“What did the data say? Were you destined for NASA?” I asked, picturing Luke leaping off the trampoline with all the recklessness and enthusiasm a child could muster.
“Not even close. It was all fun and games until I landed weird off a jump and face-planted on the concrete walkway. Blood started gushing from my nose. Carrie wigged out. She pressed one of the pillows to my face, sobbing and apologizing, swearing she’d invent better, accident-proof moon boots next time. Whenwe told my mom what had happened and she saw me bloody, clutching a pillow to my face, she threw her hands up and went, ‘Well, let this be a lesson. This is what happens when you run unsanctioned space programs.’”
“She wasn’t mad at you?” I asked, trying to fathom such a reality. Anything that would have forced my mom to take care of me would have aggravated her.
“No way. She was worried, sure, but also kinda amused. She loaded us into the car and took me to the hospital. I’d busted my nose so bad I needed surgery. When the doctors asked what happened, Carrie told them it was my first astronaut injury from a lunar landing gone wrong.”
“Bet your medical team got a kick out of that.”
“Totally. The doctor played along, asked if I was considering early retirement after such a catastrophic mission failure. My mom jumped in and said I’d be forced into retirement for safety violations and unauthorized launch procedures. And she meant it, ’cause the next day she bought safety nets for the trampoline so it couldn’t happen again. But to soften the blow, she also came home with a science center brochure and said if I wanted, she’d sign me up for their after-school space program.”
“That’s really nice,” I said, struck by the way his mom met his childhood interests with encouragement, fostering curiosity and adventure instead of anger.
“Yeah. Both our parents were like that. If we came up with some wild idea, they’d do whatever they could to make it real. They wanted us to aim high, even if we crash-landed a bunch along the way.”
Luke continued to share stories of his childhood, and my eyelids grew heavier with each pass of his fingers through my hair. Before too long I descended into sleep.
When I woke again, the light of dawn had begun its infiltration through the slatted blinds. For a few disorienting moments, I drifted in that space where sleep and waking entwined, my mind sluggish.
I realized Luke’s hand still rested in my hair. Moving carefully so as not to wake him, I tilted my head to look at him. He’d fallen asleep sitting up, slumped into the couch with his head tipped at an uncomfortable angle, legs still planted on the floor to keep me settled in his lap. Guilt hit. I needed to stop asking him to compromise his own comfort for me.
Minutes later, his alarm went off, vibrating with a soft buzz against the coffee table where he’d left his phone. Luke stirred with a drowsy noise—a low, rumbling protest to the waking world—and let out the cutest little snuffle as he blinked into consciousness.
He fumbled for his phone, silencing the alarm. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “I hope it didn’t wake you.”
“No, I was already awake,” I said, sitting up off him.
“Did you sleep at all?”
“I did. I haven’t been up long, maybe five minutes or so.”
Luke stretched out the stiffness in his limbs with a quiet groan. “I’m glad you got some sleep. You looked peaceful.”
“You, on the other hand... I can’t imagine being half hunched over the arm of the couch with your torso twisted in the opposite direction to your legs is particularly comfortable. You didn’t have to stay out here with me.”
“And risk waking you up when I moved? Not a chance. I slept fine. A little crick in the neck is nothing, it’ll be gone by the time I’m through with my workout this morning. Speaking of which, I have to get going.”
Luke pushed himself upright, tilting his neck until it gave a soft pop. He ambled into the kitchen and began fiddling with the coffee maker. When the coffee finished brewing, he filled histravel mug, then poured the rest into a ceramic cup. He added a generous splash of the caramel creamer he’d bought when he found I liked it, stirring it in before passing it to me.
I still found myself shocked at how readily Luke had integrated me into his life. I kept waiting for the moment it would shift, when the unspoken debt would be named and everything he offered came with conditions. But that moment hadn’t come and there was no hint it ever would. Luke did all these small, thoughtful things with no tab to settle, just the simple, radical desire for me to feel like I belonged. The strangest part was, I did.
Chapter 11
Luke
You were going for it during class today,” Ezra said as we cooled down in the locker room after our ninety-minute weekly jiu-jitsu session.
“Just makin’ sure you’re getting your money’s worth,” I said, toweling the sweat off my neck. Truth was, I’d been pushing way past normal. Not my healthiest coping strategy, but every time we squared up, I kept picturing Vincent’s face on my grappling partner. If tossing Ezra around a few extra times helped bleed off the rage I wasn’t allowed to have elsewhere, then yeah... worth it.
Ezra gave me one of his patented once-overs. The kind where he reads your soul like it’s a hundred-dollar bill that he’s checking for fraud. “Everything okay at work?”
“Yeah. Same old, same old.”
Ezra’s eyebrow lifted. He usually managed to make it look regal, rather than skeptical, though right now that look definitely meant skeptical. After more than a decade of friendship, he knew me too well to buy my surface-level crap.
“Damn it, Ez,” I groaned, grabbing my gym bag. “Sometimes I hate how good you are at psychic detective mind-reading me. I’ll talk, but can we not do this convo in a room full of sweaty dudes in towels?”
“Sure thing.”
