Rocket Science

by Emily Mayer

  “That’s going to be a hard pass for me,” Sebastian answered very quickly. “Did you want to play?”

  I couldn’t help laughing at the hopeful expression on his face.

  “No, I’m good. I would much rather watch the movies for the hundredth time.”

  We followed Janie into the basement and around the chairs filling the space. People had brought their own folding chairs or bean bags, and I saw a few of the more hardcore people had sleeping bags on inflatable mattresses.

  I spotted Greg sprawled out on one of the L-shaped couches toward the back of the room. Will had created a large projection screen on one of the walls, so it was like being at a more comfortable, haphazard movie theater. He sat up when he saw us approaching. I said hello and made the obligatory introductions. Sebastian sat down on the opposite end of the couch, stretching his long legs out in front of him. I surveyed the available seating options trying to decide where I should sit. I felt Sebastian’s long fingers encircle my wrist, and then he was tugging me down next to him. I sat awkwardly, as straight as possible, to avoid any of my body overlapping his.

  Janie snorted. I shot her one of my finer side-eyes and sat very still. We must have missed The Fellowship of the Ring. I recognized the opening scenes of The Two Towers. I shifted carefully, my spine already aching from sitting so straight. I was a sloucher. I should have listened to my mother and worked on my posture.

  “Are those two hobbits boyfriends?” Sebastian asked.

  I looked at him, surprised by his question. “Have you never seen these?”

  He grimaced. “Not a single one. I hope that’s not a deal-breaker for you. I literally have no idea what those little blokes are going on about.’

  I scooted closer, so I could give him a brief explanation of the plot without disturbing the other viewers, and tried very hard not to go on too much of a The Hobbit tangent. He watched me, a soft smile on his face the entire time.

  “Got it. They have to get the magic ring to Mordor before the evil eyeball finds them and destroys Middle Earth.”

  Why this moment felt right to tell him about my heart, I couldn’t articulate. Snuggled up to his side in the dark gave me a false sense of safety, I suppose, and there was no way to really explain my deep love of these stories without also explaining my heart defect. His arm wound its way around my back, forcing me closer.

  My hand traced the familiar path on my chest. I felt Sebastian’s eyes following the movement.

  “I love these stories. I do. I read them over and over again when I was growing up. Nobody builds an entire universe quite like Tolkien, but I read anything with elaborate world-building.” I paused, taking a breath for courage. “I was born with a hole in my heart. It’s not necessarily a big deal. Most holes close as the child grows older, but for whatever reason, my hole got bigger instead. I had to see a ton of pediatric cardiologists and other specialists, so I was home-schooled until I was sixteen. I couldn’t run around with Harrison or the other kids because too much physical exertion usually triggered an arrythmia and I passed out a lot. Reading was such a great escape for me, especially as I got older.”

  Sebastian’s eyes bounced from the hand still tracing my scar to meet my gaze. Worry was broadcast on every feature of that handsome face. Even the hand on my hip had tightened, digging into the sensitive flesh there.

  “But your heart is okay now?”

  “It is. I had open-heart surgery to close the hole when I was fifteen,” I rushed to reassure him, because he looked absolutely devastated. “I check in with a cardiologist annually and the patch is in great shape.”

  “Why didn’t you say something when I took you to play soccer? Lennon, I could have hurt you.”

  He scrubbed his free hand down his face, the sound rough like sandpaper. I pulled his hand down, placing it over my heart, hoping he could feel the steady thump that beat so much harder with his hand touching me. I lifted my head so our eyes met.

  “Sebastian, I’m fine. If it wasn’t safe for me to do something, I would tell you. I’ve been seeing a cardiologist forever. My heart is fine. I’m fine.”

  His eyes searched my face and then lowered to look at my small hand covering his larger one, pressing it into my chest.

  “That’s why you said you ate healthy as a kid. Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” His voice had an accusatory edge that made me feel terrible for ever doubting the sincerity of his friendship.

  “I don’t really have a good answer for that one. It’s hard for me to talk about it. People never know how to react, and it makes me feel even more different than I already do most of the time.”

  He flipped his hand around so that he was holding mine now, lowering our clasped hands to his lap. His thumb stoked along the curve of my hand sending aftershocks through my body with each pass.

  “I love every single thing about you that makes you different.”

  Without warning, he leaned down and pressed a kiss to my temple. He tucked me closer into his side, turning his attention back to the movie.

  “I don’t care what anyone says, the chubby one is into that froyo guy.”

  36.

  As promised, Sebastian let me drive his car home, but my time behind the wheel did not last long. A few jarring starts and stops after we got out of the neighborhood had me pulling into the first gas station I spotted. The engine had a whole lot more power than I was used to in my hybrid—not that I would ever admit it. I told Sebastian that I was just super tired and it was clearly affecting my driving skills. I solidified that version of the truth by promptly falling asleep for the rest of the ride home. Waking up to Sebastian’s face was like waking up from a good dream to find yourself in an even better dream.

  Two days later, I was still fantasizing about the kiss he’d placed on each of my cheeks, so close to my mouth that I would have had to turn my head only the slightest movement to have his lips where I really wanted them. We had been serenaded by the romantic sounds of Boomer moaning and body-slamming the door.

  This was the first Monday in a while that I hadn’t dreaded going to work. The tests we had run in the simulator had all gone well, so our first prototype was officially in construction. We were announcing a contest to name the rocket later in the week and I was actually pretty excited to hear what people would come up with. I was temporarily reassigned to a team performing routine maintenance with a few necessary updates on some of the commercial satellites we currently had in orbit. It wasn’t as sexy as building a spaceship, but it was still one of my favorite tasks.

  “Ready for lunch?” Janie waltzed into my office, interrupting my daydream—erm, work.

  “Very.” I shoved away from my desk, grabbing my phone. “Word on the street is that it’s pizza day.”

  We made our way to the cafeteria discussing very important topics like whether there would just be pizza or calzones too, and whether there would also be breadsticks. My heated fantasies had really worked up an appetite.

  Trays filled to capacity, we slid into a booth and dug in.

  “So, you and Sebastian looked pretty cozy Saturday,” Janie said, dipping a breadstick in some marinara sauce.

  “There wasn’t a lot of room on the couch. We didn’t have much of a choice.”

  I had known it was only a matter of time before Janie brought up Saturday. I could feel her eyes on us the whole night. She’d also taken Sebastian’s side of the argument over Sam and Frodo’s relationship, and then wowed him with her Gollum impression.

  “You’re welcome. Man, I am such a good wing-woman.” She sounded way too impressed with herself. “I fully expect you to name your first-born girl child after me.”

  “I’m sorry?” I paused, putting my stromboli back on the plate. “What exactly did you do to ‘wing-woman’ me?”

  Janie gasped dramatically. “How dare you? Do you know how many people I had to scare away from that couch so you two could cuddle instead of sitting in very uncomfortable folding chairs? I told Sara that Greg had gas.
”

  “It sounds like I should be thanking Greg.”

  She pointed a breadstick at me. “I know what you’re doing. Don’t deflect. What happened after you guys left?”

  “Sebastian drove me home. Well, I drove a little too, but he drove most of the way.”

  “Cool.” Janie dragged out the word, the tone of her voice making it clear that she could not care less about who drove home. “Thanks for the play-by-play. But I meant what happened happened?”

  “I don’t understand.” She groaned, throwing her hands up in frustration. My eyes widened. “Janie, are you talking about sexual relations?”

  “Please, and I cannot stress this enough, never say the phrase ‘sexual relations’ again. It literally makes me die a little bit on the inside. But to answer your question, yes.”

  “No! Of course not. Why would you think we would be doing that?” I lowered my voice so the last words were barely audible over the noise of the cafeteria.

  “Uh, because you’re not dead?” She sounded incredulous. “If Sebastian Kincaid had been rubbing up on me all night, I would have had my panties off before the car even stopped.”

  “I honestly feel like I just stepped inside the Twilight Zone. What are you even talking about? Sebastian and I aren’t dating. We’re just friends.”

  “Oh, really? Because your body language was telling a very different story. And don’t even get me started on the way you looked at him all dreamy.” She sighed, making googly eyes. “He’s clearly into you. Jump his bones! And then tell me everything. I need very specific details. Like how many packs do his abs have? Does he have one of those sexy-as-hell V things pointing to his—”

  I leaned forward and shoved a piece of stromboli into her open mouth.

  “I don’t know what you think you’re talking about. Sebastian is not into me like that, I don’t think.”

  Janie wiped off a spot of sauce from just above her lip while managing to look like she was physically restraining herself from reaching across the table to strangle me.

  “How are you not picking up on any of the clues that he is super into you? When was the last time you had a friend of the male persuasion who cuddled with you while watching a movie? Also, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that Sebastian’s idea of a great Saturday isn’t a LOTR marathon, which should tell you everything you need to know.”

  “This is a clear case of confirmation bias. You know that I have more-than-friendly feelings for Sebastian, and you think that Sebastian returns those feelings. Therefore, you are interpreting ambiguous data in a manner that supports your hypothesis that Sebastian likes me.”

  “Oh my fucking God, Lennon, this isn’t rocket science. He held your hand, he pulled you practically onto his lap, he kissed your freaking forehead, and found a way to basically be touching you the entire night. Please tell me how any of that is ambiguous.” Her face was actually starting to turn an alarming shade of red. “I repeat, this isn’t fucking rocket science!”

  I looked down at my plate, taking a few seconds to order my thoughts before responding.

  “I’m scared, okay?” I watched her face soften as she absorbed my confession, transforming her expression from frustrated to understanding mixed with sympathy. “I like him a lot. Way more than is smart. I get that the idea of leagues is completely arbitrary, but it doesn’t change the reality that he is way out of my league. We exist in two totally different worlds. I don’t know how to reconcile that with the signs that he may have feelings for me too. I don’t want to get my hopes up.”

  “I get that, Lennon, I really do. We’re humans, which means we love us some categories. Even when you understand that those categories are dumb and arbitrary, it’s still easy to get wrapped up in them. But I also think you need to give Sebastian a little credit. Trust that he isn’t just some hotshot professional athlete, because we both know you wouldn’t be into him if he fit that stereotype,” Janie said, managing to infuse the perfect amount of softness and firmness into her voice.

  “You’re right. I know everything you’re saying is valid, but that doesn’t make it easier or less scary.”

  “Yeah, but sometimes you have to be brave to get what you want. I mean, look at Marie Curie. Madame Curie was a woman, so she wasn’t supposed to be intelligent and driven. She was supposed to be meek and subservient. Everyone was like ‘but you are a woman,’” Janie said in a horrible French accent, “‘you cannot do zee science,’ and Marie was like ‘hold my pipette, bitches.’ And now we have X-rays!”

  I laughed, but she held up a finger to stop me from responding.

  “Don’t interrupt me, I’m on a roll. I have one more point to make and that will conclude my speech. You and Patrick were perfect together on paper, same category and everything. And look what happened with him. He ghosted you.”

  I let out a strangled gasp. “He did not ghost me!”

  She arched an eyebrow. “How many days ago did you last message him?”

  “Three,” I admitted. “But maybe he hasn’t checked his email lately.”

  “Or his text messages? Time to face it, girlie, you got ghosted.” She smiled smugly, ripping a breadstick in half with her teeth.

  “Ugh, I know I should be thankful that it appears Patrick has lost interest, but I still feel kind of annoyed. I thought our date went really well, and he indicated that he was very interested in a second date. Plus, I spent a lot of time coming up with a break-up speech that didn’t actually utilize the words ‘break up’ since our relationship status was undefined.”

  “Men are dogs. Accept it and move on,” she said, like she hadn’t just spent a solid thirty minutes trying to convince me to have sex with a man. “Listen, you need to decide whether you’re going to be a Marie who goes after her dream and gives humanity the gift of polonium and radium, or if you’re going to be a coward who splits frozen dinners with her cat. Your choice.”

  “Geez Louise, when you put it like that…” My phone dinged, making me forget what I was going to say. Both our eyes darted to the screen.

  Sebastian: We never got to have that celebration dinner. Wednesday?

  Janie’s face said it all. Time to be brave. I picked up the phone and sent my response.

  Me: I’m free Wednesday.

  I looked at Janie, nodding my head firmly. Hoping like crazy that this newfound bravery lasted another two days.

  37.

  My bravery had deserted me. It was completely, totally AWOL. I paced the sidewalk outside Sebastian’s gorgeous building and read his last message for at least the tenth time.

  Sebastian: I’m so sorry. Practice ran long. I’m running about 20 minutes late. I’ll be there as soon as I can.

  Sebastian: I can call security and have them let you into the building if you’d like.

  He’d sent that message over thirty-five minutes ago. I wasn’t mad. LA traffic made the very best-intentioned estimates spectacularly wrong. I had driven straight here from work and gotten stuck multiple times myself. But every second that ticked by made me more and more nervous.

  I stopped pacing, craning my head up to take in the building. His building had security. Security and a well-manicured lawn with plants and flowers. My building had a door that was supposed to lock but had been broken since approximately the beginning of time. Our landscaping was the occasional dandelion that managed to break through a crack in the cement. A warm breeze ruffled the flowing pink blouse I’d borrowed from Paige, sending one of the thin straps sliding down my shoulder. I slid it back into place, turning to walk to my car. This was a bad idea. I wasn’t prepared to be brave on Sebastian’s home turf. Splitting frozen dinners with Boomer didn’t sound that bad.

  Too late. Sebastian was jogging toward me with a duffel bag slung across one shoulder. I gulped. His sleeveless shirt put his arms on full display, and the muscles of his legs were highlighted with each step. Biceps, and triceps, and deltoids; oh my! Time slowed down and I heard each thump of my heart pounding in my ears.
My ovaries promptly told my head to shut the frick up right now and then did a happy dance in celebration. I felt slightly lightheaded by the time he came to a stop in front of me, and I said a silent prayer that I wasn’t actually drooling.

  He gave me a chagrined smile, leaning forward to place a quick kiss on my cheek. He smelled like dried sweat and fresh sunshine. Fresh sunshine? My brain had clearly shut off.

  “I’m so unbelievably sorry.”

  It took a few seconds for his words to break through the hormone fog that had flooded my brain.

  “It’s okay,” I sighed, my cheek tingling from his lips. “LA traffic is the worst.”

  He chuckled, sliding his hand down my arm to take my hand. He led me toward his building, sneaking glances at me from the corner of his eye. I didn’t call him on it, because I was sneaking too many glances of my own.

  “Are you sure you’re not mad?” he asked, holding up a toggle to the fancy security box.

  The door beeped, followed by a click. He leaned forward and tugged the door open. I kept my eyes on those biceps the whole time. Watching them flex while performing a simple task made that lightheaded feeling return in full force. Even the blast of air conditioning that hit me when I walked in did nothing to cool me down.

  “Of course not,” I finally answered, not bothering to look at him because I was too busy taking in the gorgeous lobby, complete with an actual security desk. “Things happen.”

  “You’re amazing, do you know that?” he asked, waving to the two men behind the desk and heading to the elevator.

  “For not being mad at you over something that’s not your fault?” I scrunched up my nose in confusion. I stepped into the elevator and watched as he held his toggle up to an electronic pad above the normal elevator buttons.