"If you see me strip out of my flight suit, you should do the same." Sebastian lowered his zipper another inch.
"Like, now?" I asked.
"When we're in the airlock," he said.
"It'll be colder back there," I said. "Why?—"
"Trust me. If you don't, you'll shred it when you …" He trailed off, staring at the monitor. "Are we drifting away from the line?"
I leaned toward the console, studying the trajectory. I ran the simulation again, and it followed the original path around the moon without crossing out of the Lagrange points' influence.
"It's working as planned."
"I don't trust it," he said. "Something feels off." He snapped his seatbelt back into place and adjusted the straps over his shoulders. "I'm going to try to take a nap until the alarms go off. You should, too."
He shut his eyes, and I recognized the box breathing pattern he used. After a few minutes, his shoulders relaxed and he loosened his grip on his armrests.
I repeated the simulation and set an extra alarm on my watch for five minutes before the shuttle's computer would warn us to prepare for our experiments. Then, I attempted to relax in my seat, practicing the deep breathing techniques I learned in group therapy. I succeeded until Sebastian shifted in his seat, breaking my concentration.
"Your company's astronaut training kinda sucks," I blurted. I might have relaxed a little too much.
"Not my company," he said. "Aeronautics is all my dad."
"We didn't have any psychological training."
"Bunting thought you didn't need it. He said your heart monitor stayed within the calm range, even when he thought you should be freaking out."
"He told you that?" Any discussion of my medical records seemed like a breach of privacy, but then, so did sticking an unauthorized camera in the airlock and not telling anyone about it.
"I overheard him talking with … well, it doesn't matter. I shouldn't have listened. I didn't always hear this well."
I glanced over at him. Neither of us was sweating as badly now, and he looked much more relaxed.
"What happened the first time you were up here?" I asked.
"It's a long story," he said. "Probably best saved for after our experiments."
My intuition kicked in at mention of the experiments we'd be conducting in the airlock. I couldn't disable it from my console, but I could make sure the feed never left the shuttle. While Sebastian dozed, I worked through the mainframe, searching for the communication uplink rendezvous.
CHAPTER 5
SEBASTIAN
Gunnar smelled so good.I tried to ignore it, not wanting to alarm him. Thankfully, my console readings and the trajectory headings kept my attention on work.
One false move up here, and we would both end up dead. Could wolves survive in open space? I didn't think so. We still had to breathe. I'd shredded my flight suit when I'd shifted into a wolf the first time, but my helmet had stayed on well enough to supply much needed oxygen. Bunting had called it a state-of-the-art static shield that used my wolf fur as an energy conductor to form an airtight seal around my neck.
If Gunnar turned wolfy up here, I hoped he had enough common sense to listen to me and remove his flight suit. He would need a working suit to return to earth's atmosphere.
Breathing was becoming increasingly difficult as Gunnar's scent permeated the small space. I'd known I was a wolf for six months now, and this was the first time I'd ever experienced a scent so overwhelming. Hestill smelled like sunflowers and sage, but beneath that was something sweet and savory, like steak and honey. I wanted to strip him out of his flight suit and lick him from his neck to his toes.
When I imagined kissing him, I shut that shit down. As the most experienced astronaut on this shuttle with all of one mission behind me, I knew the odds for disaster were high. On my last mission, we'd veered outside the protective range of the Lagrange points, which Dr. Bunting had credited for my shift. If Gunnar was a shifter like me, he would probably need the same catalyst to shift for the first time.
So far, all the tech read-outs were normal. The flight simulation said we would make our trip around the moon without any problems. Side calculations matched.
I couldn't prove it, but my gut told me we would be getting furry before we headed home. That feeling kept me on high alert, even as I tried to rest up before we conducted our experiments.
I drifted in and out of sleep over the next few hours. An unfamiliar alarm woke me. I turned to find Gunnar unbuckling his seatbelts.
