When The Stars Align

by Jeanette Grey

  A louder chime sounded, and the doors opened onto their floor. He got out his keycard as they walked, but at the door, he paused. A tickle of nerves firing off, he turned to her. “Don’t read anything into the room, okay?”

  “Um…”

  He let them in, and he felt her registering that one, big bed.

  “Yeah… uh…” He set her bag down on the desk and palmed the back of his neck.

  “It’s fine.”

  “If it’s not, I can see if they can change it. And anyway, it’s so big, it’s not like we have to sleep on top of each other.” But hidden behind his every word was the fact that the room expected them to sleep together. In the same bed.

  Her hand brushed his. “It’s fine. Really. Wouldn’t be the first time, right?”

  “Well, no, but…” It would be the first time since they’d called it quits again. Since they’d spent this summer with so much distance between them, and since they’d come together again as new people.

  It wouldn’t be the same. And that was okay.

  “Come on.” She withdrew her hand, and he didn’t chase her touch as she retreated. “You promised me noodles.”

  It was easier, sitting across a table from each other in a restaurant, their knees not touching, their hands restricted safely to their own sides. Between great gulping bites of pad thai, she told him about work and her classes and their friends and all the other hundred little things he’d been wondering about all summer long.

  He laughed, shaking his head at the end of one of her stories. “I can’t believe you did that.”

  “What? Why not?” She washed another forkful of her dinner down with a sip of her drink. “The student union was made to be climbed.”

  “Well, sure, maybe, but—” But she wouldn’t have done it, back when he’d first met her. “I just never thought you’d be the one climbing it.”

  “I guess I can still surprise you.”

  “Yeah. I guess you can.”

  She wiped her mouth with a napkin and set her silverware down, pushing her empty plate away from her. She gestured with her head toward the door. “You ready to get out of here?”

  “Sure.” He motioned for the check and paid it over the sounds of her protests, batting at her hands when she tried to grab for it. “You drove all the way down here.”

  She rolled her eyes. “And you flew all the way up here! And got a hotel room. You didn’t even eat anything.”

  “I had a drink.” He slipped the billfold to the waiter and stood.

  She pouted all the way to the door. As they spilled out onto the street, she elbowed him in the side. “I wanted to pay my share.”

  It probably took him too long to get it. When they went on dates, he insisted on paying. And this wasn’t a date. He let his expression soften as he nudged her back. “You can get breakfast.”

  She gave him an assessing look. “Darn right I can.” She glanced down the street, rocking on her heels. “You want to head back, or…” She trailed off, and he considered it.

  Going to the hotel meant going to that room. And that bed. His throat went tight. “It’s a nice night. We could walk around some first?”

  Her sigh of relief matched his own. “Yeah. That sounds nice.”

  It was habit to extend his arm for her to take. She shook her head at him but slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow all the same.

  Baltimore had a pretty terrible reputation, but the area around the conference hotel was nice enough. They ambled along in silence for a block or so, looking at the buildings and the nightlife before she asked, “So how about you? How’s your summer going?”

  He heaved out a breath. “Good.” He corrected himself. “Better.” Because it had been terrible at first. Lonely. But then he’d worked past it and gotten to know the people around him. Found a way to make it okay.

  In fits and starts, he recounted the details he’d been waiting to tell her. His housemates and his advisor and his work. When he got to the list of girls in the program, he hesitated.

  And Shannon could tell. She narrowed her eyes at him. “What are you not telling me?”

  “Nothing. Something.” He chuckled and kicked at a rock. “I don’t know.”

  For a moment, she went silent. “Did you meet someone?”

  He’d never imagined he would be confessing this to her. But now, when confronted with it, he couldn’t bring himself to evade. “Maybe?”

  And she beamed. “Oh my God, Adam! Tell me all about her.” She squeezed his arm, practically bouncing on her toes.

  He tilted his head to the side. “Isn’t this weird?”

  “Do you want it to be?”

  “Not really. Just…” Just, this was the first girl he’d ever been in love with, the first girl he’d had sex with. The girl who, once upon a time, he thought he’d spend his life with. “It seems weird.”

  “Adam. I’m happy for you.”

  That twinged a little. He tugged his arm away.

  “Adam?” The smile slipped off her face, and she stopped walking.

  He sucked in a deep breath. “It’s fine. Really. I just…” He hadn’t exactly accepted they were over, but he’d been getting closer and closer, and tonight, when he’d seen her hair, he’d very nearly understood it. “I wasn’t expecting quite this level of enthusiasm.”

  “Oh.”

  “It’s…” He trailed off before he could say that it was fine again, because it wasn’t. It would be, but for the moment, it had him feeling unsteady. Like a chapter of his life was really, truly ending, and maybe it was for the best. But it didn’t make it easy.

  “Come on.” She put a tentative hand on his arm and led him to a low wall where she tugged him down to sit beside her.

  He put his elbows on his knees and closed his eyes. Apparently they were doing this.

  “I loved you so much, Shannon. For so long.”

  Her voice trembled when she said, “I loved you, too.”

  “It’s over, isn’t it? For real this time.”

  At least she didn’t pussyfoot around. “I think it is.”

  “I mean, I knew that. I really did. But somehow it hadn’t sunk in.”

  The warmth of her hand settled on his back, and he let it, accepting the comfort for what it was. “I haven’t exactly helped with that, have I?”

  A snuffling laugh forced its way through his nose.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I just… we’d been together so long, and I cared—I still care—about you.”

  “It’s okay.” He knew how she felt.

  “It’s such a cliché, but I really do want to be friends.”

  Her hand had drifted up to his shoulder, and he moved to place his own palm over hers. “I cannot imagine a world where we’re not friends.”

  A couple of months ago, he hadn’t been able to imagine a world where they weren’t more.

  Her voice trembled. “Sometimes, I think, when two people get together when they’re as young as we were—when they stay together for so long—you either grow together or you don’t, and it’s like you don’t even notice it happening. I feel like… we don’t fit anymore. Not the way we used to.”

  “We don’t,” he agreed. He’d known that for ages, but he’d thought it was okay. That if they worked at it, they could push through and find a new way to fit.

  So many times they’d broken up only to end up getting together again. But this time…

  This time was for real.

  He turned to look at her, and her eyes shone, the glassy wetness of them glittering. “I know we always fell back into each other, but it was hard to tell if it was just because we were lonely or if we really wanted that. And it had hit the point where, sure, it was comfortable, but it was also—”

  “Suffocating,” he finished for her, the word coming to him out of nowhere.

  Her smile was wobbly. “Exactly.”

  He never would have been able to say that before, but this summer without her, when she’d enforced the separ
ation… it had seemed cruel at the time, her refusing to return his calls. But maybe it had been a kindness. Without her voice in his ear, he’d had to branch out. Grow up.

  They’d had the chance to finish growing apart.

  Sitting up straighter, he reached up to twist his fingers through a crimson curl of her hair. She shook her head and wiped at her face, making his own eyes feel mistier.

  “I’m sorry I dragged it out so long,” she said.

  “You were better than I was.” He’d just held on and on and on.

  “But I could’ve been clearer.”

  “And I could’ve listened.”

  She laughed as she dug a tissue from her purse and dabbed at her nose. “It’s funny, how it feels like we grew apart. But really, sometimes, I think we’re too similar.”

  She wasn’t wrong. Both afraid to upset each other, both trying for so damn long to make something work.

  “Maybe.” He stood, looking away while she tidied herself up and while he got himself put together, too. When they were both more or less reassembled, he held out his hand. “But that’s why we’re going to make really, really good friends.”

  Letting him pull her up, she smiled. “I like the sound of that.”

  “Me too.” He tipped his head toward the next street over. “Come on. This really, really good friend of mine is going through a breakup, and so am I. If that doesn’t call for ice cream, I don’t know what does.”

  The gelato shop he’d thought they might end up at was still open, so they wandered in and got a couple of dishes to go. As they hit the street again, she looked at him, twirling her tiny spoon.

  “So. Is it any less weird now if I ask you about this girl you met?”

  “No.” He picked a direction and started walking. “But I’m willing to pretend if you are.”

  “Then tell me about her.”

  So he did. Ignoring the awkwardness of it, he tried to encapsulate in words the way Jo had grabbed him and thrown him—literally, in the case of their first meeting. He described her walls and her fire and the visions he had of a vulnerable girl, somewhere just underneath. A vulnerable girl who was still one of the strongest people he’d ever known.

  Through it all, Shannon listened, and when his words dried up, she clucked her tongue at him. “You’re going to have your hands full with that one.”

  “That’s putting it mildly.”

  “I think”—she hesitated—“it’ll be good for you. You need someone who challenges you.”

  “You challenged me.”

  “No, I didn’t. Not the way you needed to be.”

  Maybe she had a point.

  Over the course of his rambling, they’d finished their ice cream and wandered back toward the hotel. He took her empty cup and tossed both in the trash. He looked over at the hotel’s entrance with a stone in his throat.

  Then he swallowed it down.

  “Well, here we are,” she said.

  It was a crazy idea. One he never would have gotten up the guts to say, not to Shannon. Not before. “Do you want to just keep going?”

  “What?”

  “Let’s not go there.” Not to that confining room they were supposed to share. “Let’s just keep walking.”

  “All night?”

  “Why not?”

  A look he couldn’t read passed over her face, and he held his breath. But the clouds in her gaze parted, and the smile she flashed him was the freest, realest one he’d seen from her all night. Maybe the best one she’d given him in years. He held out his hand and she took it.

  She squeezed his fingers. “All right.”

  Adam woke up squinting, blinking hard against the sunlight streaming through the curtains they’d forgotten to close. He was on the floor, still in his clothes, the pillow under his head doing absolutely nothing for the ache in his spine. Groaning quietly to himself, he levered himself up with his arms to sit and glance at the clock. It was barely nine.

  He and Shannon had stumbled in at half past five.

  It had been good. Weird and different. But good. They’d reminisced about the past three years, and when the sun had risen, they’d returned here, to this room, where he’d insisted she take the bed.

  Sitting up straighter, he gazed over at her.

  Her crimson locks shone in the morning light, just like her blond hair had, but it didn’t stir a pounding in his chest the way it used to. She was beautiful, and dear to him. She was his friend. With any luck, she always would be.

  And the girl who got his heart going now was waiting for him.

  He didn’t want to wait anymore.

  After the quickest shower known to man, it took him only a few minutes to get his suitcase out and all of his belongings crammed inside. He checked himself for his wallet and his phone, and he was ready to go out the door. Back to another life and another world. To a girl who wouldn’t be easy, or comfortable, but who might just fit.

  Before he could go, he turned to the woman sleeping in the center of the bed. He scribbled out a note, thanking her, and placed it on her pillow. He left her with one soft kiss against the center of her brow, murmuring, “Love you,” beneath his breath.

  And then he was off. One chapter of his life well and truly closed.

  Another—he hoped—open and ready to begin.

  Chapter Eleven

  It’s my favorite time of day.

  Jo could hear Adam’s voice in the back of her mind as she walked. Around her, twilight was settling in, the stars just beginning to come out, and she felt…

  Brittle. But okay. Peaceful, in a strange sort of way.

  Needing some kind of a distraction from the fact that Adam would be returning the following day, she’d spent the last nine hours in the lab, only leaving when the world beyond the windows of her office had started to dim.

  One more night. Tomorrow, he’d be back. And who knew what would happen then.

  All week long, she’d been circling, flitting between bitter pessimism and these stupid, ridiculous flares of hope. She’d settled now into something carefully neutral. He’d choose what he chose, and whatever it was, she’d live with it.

  Clutching her binder closer to her chest, she directed her gaze up at the sky. A thousand odd miles away, under a slightly different set of stars, Adam was making his decision, or maybe acting on it, even. And she was here, doing exactly what she always did. Working. Surviving. And keeping her expectations low.

  Ahead of her, the twin houses they lived in loomed, and she steeled herself. The lights in the girls’ house shone brightly, music wafting through the air. The whole crew was probably there, half of them three sheets to the wind. It’d be another late night. She’d put in an appearance, and then she’d excuse herself to her room and try to get some sleep instead of tossing and turning, letting her nerves churn.

  Sighing, she dropped her head and sped her pace.

  And then a voice called out to her. “I was starting to worry I was going to have to go looking for you.”

  She stopped cold, peering through the darkness, her gaze homing in on the bench between the houses, the one where Adam liked to sit sometimes, except he wasn’t supposed to be here. Not tonight. He was supposed to be in Baltimore with the love of his life. Except—

  Except he was here.

  Something inside Jo started shaking, but she pushed it down. Adam was here. Even she and her lowered expectations couldn’t find a way to twist this into something bad.

  At least the night hid the way a smile snuck across her face. It didn’t hide the catch to her voice. “I thought you wouldn’t be back until tomorrow.”

  “I caught an early flight.”

  “And skipped an entire night?”

  He rose from the bench, unfurling to his full height, the staggering breadth of his shoulders silhouetted against the light of the house. She stopped a half dozen steps away from him. Her breath fluttered hot inside her lungs.

  “And skipped an entire night,” he confirmed.

&
nbsp; Oh God.

  All these worst-case scenarios she’d been spinning out over the past few days—she’d worked so hard to convince herself he’d be spending the entire conference realizing why he didn’t want her. She was too jagged, too much to handle. She’d never be able to give him what he wanted.

  She hadn’t even begun to prepare for the idea that what he wanted might be her.

  “And your girlfriend—Shannon—”

  “I imagine she’s in Philadelphia by now.” He took a step closer, until she could see the outlines of his expression in the dim light. His eyes blazed, and there was a nakedness to him. The ways he’d been holding himself back before he’d left were stripped away. “And she’s not my girlfriend.”

  Her throat went tight. “No?”

  “No.”

  He reached right through the distance Jo had put between them, demolished it, and shattered the last bit of reserve she’d kept against the storm she’d always known that he would be. Warm and huge, his hand settled on her arm. And then it was drifting up. Higher. To cup her face.

  Her body was glass, and beneath his touch, it melted, flowing and liquid and bright hot. Throwing sparks.

  “You came back for me.”

  “Just like I said I would.”

  “Because you can give me everything now.”

  The earnestness on his face threatened to break her. “And more.”

  It was the most terrifying thing she’d ever heard.

  Good thing she wasn’t a big fan of listening anyway. Before he could get out another word—before she could ask another question she wasn’t ready to hear the answer to—she lifted her arm and curled a hand around his neck. His skin burned into her palm, the short hairs at the base of his skull soft and yielding beneath her fingers.

  This time when she lifted up onto her tiptoes to press her lips to his, he didn’t stop her. She didn’t get the barest corner of his mouth. With a sound that set a deeper, hotter fire inside of her alight, he turned into her, pulling her hard against him. Her binder came between them, keeping her from feeling the full expanse of that muscled chest, but it didn’t matter. His one hand curved around her cheek, thumb stroking the point of it with a reverence she couldn’t think about yet, while his other gripped her hip, possessive in a way that made a lot more sense.