Stars On Fire

by E. L. Todd

  “Charlotte.”

  “I have to go, Cameron. I’ll see you later.” I kept my cool, started the engine, and then drove away.

  When I turned the corner, the tears streamed down my cheeks. I remembered everything about our marriage, every single beautiful thing. He had been my best friend, the sun I revolved around. I remembered it so clearly, so how could he disregard it like it meant nothing. If I weren’t barren, would he still love me? Or did he never really love me?

  Torpedo whined then crawled over the box so he could sit beside me. He moved his snout to my thigh and looked up at me, like he wished he could fix my broken heart.

  “I’m okay, boy…” I stroked his head as I kept driving, the tears still pouring. “I know you’ll always love me…and that’s enough.”

  “YOU’RE KIDDING ME.” Stacy sat across from me at the dining table, so flabbergasted that her eyes were still wide open.

  “No.”

  “He actually asked you that?” She cocked her head to the side and slammed her fist onto the table. “Who the fuck does that?”

  When I left Cameron’s place, I cried on the drive but headed straight here. There was only one place I wanted to be—with my best friend. Torpedo lay on the floor near my chair, being my emotional support in his silence. “I couldn’t believe it either. I had a hard time pretending everything was fine.”

  “Why do you have to pretend everything is fine?” she snapped. “It’s not fine. You need to scream at him, punch him in the face. He deserves every bad thing that happens to him.”

  “I just don’t see the point. It won’t change anything.”

  “But it’ll make you feel better.”

  “And he’ll know I’m still devastated by everything…and that’s the last thing I want. I don’t want to give him that satisfaction. I don’t want to carry a torch for a marriage that he’s completely forgotten about.”

  She gripped her skull and shook her head. “I just can’t believe this. When you two were together, I would have gambled my entire life savings that you would stay together forever.”

  “I know…”

  “And now he’s living with someone else and asking for his ring back? This is the guy who cried when you walked down the aisle.”

  “I know…” I couldn’t believe it either. No matter how many days I lived with this nightmare, I still couldn’t believe it really happened. It all started when I couldn’t get pregnant. He was patient at first, but as the months passed, he grew colder and colder. Then when the doctor finally figured out I was the problem, Cameron was already gone. He stopped being my husband for good that very instant.

  “It’s crazy.” She kept shaking her head incredulously. “I just can’t believe it. If I were there, I would have punched him in the face. Like, I would have jumped on him and just whaled on him. Torpedo would be biting his foot, and I would be breaking his face.”

  It was a funny image, so a small laugh escaped my lips. “He’s not worth it.”

  “He took five years of your life. He’s definitely worth it.”

  I thought I had my life figured out. I thought I would be married to the same man until the day I died. I thought I would have two kids and live happily ever after. But piece by piece, my life was crumbling.

  “And he’s shacked up with some ho in your house.” She stuck out her tongue like she was disgusted. “Who becomes that evil? Who is happy one minute, then abandons everything the next?”

  “I don’t know… I guess having kids is the most important thing in the world.”

  “You two still could have had kids.”

  “But not the natural way.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I want to have kids the old-fashioned way too, but if something were wrong with Vic, I wouldn’t just leave him. We’d adopt a few and consider ourselves lucky to have a family. Who the hell leaves someone like that? What if you were diagnosed with some life-altering disease? Would he just abandon you?”

  “Oh, definitely.” There was no doubt about it. The second things got difficult, he would take off. “And I feel bad for the next woman in his life. The second something goes wrong, he’ll leave her too. He’ll only love you if you’re exactly what he wants and how he wants you.”

  “And that’s not really love.”

  “No…”

  The front door opened and Vic walked inside, Neil with him. “A hundred bucks on the Warriors. Are you gonna put your money where your mouth is?”

  Neil followed behind him and headed for the fridge. He had a smile that could light up the entire city of Houston, a body that could make any woman wet in minutes. He grabbed a beer and twisted off the cap. “Look, you’re looking for a house right now. I don’t want to take your money.”

  “Oh, shut up. You ain’t gonna take shit.” He grabbed a beer himself and twisted off the cap. The guys were both tall and handsome, but they each had their own qualities. Vic was a little thicker, the shape of a bodybuilder.

  Neil was lean and ripped, the figure of an athlete. “Alright, you’re on.”

  Vic walked over to Stacy then leaned down and kissed her on the head. “Hey, baby.”

  “Hey.” She did her best not to melt when her husband gave her attention like that, but she was practically a puddle on the table. Her lips relaxed into a beautiful smile, and her eyes lit up like two of the brightest stars in the galaxy.

  Neil gave her a nod then looked at me. He gave me a smile like he was genuinely happy to see me, but then slowly, that expression faded away as he examined the slight pain in my eyes, the way my lips dragged at the corners. “Everything alright?” He gave me his beer, putting it in front of me like I needed it more than he did.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Just a long day…”

  Stacy gave me a sad look but didn’t share my secret.

  Neil was too smart to accept my dismissal, so he pulled out the chair and sat beside me. His hand moved to my thigh under the table, his long fingers stretching across the entire surface before he gave me a gentle squeeze. He was unusually perceptive for a man, and he could read me just as well as Stacy could. “Seems like more than just a long day.”

  Neil was supposed to be just a fling, but since he was part of the family, that made him a more permanent person in my life. Whether he was here on Earth or in space, he would still be around. He would be the uncle to Stacy’s kids, be a friend to Vic. He would never go away. That epiphany hadn’t hit me until that moment. “I went to Cameron’s house to pick up my grandmother’s things…”

  The second Cameron was mentioned, Vic inhaled a deep breath and turned slightly flushed in the face. He lowered himself into the chair beside Stacy, slowly becoming red like a tomato, furious even though he didn’t know what had happened.

  Neil kept watching me, his hand on my thigh.

  “It was obvious that he’s already living with someone. I could see the flowered artwork on the walls, the brightly colored pillows on the couch. But that wasn’t the worst part. He walked me to my truck then asked for my ring back.”

  Vic slammed his beer onto the table. “This motherfucker needs to die. I don’t mean, let’s beat him until he’s in the hospital. I mean, let’s drop his body in a dumpster.”

  That was a little over the top.

  Neil didn’t have the same reaction as Vic. He was more focused on my feelings than his own. “That’s an odd request.”

  “We were married for five years,” I whispered. “Who’s married to someone for five years then asks for their ring back?” I took a deep breath and steadied my emotions because I didn’t want to break down and start crying with three people staring at me, four if you included Torpedo.

  “Did you give it to him?” Neil asked.

  “No…but I will.” It was still sitting in the bottom of my nightstand. I had no use for it now, so I may as well give it back to him. I could have pawned it for some money, but that felt cheap. I suspected that was exactly what Cameron was going to do—cash it in so he could buy his new woman
a ring. It made me sick to my stomach. “I could keep it out of principle, but I don’t even want it anymore. It just hurts that you could be with someone that long and then just stop caring…”

  “It sounds like he never really cared in the first place,” Neil said quietly. “It sounds like this guy was never good enough for you. I know you must feel like shit right now, but he did you a favor. You’re still young and have plenty of time to find a man who’s gonna be good to you…through thick and thin. A man will love his woman no matter what, even if she’s paralyzed from the neck down. This guy is a coward—and I feel sorry for the woman he ends up with.” He pulled his hand from my thigh and placed it against my back. He gently he rubbed me, his large fingers massaging the tense muscles of my back. A concerned expression on his handsome face, it seemed like he cared about me just as much as Stacy and Vic did.

  That was the moment I realized that Neil and I couldn’t keep fooling around anymore. There was no chance we would ever be anything more than friends, so why would I want to mess up something so beautiful? It was the same thing as Kyle. We could have kept sleeping together, but at the end of the run, we would go our separate ways. I could tell Neil was meant to be in my life…for the long run. “Thanks…”

  “He’s right,” Vic said. “It’s good to know Cameron is a piece of shit now rather than later. It’s good to know he’s not gonna be there for you in the long run…before the long run arrives.”

  Neil pushed his beer nearer toward me. “Here. You need this more than I do.”

  I forced a chuckle. “I think I need something stronger than beer.”

  He smiled. “How about a Slurpee? I can run out and get you one.”

  “A Slurpee mixed with some vodka might be interesting,” I said with a laugh. “The beer is good. Let’s not waste any more time talking about that jerk. Let’s enjoy the game.” I left the table and took the beer with me, unable to handle their looks of pity any longer. I hated knowing they were hurting for me, that they carried the pain I was carrying in that moment. I wanted to brush it off and be strong for the people I cared about. “I’ll take your bet, Vic. Torpedo needs another bag of dog food, and he eats a lot. That shit is expensive.”

  AT THE END of the night, Neil and I left together. We took the elevator to the lobby then walked outside to our vehicles. His pristine Range Rover was parked right next to my dirty truck. I opened the tailgate so Torpedo could hop inside before I shut it.

  Neil stayed at the front, his hands resting in the pockets of his jeans. He took a look at Torpedo in the back before he turned his expression on me. Now that we were alone together, his eyes fell in sympathy all over again.

  I hated that look. I hated seeing everyone feel bad for me. “I’m fine.”

  “No, you aren’t. And that’s perfectly okay. The people who seem the strongest are usually the ones who hurt the most. They’re in pain all the time, so they’ve perfected this false persona. That’s what I’ve discovered at least…”

  “Observant.”

  “That’s my job…to observe things.”

  “I thought your job was to fly rockets and build a station on the moon.”

  “Yes,” he said with a chuckle. “But I do other things too.”

  “Multitasker,” I teased.

  When he smiled, the look reached his eyes, and the sight was hypnotic. He was a beautiful man who was the whole package. He was courageous and adventurous; he was masculine and gentle. He was a phenomenal kisser but also a great friend. “Want to come over and see my place? Torpedo is welcome too. I have a big backyard.”

  Torpedo never liked living in an apartment. When we moved out of the house, he wasn’t happy about it. He felt cramped in the thousand-square-foot apartment with a poor view. There was nothing he would love more than to sit on a patch of grass and feel the breeze through his fur.

  I wanted to see Neil’s place too. I wanted to sleep in his undoubtedly soft bed with a gorgeous man beside me. I wanted to go to sleep completely satisfied. There had been dozens of women on those sheets before me, but I didn’t care. I was flattered to be one of the many. But I’d come to my decision hours ago, and I knew it was the right one. “Neil…I think we should just be friends.”

  He couldn’t hide the disappointment that shone in his eyes. Slowly, his body deflated like a balloon, his muscles turning soft and his frame slouching a little. It was like he’d been punched in the gut. “I’ve got to be honest…I wasn’t expecting that.”

  Because no woman ever turned him down.

  “I really care about you, Neil. You and I…we just click. And since you’re always going to be a part of my life through Vic and Stacy, I don’t want to screw anything up. If we keep sleeping together, I’m afraid things might get complicated. I know we agreed this was just a fling and neither one of us wants anything serious. That sounds perfect. But…I guess I want more. I want you to always be in my life. The best way to make sure that happens is if we stay friends.” If anyone witnessed our conversation, they would think I was the dumbest person in the world. I was throwing away one of the sexiest bachelors in the world and settling for his friendship. He was the first good lay I’d had in so long and I shouldn’t sabotage that, but I’d already lost someone important, and I didn’t want to lose any more people. This way, we could stay close forever without any worries about getting ripped apart.

  Neil still struggled to control his surprise. Getting dumped was something he clearly wasn’t used to. He kept his hands in his pockets and let his eyes focus on the sidewalk for several seconds before he looked at me again. “We seem like two people who can handle friendship and casual sex. That’s exactly what we both want.”

  “I agree. But I want more from you…” I didn’t want a romantic relationship, but I wanted to turn to him when life got complicated. I wanted to spend the holidays with his family and be welcome there. I wanted to be a big part of his world…but I could only do that as a friend. “My world became a lot smaller once I got divorced. I lost Cameron’s family and most of our mutual friends. I’m still picking up the pieces, and I can already tell you’re someone I want for the long haul. So, we should be friends.”

  “You like me so much that you don’t want to sleep with me.” He chuckled sarcastically. “That’s ironic because I always thought I was an asshole.”

  “No, you’re definitely not an asshole.” He was kind, gentle, affectionate. He was a strong man who’d accomplished so much in such a short amount of time. His success was incredibly intimidating, so deeply sexy. “You’re a good man.”

  “Well…I guess I’ll see you around.” He continued to stand in front of me, unable to hide the disappointment in his eyes. “So, how does this friend thing work?”

  “We hang out…as friends.”

  “I don’t have many friends.”

  “Yes, you do,” I said with a laugh. “What about Vic? Hyde?”

  “They’re both jerks, so they don’t count.” He smiled, telling me he was joking.

  “Let’s get a beer tomorrow after work. We can watch the game. I could even help you pick up a lady for the evening.”

  “Sweetheart, I don’t need any help.”

  “Wow…maybe you are an asshole.”

  He chuckled. “Told you. Yeah, let’s get a beer tomorrow.”

  “Unless you want to go to the batting cages instead.”

  “Can we drink at the same time?”

  I shook my head. “Sorry.”

  “Then it looks like we’re watching the game.”

  9

  NEIL

  IT WAS three in the morning when I walked into the control center at the NASA Space Center. I jogged down the hallway then moved down the aisle that faced all the large screens projecting data about our instruments, crew, and oxygen levels.

  “Neil is here.” Tom Carmichael was the director of operations, and he met me down the walkway. “Oxygen is running low. We figured out that space debris struck the rear end of the space station, affec
ting the generator and the oxygen tanks. They’re trying to override the system to shut the compartment, but it’s not working.”

  I sat down at the computer and pulled up the information on the screen. There was definitely a malfunction in the hardware because there were simple protocols to override this. I’d checked on that area on a daily basis during my last tenure on the space station. The place was in a primary safe zone, but when in space, Murphy’s Law always applied. What could go wrong…would go wrong.

  Tom stood at my desk. “I’ve got my other engineers working on this, but you’re the commander I have with the most experience. You think you can figure out a way to override it electronically, or perhaps have a spacewalk to repair the damage from the outside?”

  My eyes had been full of sleep during the entire drive here, but now I was wide awake. “How much time do I have?”

  “They’re losing oxygen fast. I say they only have thirty minutes before it becomes critical.”

  “Shit.” I blocked out everything around me and got to work. “I’ll figure it out. Just give me some space.”

  “YOU DID GOOD, Neil. Whether you’re out there or in here, you’re the best engineer I have.” Tom walked around his desk and took a seat. He’d been running control operations for the last thirty years. When my father’s rocket exploded, the director resigned. Tom took over immediately afterward, so he never met my father.

  “I’m glad I could help, sir.”

  “How are you adjusting to life on Earth?”

  The woman I’d been sleeping with dumped me—because she liked me too much. I found a woman who stole my attention for more than a few minutes, a woman I actually liked talking to, but then she didn’t want me. It was ironic…because I dumped so many women myself. I wasn’t sure if I should be flattered or not. “It’s taking some time.”

  “You prefer to be up there?”

  I shrugged. “When I’m up there, I miss home. I miss gravity, Mexican food, and the sunrise. But when I’m here…all I can think about is the next time I board that rocket.” I was never happy, always dreaming of the opposite place.