Page 25 of All the way home

His instinct is to ask how Kieran can tell, but the words dry up on the way from his brain to his mouth.

“Comp sci,” Kieran guesses.

Zach shakes his head.

“Am I in the right department?”

“Not yet.”

With a squint, Kieran angles his head, still surveying Zach closely. “Are you one of those dudes who is just, like, straight-up majoring in math?”

An edge of a smile creeps up. “Closer.”

“It’s something sciencey, isn’t it?” When Zach nods, Kieran snaps his fingers as though remembering something. “Wait. Wait. The, uh . . . the book you were reading. The Glass Universe. Is that sort of a hint?”

Zach gives in to the smile. “You could call it that.”

“Astronomy.” Kieran’s eyes brighten. “That’s my guess.”

“Astrophysics,” Zach corrects.

As though impressed, Kieran whistles low. “So I was right that you’re a numbers guy.”

“I’m a planets guy,” Zach says, which is honestly the simplest explanation of his personality boiled down to one condensed fact.

“So does that mean you can tell me what it means that I’m a Sagittarius?”

“That’s astrology.” Zach doesn’t add that he could tell him what it means, in case he accidentally undermines his own point. It was impossible to grow up in the Loren household without receiving a basic education on the zodiac signs and their relative meanings.

“Right.” Kieran seems unfazed. “That’s cool though. Astrophysics.”

Face heating up when Kieran whistles low again, Zach shakes his head. “It’s not like . . . ”

But he doesn’t know what it’s not like. People make a strange face when he tells them, like he’s impressive, and he doesn’t like that. The last thing he needs is to have to live up to some ill-conceived notion that he’s anything remarkable, or to correct them on whatever they think studying astrophysics means.

When Kieran opens his mouth, Zach can already see the outline of the question he’s gearing up to ask.

“I’m not trying to be an astronaut,” Zach tells him. “If that’s what you were wondering.”

“It was what I was wondering.” With a startled smile, Kieran changes tacks. “What do you want to do with an astrophysics degree, then?”

“It’s not about that,” Zach bursts out, because he hates that question too. Everyone asks it, and there isn’t a simple answer. There’s no simple way to say that he doesn’t really know—that he just likes learning about all of it—without sounding like a total nerd.

Which he is. But he has a feeling that nerd might not be Kieran’s thing.

His stomach lurches.

So he wants to be Kieran’s thing.

“What is it about?” Kieran asks, like he really wants to know.

Taking a deep breath, Zach tells him, “I just like learning about the stars.”

Kieran’s smile is a reward in and of itself.

“If I get to work for NASA or the CSA on the other end, that’s just a bonus.”

“What’s the CSA?”