Catching Stardust

by Heather Thurmeier

She pulled the blanket across their hips, snuggling closer. “What contacts?”

  His eyes shot open and he peered up at the ceiling. What contacts? The contacts she’d told him she wore multiple times—those contacts. Her breathing stuttered against him, but she remained still, suddenly feeling stiff at his side.

  “Maia, what’s going on?” he asked, trying to sound casual and unconcerned, suspicion biting him despite his calm façade.

  “Nothing.” Her voice came out calm and calculating, not sleepy and sated as it had a moment ago. “I thought we were going to sleep.”

  His arm lay across her back, but he couldn’t feel her chest rise and fall with breaths. That’s because she was holding it in. Holding all of it in. Including the truth. Well, he wasn’t going to spend the night with a woman who continues to lie to him, so either she would tell him the truth, or he would ask her to leave and not see her again.

  Please tell me the truth.

  He did not want to kick Maia out of his life, or his bed.

  “Why did you lie about wearing contacts?”

  Maia sighed, her breath coming out hot against his naked chest. The sensation awakened his desire for her again, which he ignored. He had no choice. Finding out the truth had to come first before anything else—even before being with Maia again.

  “I lied because even if I tell you the truth, you won’t believe me. So really, what’s the point?”

  “How do you know I won’t believe you?”

  “I just know.” She propped herself up on her elbow and stared into his eyes.

  Damn, she was too beautiful for his own good. “You don’t know. Tell me.”

  She shook her head. “I wish I could, but I can’t.”

  He wanted to wrap her in his arms and make whatever was so difficult for her to share disappear. What was it she couldn’t tell him? There was nothing he wouldn’t understand. It was just a matter of contacts.

  Contacts. Of course.

  “Maia, look at me,” he softly demanded, reaching out to the bedside table to retrieve his glasses.

  She raised her head slowly, leveling her gaze with his. Her eyes were wet with tears, her chin quivering as if she were fighting back sobs.

  He looked deep into her eyes. And then he saw it. The little cluster of dots in her irises he’d noticed before, twinkling almost like the stars he studied in the sky. Not any stars though—the Pleiades constellation. The constellation Maia was named after.

  Far too many coincidences.

  “You have very amazing eyes, Maia. I want to know how they got that way. I’ve never seen anything like them before. I want to know the truth. More than that, I want you to be able to trust me enough to tell me the truth about your eyes, who you really are, where you’re really from.” He held her face in his hands, kissing her forehead. “Trust me enough to tell me the truth.”

  A tear slipped down her cheek and he swiped it away with his thumb. “You’ll hate me.”

  He grinned. “I’m pretty sure that’s impossible at this point in time. Whatever this is, whatever’s going on with you, I want to know.”

  She nodded and sat back on the bed, facing him, pulling the blankets around herself, hugging them. He tucked his hand under the edge and rubbed a circle around her kneecap.

  “I don’t have contacts. That was a lie.”

  He nodded. Of course it was. Contacts with patterns in them didn’t exist. He would have read about them if they did. He knew that already. Hell, he’d known that the instant she’d said it, but he’d pushed logic from his brain, opting instead to believe the beautiful woman sitting in front of him at all costs.

  “The pattern you see in my eyes is permanent. It’s something I’ve had for as long as I can remember. Where I’m from, everyone has one of these patterns in their eyes. It’s not weird or unusual for us. It’s a part of who we are. These markings are a way of representing where we’re from. It’s almost the same as the passport you might use to travel to another country.”

  Okay. “I’m not sure I’m following you. Where could you possibly be from where the government would make you submit to that kind of marking? That has to be a violation of your human rights or something.”

  She shook her head. “No, you don’t understand.” She paused as if gathering her thoughts. “The pattern in my eyes is a star map. It serves to represent where I’m from so anyone like me will instantly know I’m like them. They’ll know I’m safe.”

  “A star map? Maia, what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that what you see in my eyes is my little section of the sky. It’s where I’m from. It’s who I am. All of it, there in my star map for anyone who knows how to read it to see.”

  Zander narrowed his eyes, coming closer to Maia to get a better look to be sure of what he’d seen before. Again, what he saw was undeniable.

  Seven little stars almost swirling in a cloud of dust. “Pleiades.”

  She nodded, staring at him intensely. “I’m Maia, one of the seven sisters of Pleiades.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Maia bit her lower lip and held her breath as the words she’d said visibly sank into Zander’s brain. It wasn’t pretty.

  He’d already passed through shock and disbelief and was well on his way to get-the-fuck-out-of-here. Sooner or later he’d hit the questions stage and then she’d answer whatever it was he wanted to know. Hopefully he wouldn’t turn around and throw her out onto the street. Being with him had been too nice to think about it coming to such an abrupt end.

  No. Not nice. Nice was taking a stroll along the edge of a pond. Being with Zander definitely couldn’t be classified as nice.

  Being with Zander had been…out of this world and that was saying something coming from Maia.

  “You really are an alien?” Zander’s voice was full of unease.

  Little green men talk time. Fun.

  “Not really.”

  “But you’re from space?”

  “Basically.”

  “So how are you from space but not an alien?” Zander thumped the heel of his hand against his forehead. “I can’t believe I even said those words. I must be really overtired. Maybe I’ve moved beyond tired into the delusional phase.”

  “You’re not overtired or delusional. This is just a lot to take in.” Maia eyed the space beside Zander on the bed, longing to lay down with him again at the talk of tiredness. She yawned but stayed firmly planted where she was on the bed. She didn’t want to rush him into being okay with all of this until he was really ready. If he was ever really ready to be okay with it.

  “To you I’m technically from space,” she began. She hadn’t had to explain this to anyone before. What was the right way to go about it without giving him a complete history lesson? “But in reality, I used to be just like you. Only a really long time ago. Way long ago.”

  “Still not following. I think I need the dumbed-down version tonight after all that wine and—well, you know, other things that have stifled my brain capacity.”

  “You know that whole story about how the constellation Pleiades was formed because Orion wouldn’t stop pestering Atlas’s seven daughters, so he asked Zeus to turn them into stars to protect them?”

  Zander nodded vaguely.

  As an astronomer, she knew he needed no further elaboration on the old Greek mythology. “Yeah, that,” she said matter-of-factly.

  Zander continued to nod. “So you’re not an alien. You’re a Greek goddess who now lives in a constellation?”

  “Well, I am part of the constellation, but I don’t actually live in the sky just floating around. We have a planet in the center of Pleiades, amongst all that dust you guys see drifting around up there.”

  “There’s a planet?” His voice sounded like it had gone from being two in the morning to being midday after a strong cup of coffee. “But there’s no planet in Pleiades. You’re lying. You should have thought this through a little better. Did you really think you’d be able to pull something like this over on
me? A guys whose life dream is to simply study everything he can about the stars and planets and space travel. Is this some kind of joke Jude set up? I’m going to kill him.”

  He laughed. A borderline crazy laugh. “I can’t believe I’ve been such an idiot all this time. Of course everything was too coincidental about meeting you in the park and then you happening to run into me in the museum of all places. Ha! And all that crap Jude has been trying to convince me of about how you’re made of stardust and all his so called evidence. Man I’m such an idiot.” He sat up, throwing one leg over the edge of the bed.

  Maia pounced forward onto Zander, stopping him from standing. “What did you just say about Jude?”

  He tried to shrug her off, but she held tight to his arm. “Nice try, but you can drop the act now.”

  “What did Jude say about me?” Panic rose in her voice. She fought to stay calm. If Jude had really figured out who she was, he could have told the authorities already. Someone—besides Orion—could be tracking her down. They could be on their way here. “What did he tell you? What did he figure out?”

  The smile on Zander’s face vanished and was instead replaced with an expression of concern. He peered down to his arm where Maia’s nails were digging into his skin. “Nothing really. I don’t think he has much concrete evidence or anything. Why?”

  “What exactly did he tell you? This is important, Zander. I need every detail you can remember?” She couldn’t help but glance toward the door, half expecting someone to burst through it at any moment.

  When she’d finally convinced herself she was being stupid to worry about someone barging in, she turned to find him right there, staring at her, his mouth open slightly, gaping at her like someone who’d just seen a ghost.

  Or an alien—alien-ish type being.

  “You’re really worried about Jude, aren’t you? This is real, isn’t it? All of this.”

  “It is. And I could really be in danger right now if Jude told the authorities.”

  “You’re fine. No one will ever believe anything Jude has to say. He has cried wolf too many times for that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean every time the wind blows the wrong way he stays up all night calculating and then makes some big announcement about his newest discovery in the morning. They never turn out to be anything and he’s always left looking like a fool.”

  “And what about you? Do you usually buy into what he’s selling too?”

  “There have been many times I’ve dived into his craziness and later wished I hadn’t. The last time I bought into it more than I should have and we both almost lost everything. We’re both more cautious now. He’s not going to go running off to the authorities until he’s sure.”

  “At the party last night, the results he had to discuss with you…they were about me, weren’t they?”

  “Yes, but it wasn’t anything. I convinced him it was impossible.”

  “What were the results?”

  Zander rubbed his hands across his face as if telling her was painful for him. “He took your cup from the train station the night of our date and tested your DNA from the rim. He told me it was consistent with stardust and I told him he was going crazy and it was impossible.” He shook his head. “I guess it was possible after all.”

  Maia scooted back on the bed, away from Zander. He was going to turn her in. She was so stupid to tell him the truth about her. “I have to go.” She scrambled off the bed, reaching for any item of clothing that was even marginally within her reach.

  Zander sprang up from the bed and blocked her path to the door.

  Damn it to Hades, what had she done to herself? “Get out of my way, Zander. I’m leaving and you’re going to forget all this nonsense I was talking about. You’re right. It was a big joke. I was kidding.”

  “No you weren’t. You told the truth and now you’re trying to take it back. Why?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. We drank a lot of wine tonight. Too much apparently. You’re starting to talk about weird things that don’t make any sense like that crazy friend of yours Jude.” She tried to side step around Zander so she could gather her dress from the floor.

  “Oh, no you don’t.” Zander grabbed her by the arms and pulled her tight against him, her naked body pressed to his. “Why?”

  She tried to wiggle free, but it was no use. His grip was tight on her arms.

  “I won’t be anyone’s discovery, Zander. Not even yours.” Her words hurt as she said them, vicious but true.

  Zander slid his hands off her arms to wrap around her back instead. “Hey,” he said, his voice gentle and comforting, instantly calming her. “I couldn’t never look at you like a discovery. I told you that you could trust me with your secret, and I meant it. I’m not going to tell anyone about who you are or where you’re from.” He laughed. “Hell, people would think I was crazier than Jude if I tried. I like my apartment too much to risk telling and spending the rest of my life in a padded room somewhere.”

  She studied his face. Could she really trust him not to tell anyone? She barely even knew him. How could she put her safety in his hands?

  He had soft, caring eyes and a gentle smile. And when he wrapped his arms around her, she felt protected.

  Sure she didn’t have any reason to trust him, but did she have any reason to distrust him?

  “Okay, I believe you. But so help me Gaia, if you screw me over and rat me out to anyone, I’ll send shooting stars after you.” She waggled her finger, making the meanest face she could muster to accompany her threat.

  “Can you really do that?” he challenged.

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “Try me and find out.”

  “I’m going to take that as a no.” Zander pulled her back to the bed and tucked them both in. “Now let me have a better look at those eyes of yours.”

  ***

  The sun broke through the curtains of Zander’s bedroom windows far too early. Zander had asked her a million questions about where she came from and what it was like up in the universe. She’d answered each and every one.

  Being able to talk openly with Zander felt freeing and relaxing. Finally, she could be herself, unguarded in her answers and questions about everything. She could connect with him on an intellectual level as well as a physical and personal level.

  They’d stayed up talking well into the early morning hours and had only been asleep a little while when Zander’s cell phone buzzed on the bedside table. She groaned and rolled away from the noise, covering her head with the blanket as if that would make the noise stop.

  “Hello,” she heard Zander say. “What’s wrong?”

  Maia was just drifting back off into dreamland when Zander spoke again. “Don’t do anything yet. I’ll meet you there in fifteen.”

  The bed bounced as Zander got up and started making noise around the small room. “Where are you going?” she asked without opening her eyes. “Come back to bed and cuddle a little longer.”

  “I can’t.” His voice sounded frantic.

  Maia forced herself up into a sitting position and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “What’s wrong?”

  Zander zipped his jeans and slipped his feet into shoes. As he buttoned his shirt, his words sent a shiver down Maia’s spine. “That was Jude. He’s figured out who you are for real this time. And he says he has proof.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Zander fidgeted in the backseat of the taxi as it wove through midtown in the midst of the morning rush hour. He had to get to the coffee shop down on Bleecker before Jude did something stupid with his newfound discovery—like tell someone else who might actually believe him. Depending on his “evidence,” of course.

  Zander couldn’t let that happen. He couldn’t let his buddy do or say anything that could in turn harm Maia in any way.

  And he had to accomplish that without Jude figuring out what he’d discovered was true.

  Easy-peasy, right?

  “Come o
n,” Zander said, tapping his fingers against the cracked-leather seat as the taxi slowed to a halt and honked at the mess of traffic ahead of them. The street was blocked with cars as far as Zander could see. He cursed under his breath. This wasn’t going to help him get to Jude, but getting out and hoofing it on foot to the nearest subway entrance then boarding a crowded train probably wasn’t going to get him there very quickly either.

  He leaned his head back against the seat and stared out the window into the sky, the brightness stinging his sleep-deprived eyes. His thoughts spiraled, desperately trying to make sense of this new information Maia had told him last night. Information that was too strange to believe, yet he knew had to be true.

  There really was life out there.

  Just like he’d always believed but could never prove. Just like he’d been trying to discover for so long. Now here it was, the proof—the living, breathing, talking proof—that there was life on other planets. And it was currently lying naked in his bed.

  Holy shit. I banged an alien last night.

  It sounded like a bad sci-fi movie.

  In the last few hours, he’d learned there wasn’t just life on other planets, but throughout the entire cosmos. The magnitude of this discovery was almost too much to process. And now, not only did he have to process this information himself, he also had to attempt to convince his best friend his discovery was bogus. How? How could he possibly do that without giving away the fact he already knew everything Jude suspected was true?

  Zander thought about what this knowledge could do for his career, for Jude’s career… Hell, what it could do for the human race as a whole. The fallout from this one discovery could launch a change in the world so huge, the outreaching possibilities of it couldn’t even be imagined right now.

  Could he really sit on this information knowing it could change everything for everyone on the entire planet?

  Sure, Maia was great. And he’d really enjoyed his time with her. But was spending a little more time with her—however much she gave him before she left to go home, back to the stars—worth giving up this life-changing information?