Falling Like Stars

by Eve Kasey

He didn’t answer right away. Every second of silence added mass to the ball of fear in her stomach.

  “They’ve offered me a position on their space station.”

  The bottom dropped out of her heart, ripped through her stomach, and kept falling.

  She couldn’t answer. She could hardly breathe. She sat back on the bed, her arms instinctively going around her knees. Finally, ragged words left her throat. “Your dream.” A full-time astronaut, working and living in space. That’s what he’d been wishing for.

  “Yeah.”

  That wasn’t jubilance in his voice. It was anguish.

  Her body filled with ice. If she loved him, she couldn’t put herself in front of that dream. She couldn’t ask him to marry her now. She owed him a clear path to what he wanted most. And that wasn’t her. It was space.

  37

  Chen couldn’t look at Elle.

  Guilt tore him apart from the inside. He could hear her crying, but he couldn’t console her. What could he say? He’d tormented her until he’d broken through her sassy shell. She’d fallen for him at his insistence, even when he knew he could never keep her. They never had a chance and he’d pursued her anyway.

  Why the fuck had he done that to her? To himself?

  And now he was leaving. Of course he was. The fucking space station. A long-term spot as an engineer, one of only three spots on China’s first-ever habitable space station. Historic. Career-making. Life-changing. Elle had to know that he couldn’t say no to an offer like that from the agency he hadn’t wanted to leave in the first place.

  For one wild second, he wondered if he could take her with him. He dismissed the thought immediately. Jiuquan was in the middle of a desolate desert. And he couldn’t take Elle from the warm embrace of her family to the cold shoulder of his own. He loved her too much.

  Finally, he turned to look at her. She’d curled into a ball on the bed, her cheek resting on her knees. The pain on her face sucked the breath from his lungs. He pulled her rounded form against him. A torrent of her tears followed, sliding down his chest. They did the opposite of absolving him. They damned him. He deserved it.

  “I’m happy for you,” she whispered.

  The sentiment was so ridiculous that he laughed. “I can tell.”

  “I’m serious.” Her voice gained strength as she extricated herself from his arms. “I’m sad for us. For me. But I’m happy for you, your dream, and your sister. You get to be together sooner than you thought.”

  Chen clenched his teeth against the rush of emotion at her words. “I feel exactly the same, Elle.”

  “I know.”

  She cocooned herself into a ball again.

  “I don’t know what to say. To do. If I could have both you and the job, I would.” Chen scrubbed at his face forcefully. Fuck. He should be grateful. He should be leaping at the chance to leave Earth again, but the gravity of what he felt with Elle held him back.

  But he could not turn down this offer. He had to be realistic. He would have left her anyway. This offer just accelerated the process.

  She shook her head and kept shaking it. “Both. I wanted love and sex. You want the job and the girl. I’m starting to believe people never get to have both.”

  He reached a hand out to her, saddened by her dark words. His stomach felt hollow and cold. He needed her warmth. “Can I touch you?”

  She reached out her hand in response. Chen pulled her into a side-lying position and spooned his body behind hers. “People get both,” he said, softly kissing her shoulder. “We have both. We have everything. We just don’t get to keep it.”

  Chen broke the news to Tate first thing Monday.

  Sitting across the desk, Tate stared at him after he finished speaking. He didn’t so much as twitch or frown. He only blinked. Chen squirmed in his chair and waited for his boss, his friend, to pass judgement on the fact that he was leaving this opportunity so soon.

  “I can’t say I’m not disappointed. I expected to have you here much longer.”

  Those words were like an ice shard in his stomach.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I understand, of course. A permanent position on a space station will put your career entirely in your own hands. I know what this opportunity means for you and your family, Chen. You should be proud. The progress you’ve made with our team even in just a couple of months has been invaluable for the future of our organization.”

  He nodded, fighting against feelings he didn’t want Tate to witness. He took a long pause, then cleared his throat. “I owe you so much for offering me this job. Thank you.”

  Tate clicked the pen in his grip a few times, a sure sign Chen’s news had thrown him. Fidgeting meant he was highly perturbed. “Where in the world am I going to find another Chen Lew?”

  The question was rhetorical, but an answer leapt to his mind. Chen’s heart lightened just a shade. “Seville. I’ve got a friend, another graduate from ENAC, who can take this program where I didn’t get a chance to. He went through Russian cosmonaut training but didn’t get chosen.”

  “Go on.”

  “Vadim is a private pilot for a football club. He’s logged thousands of hours all over the planet.”

  “But none outside the planet.” Tate eyed him levelly. “There are plenty of former astronauts I could engage. Why take a risk on an untrained pilot?”

  “He’s not untrained. Russia’s training program is the toughest on the planet, as you know. If this was a space shuttle mission, I might say he needs more training. But with Stratos, Harv as a co-pilot, and Thomas breathing on his neck, Vadim would be a pro in no time.” Chen knew what would sway Tate, and it wasn’t pedigree—it was passion. “Being a cosmonaut has been Vadim’s dream since he was old enough to remember dreaming. As OrbitAll’s pilot, he would serve you with everything he had.”

  Tate nodded, looking thoughtful. “I’ll meet with him. Can you get him in here before you leave? When are you leaving, by the way?”

  “In a week.” He released a gusty sigh. He had to report the launch center at Jiuquan in three weeks, but he figured prolonging his stay wouldn’t make leaving easier. No matter what, saying goodbye to OrbitAll, and to Elle, would be impossible. “I’ll get him here. Thank you.”

  Regret threatened to choke him as he rose, even though leaving OrbitAll had been his choice.

  “Chen?”

  He turned.

  Tate had leaned back in his chair. “I won’t be reporting your departure to Citizenship and Immigration right away.”

  Chen raised an eyebrow. “I bet that’s illegal.”

  Tate shrugged. “That way you’ll have an out if you need one. At least until that visa expires.”

  His ache in his chest deepened. He’d gained more in the past few months than he ever hoped to attain. Now he was losing everything. His choice, but still his pain. But Chen covered up the emotion. “Damn, are you missing me already?”

  Tate rolled his eyes. “Get Vadim here, okay?”

  If Tate was willing to take a chance on his friend, he’d have an easier time leaving. He composed a text to Vadim. Get your ass on a plane. I’ve got the opportunity of a lifetime for you here at OrbitAll.

  38

  Elle stared at the whiteboard in her office, not really seeing. Sitting in a daze was the only activity she’d felt capable of since Chen’s call from Colonel Zhang, and she was already sick of it.

  The empty spaces on the whiteboard taunted her. She should be working, but the ideas wouldn’t come. Even coherent thoughts were a problem. She hadn’t slept much the past few days and neither had Chen. They had too much to say, to do, before they couldn’t anymore.

  And now his likely replacement—the word still sent shockwaves through her—was touring the building. She heard voices in the hallway, Chen and Tate and an even louder voice that had to be Vadim Baranov, the pilot friend of Chen’s she’d heard so much about.

  But, she noted, as her office door swung open and the group filed in, Chen had left o
ut one very important detail about Vadim: The massive brick wall of a man was panty-droppingly gorgeous. Not as pretty as Tate or as roguish as Chen, but piercing and intense. Made of cartoonish muscle, chiseled face punctuated by the sharpest blue eyes she’d ever seen, and marked by miles of ink, he was stop-in-your-tracks stunning.

  Elle fought a snort. What was it with Tate? The man was a portal to the world’s hottest men, himself included. Even in her years on the island, she’d never come across the caliber of men she had since she’d been at OrbitAll. “Twilight zone,” she muttered, standing so she could greet Vadim properly.

  He moved toward her, eyes locked and hand outstretched. She could not look away.

  “You must be the someone who has Chen all tongue-tied.”

  She bet Vadim knew quite a bit about tongues.

  “Elle,” she affirmed. “His girlfriend.” At least for the next few days, she amended silently.

  The smile that lifted his full lips was sweeter than she expected. She figured he could only smolder. He leaned closer and dropped his booming voice to what she figured passed as a whisper for him. “I know every one of his secrets. Whatever you want to know, just ask.”

  A wicked grin lit Elle’s face. “Finally. That has been a one-way street for far too long.”

  Her gaze flicked to Chen, who was shaking his head and looking amused. But under his joy was sorrow. It was easy to recognize what she felt herself. She let go of Vadim’s hand. “Welcome to the team. Oh, is it too soon to say that?”

  “Seems to be going pretty well.” He grinned, and any other woman would be instantly smitten.

  “Like I can argue with these two when they gang up on me like they have been. I feel like a third wheel on a bro date. I don’t know what’s true and what’s hyperbole.” Tate shook his head, bemused.

  “You wouldn’t believe what Vadim is capable of,” Chen told her. “He swam across the Strait of Gibraltar as part of cosmonaut training. Ask him how long he can hold his breath under water.”

  “Four minutes and forty-seven seconds,” Vadim supplied.

  “And his scores on the written exams at Star City in Russia were insane. Grammar, languages, history of cosmonautics, physics, math, literature, art. Nearly perfect scores in every category.”

  “And an eighty-page exam on spacecraft parts,” Vadim chimed in.

  Tate threw her a See what I mean? look.

  “So why aren’t you a cosmonaut if you can do all that?” Elle asked.

  “Too big for the spacesuit,” Vadim smirked.

  Elle rolled her eyes. He would take Chen’s place perfectly. “Wow. Okay. Well, I hope you get the job. No pressure, Tate.”

  Tate just sighed.

  Vadim asked him about Stratos, and Chen took the opportunity of that distraction to grasp her waist and pull her against him. He planted a kiss on her forehead and whispered, “I miss you already. I hate this.”

  Her first instinct was to ask why the hell he was leaving then, but she held back. You can love someone and still leave them behind. He wasn’t just accepting a dream job, he was accepting his fate. His future. They both had to accept it.

  “I hate it, too.” She kissed his mouth to shake off her unhappiness. “Still love you, though.”

  He shook his head and she saw the adoration in his eyes. “I’ve got to take Vadim to see Harv. I’m sleeping at your place tonight, right?”

  Elle was surprised. “Even with Vadim in town? You haven’t seen him in forever.”

  “Why spend the night with that ugly bastard when I could spend it with the most beautiful woman on Earth?”

  She snorted.

  “Can I make a request?”

  “Maybe.”

  His voice dropped low. “Answer the door naked again. You are hotter than the center of the sun and I want to burn.”

  Elle kissed him again. She wanted flames, too.

  “Is that a yes?” His eyes already held fire.

  “That’s a yes,” she whispered.

  The sexy grin she loved graced his face. He brushed soft lips against her forehead one more time, then playfully shoved Vadim toward the door. “Time to try your charms on Harv and Thomas.”

  Elle called to Tate as he moved to follow. “Tate, hang back a sec?”

  She felt inspired. It was time to set aside her heartache and do what she did best: Get to work planning.

  Chen’s last few days blinked by, and his final day at OrbitAll came and went.

  “Where are you taking me?” he whined. “You know there is nowhere I’d rather be than inside you right now.” Elle glanced at him as they drove away from the apartment complex on Friday evening. He was actually pouting, and it was adorable. “Seriously, Elle. Turn the car around. I don’t need or want anything but you.”

  She chuckled and shook her head. “I know what’ll make you feel better.” She navigated to the country song about her that he loved so much. A less confident man would gripe or even rage with such explicit evidence of their woman with someone else. Not Chen.

  He leaned back and sighed. “You are everything. You know that, right? I’m so glad I met you. Fuck.” He growled in frustration, a not uncommon reaction of his that last week.

  His words were a sweet sting. “I know,” Elle replied.

  Ten minutes later, they were at the hangar. “We’re at work.” He sounded nonplussed. “Why are we back at work? I already said my goodbyes.”

  He’d said goodbye to OrbitAll, but the company hadn’t said goodbye to him.

  Inside, the hangar had been transformed. It had killed her to drive away with him and leave the setup to others, but the staff had done her proud. Luckily, he’d been too distracted by goodbyes to notice the party rental trucks waiting in the parking lot as they’d left.

  People gathered near Stratos. His people. His team, Mission Control, Tate, Quinn, even Rosie. The décor? All silver, like the stars. The food? Tacos and bao. Lots of bao, driven in from San Diego by the beautiful Rosie. Had Elle commissioned a custom T-shirt for him, super snug to show off his athletic frame, and hired a photographer to capture these final moments together? She sure had.

  Chen paused at the entrance to take in the details. He huffed out a breath and squeezed her hand. “I’m terrified I’m going to spend the rest of my life loving you for this. For everything.”

  39

  Chen couldn’t remember ever feeling pain so acute. That the lacerating pain came from soft brown eyes would only make sense to those who had fallen in love with someone they couldn’t have.

  They’d agreed to say goodbye at the apartment complex instead of the airport. They stood next to the toaster, silent. Shattered. Neither seemed able to say the words. Chen’s throat ached. His chest was so tight he was surprised his ribs were still in his body. Elle’s eyes had been streaming tears since she awoke that morning. As soon as they got to the toaster, she’d started shaking like she had on the runway before his test flight. Chen couldn’t help but wonder if doing the right thing should hurt so much.

  “All I can think to tell you is that I love you,” he said finally. “More than I ever expected to love anyone.”

  “That’s all I’ve got, too.”

  Her cracked, broken voice coaxed tears into his eyes. He kissed her skin, every exposed part of her. Soft lips, smooth cheeks, creased forehead, cold tip of her nose, that heaven-scented spot where her jaw joined her neck.

  “You have been a gift to my life, xīngguāng.”

  She nodded. “I wouldn’t change anything about us, Chen.” She kissed his jaw tenderly, and the move felt like a benediction. “I hope you’re happy.”

  He saw the authenticity of the words in her gut-wrenchingly expressive face. But happy? Without her? Satisfied, maybe. Successful, hopefully. But real joy existed only with Elle.

  “I have to go,” he whispered.

  She kissed him one last time, let her hand fall from his cheek, and Chen left the life he wanted behind.

  Guangzhou was exactly the
same as when he’d left. Even his blanket and pillow were still stacked underneath the coffee table in the living room, like his parents knew he’d be back. Like he’d been living in a dream all alone.

  Only seeing Xiaoming again lifted his heart out of the gutter, especially when he showed her what Elle had sent. He sat on the edge of her bed and watched his sweet sister’s face light up as he handed over the unicorn called Mystic. Elle had dug through her beanie baby collection and picked one she thought Xiaoming would love. She’d chosen wisely, if his sister’s coos and crooked grin were any indication.

  “From Elle,” he explained. “My Julia Roberts. She sends her love and says she thinks you’ll take really good care of Mystic.”

  She raised questioning eyes to him. Since she didn’t speak much, he supplied what he thought she might like to know. “I’m back for good, mui mui. In China, anyway. Did baba tell you I’ll be moving back to Jiuquan? I get to be a real astronaut again, here in China.”

  She nodded, rubbing the soft stuffed animal against her cheek. On a whim, he snapped a pic to send to Elle. They hadn’t discussed communication etiquette. He didn’t know if he should call or text, but he figured she’d like to see the happiness her gesture had brought Xiaoming.

  “But no Julia. No Elle.” He sighed. “Turns out, in real life, we don’t always get that happy ending they show in the films.”

  She held the unicorn out to him with questioning eyes. He shook his head, smiling sadly. The toy had brought her joy and she thought it might work on him, too. If only fixing his hurting heart was that simple.

  His mom knocked, then poked her head in. “Will you run to the market for me, jai? I have a list for you.”

  He stood, smiling at his sister. Out in the hall, his mother shoved a folded piece of paper at him. He noticed her chin-length hair had a few more gray streaks than when he’d left a few months ago. “Can you get those and meet us at Summer Palace afterward?”

  The nicest dim sum place in town, and Xiaoming’s favorite. A celebratory lunch, then. That was a nice surprise. “Of course, mama.”