from the house. It didn’t make her any less convinced she was fucking this whole thing up.

  “You should go back inside,” she said. “Finish your dinner.”

  “I had enough.”

  “Right.” She huffed. “I’ve seen you eat.”

  “I had enough for now.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Who said this was about you?” His voice was teasing, the hand he nudged against hers even more so, and she wanted to scream. Here they went again, tiptoeing along this line between acquaintances and lovers, and if they didn’t pick a side sometime soon, she was going to lose her goddamn mind.

  So because she was an idiot, she inched a little farther, right along the divide. Internally swearing at herself, she slipped her fingers under his, interlacing them against the wood.

  “Oh,” she said, her throat tight. “Well, if it’s not about me, then I guess it’s okay.”

  They stood like that together in silence for a minute, not exactly comfortable but not quite awkward either. His thumb stroked slowly across the back of her palm.

  “So what did she have to say?” she asked, still looking away.

  “Not much, actually. Just telling me when she’d meet up with me this weekend.”

  “Oh.”

  Was it just her, or did he sound sort of disappointed about that?

  Not that she cared.

  Then he leaned in, pressing into the bubble of air that surrounded them. And when he spoke again, it was quiet. Intimate in a way that hardly seemed fair. “We missed the sunset.”

  They had, but not by much. Brilliant orange and pink and blue still spread out across the horizon, darkness creeping along beside it to fill in the spaces they left behind.

  “It’s my favorite time of day,” he said, softly, like a confession. “The winds always come in. It feels like I can breathe again.”

  She nodded. “The air gets less heavy.”

  “And the stars…”

  It was the thing that had made her reconsider her first impression of him. The way he’d sat out here at night, gazing upward.

  “Scorpius.” The constellation’s name slipped from her tongue, and in her mind, she traced the shimmering arch of stars, the shining spiral that took up half the nighttime sky.

  He grinned, soft and gorgeous, and so damn kissable. “Exactly.”

  His hand rested warm against hers. It didn’t even matter that it was sweltering out, because the heat of his body was more searing, more present, and every place it didn’t burn itself into her felt suddenly, impossibly cold.

  And fuck this. Just… fuck it. You don’t ask, you don’t get, right?

  She barely even had to lean in, they were standing so close. She just pressed up onto her toes, swaying slightly to the side, and he was right there. His mouth warm. His lips soft.

  He turned his head away, and everything inside of her flashed to ice.

  “I’m sorry—” he started, but she didn’t want to hear the rest.

  “Forget it.” No way was she apologizing. If anything, she wanted to deck him again.

  How dare he? All these little signs he’d been throwing out. All these big ones. Holding hands and touching knees and talking about the stars weren’t things that people did. Not to her.

  Except he didn’t do them all the time, did he? She laughed darkly to herself as she stepped away. She felt so stupid.

  The last time he’d come this close, he’d caught her in her underwear, and now here she was, her arms and tits half exposed.

  “Jo…”

  “I get it.” She gestured at herself. “Carol’s clothes and everything. Easy mistake to make. Thinking I’m a girl or something.”

  “Jo—”

  “I’m just going to go—”

  “Jo.” He grabbed her wrist with force this time, and it was only a conscious effort that kept her from lashing out—from using fists to try to defend what she couldn’t hope to protect. Her heart.

  He didn’t let go as she tried to squirm free, and she gave up, facing him. Bracing herself. Jesus. She didn’t need to hear this shit.

  “It’s fine,” she grumbled.

  “It’s not.”

  And there was an edge to his tone. A pleading note that made her stop.

  He lifted a hand to touch her face, tilting her chin up. Asking her to look into those warm, blue eyes.

  “I can’t,” he said.

  It felt like a blow.

  “Fine—”

  “I can’t, but I want to. Christ, Jo. Isn’t it obvious?”

  She’d thought it was, but then she’d tried to kiss him, and look how well that had gone. “You got a funny way of showing it.”

  “I’ve wanted to kiss you since the moment I saw you.” His throat bobbed. “Wanted to do a hell of a lot more than that, too.” He paused. “But…”

  Right. Here it came. “But.”

  But it’d only be sex.

  But I love somebody else.

  “But you deserve better than that.”

  Her breath caught. She let her hand go slack inside his grip.

  “Listen,” he said, gaze intense, voice fervent. “I like you. So much. I like your fire and how smart you are and all the things I see beneath that—that shell you put up. And I promise you”—his fingers tightened against her skin—“I have never, ever had a problem remembering you were a woman.”

  It set a blaze off in the pit of her abdomen. Between her legs and in the heart of her sex.

  “I like you, too.” The words came out quiet and weak, and she hated feeling that way. But it was what he had left her with.

  “And if we ever kiss—when,” he revised, “when we kiss, it’s going to be when I can give you everything. Because that’s what you deserve.”

  Her stomach twisted. “And you can’t give me that right now.”

  She hadn’t forgotten. He had never pretended to be unattached, and she’d kept the reality of it firmly in mind. Right up until now.

  She cursed herself inside her head. Just this afternoon, she’d sworn she wouldn’t be the other woman, and then he’d touched her and made everything confused. She’d kissed him, knowing exactly what was going on but choosing to ignore it.

  Weak. Stupid.

  He must have seen her shutting down. “One week, Jo. Not even.”

  How many times did she have to wait for someone to feel for her what she felt for them?

  “You can’t exactly promise me anything.”

  With a weak, lopsided smile, he drew her hand up to his chest. He placed it at the very center of his ribs. “I can promise to get my life straightened out.”

  That was all she’d wanted a couple of minutes ago. Whichever side of the line they came down on, it’d be better than this. This uncertainty—this balancing act.

  “Give me a week,” he insisted, pressing her palm to the warm muscle beneath his shirt. “And when I come back to you, I’ll give you the answer you deserve. Can you wait one week?”

  “A week you’re going to spend with her.” The silent th
ird in this strange, phantom triangle of theirs.

  “Yup. Because she deserves better than this, too. Let me deal with everything, and then I’m going to come back to you.”

  “With either a no or a yes.”

  It would be the worst kind of waiting, not even certain what she was waiting for.

  “Hey,” he said. “What we started here. It isn’t over. Please. Don’t shut down on me. Just give me the time to do it right.”

  A part of her, the one that usually won, was screaming at her to walk away. To tell him no. But that was the part of her that always made it so she ended up alone.

  “I can’t promise you anything, either.” But she took a step closer.

  “That’s not a no.”

  “It’s not,” she agreed.

  “I’ll take it.”

  He moved so slowly, transcribing his actions so there wasn’t any chance she could misinterpret or overreact. Beneath her skin, she was still a roiling mess of conflicting impulses, a wounded thing looking to hurt whatever threatened to leave her bleeding.

  An untouched heart, finally getting the chance to beat.

  She let him fold her into his arms. Resting her head against his chest, she soaked in the solidity of him and closed her eyes.

  What he was asking of her was nothing. It was everything. But as best she could, she’d give it to him.

  A week was hardly any time at all.

  Chapter Nine

  Adam’s week in Baltimore dragged on forever.

  It was funny—he’d been looking forward to this for so long. He’d thought the instant he set foot on solid, American soil again it’d be like coming home. The signs weren’t all in Spanish, and the buildings were brick and stone. The hotel was a perfect seventy-one degrees. But it didn’t matter.

  His first few days in Puerto Rico, he’d kept seeing things and wanting to tell someone about them. Shannon, maybe, if he’d thought she would appreciate them. Now he was looking at poster presentations about the Large Hadron Collider and neutrinos, sitting in on lectures about the cosmic microwave background, and he knew exactly who would want to hear about them.