“Sorry for the wait,” I said, topping off glasses. “Crazy night.”
“No worries, man.” One of the guys grinned up at me. “Wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. This place is awesome.”
“Thanks. Let me know if you need anything else.”
I was heading back to the bar when I heard a voice, loud and confident, cutting through the ambient noise with the particular tone of someone who wanted to be overheard.
“—so there I was, floating in the ISS, and Mission Control is telling me the oxygen levels are critical—”
I stopped walking and turned.
At table nine, a guy in an expensive blazer was leaning across the table toward his date, gesturing expansively while he stirred his drink with the kindof fixed expression that suggested he was contemplating escape routes.
“—and I’m thinking, this is it. This is how I die. Then I remembered my training, all those years at NASA, and I just . . . took control.”
His date blinked. “You were an astronaut?”
“For six years, top of my class at Houston. They called me ‘Ice’ because I never cracked under pressure.”
I caught Benji’s eye across the bar. He’d been listening, too, because his face was dancing between horror and delight.
“Didn’t you say you were a hedge fund manager?” the date asked.
“Before NASA. And after. I like to stay busy.”
“And the astronaut thing was . . . between hedge funds?”
“Exactly.” The guy nodded like this made perfect sense. “NASA recruited me personally. My spatial reasoning scores were off the charts.”
I had to keep moving. If I stood here any longer, I was going to laugh, and that would be unprofessional; but dear God, the man was claiming to be a part-time astronaut.
On a first date.
In a bar full of queens who could hear every word.
Benji appeared at my elbow, having abandonedhis post under the pretense of needing more lime wedges. “Please tell me you’re hearing this.”
“Oh, I’m hearing it.”
“A part-time astronaut who also runs a hedge fund?”
“And was top of his class at Houston.”
“They called him Ice.”
“Because he never cracks under pressure.”
We both looked at the table.
The date had pulled out his phone and appeared to be googling something. George Jetson (that’s what we nicknamed him right away) was still talking, now describing the view of Earth from orbit.
“The auroras are incredible from up there. Most people don’t realize you can see them from space. I have photos, but they’re classified, national security, of course.”
“Classified astronaut photos,” Benji whispered. “Of auroras.”
I groaned, barely restraining a laugh. “I . . . can’t.”
“Get back to work, both of you.” Finn materialized behind us, though I caught the twitch at the corner of his mouth. “And Benji, if you’re getting limes, actually get limes.”
