“How about a little stargazing instead?” Luke peered up at the one hundred-year-old observatory, its stout limestone base supporting a concrete silo and metallic dome.
“Isn’t it closed?” Gracie asked.
“Yes, but that doesn’t mean we can’t go in.”
Teddy pushed himself between them. Trouble, Gracie… abort, abort.
Luke suddenly withdrew keys from his pocket and approached the main entrance of the observatory under a broad archway. He unlocked the door and glanced back at Gracie.
“Do you work here?”
“Nope, we’re officially breaking in. Just doing it with the keys.”
Gracie halted under the threshold of the entrance.
That’s right. Don’t let him sucker you into this…
“Oh, c’mon on now, Sassy…I thought you’d be a braver girl than that.”
Jerk-off.
“Getting kicked out of school for trespassing on campus property is not exactly my idea of being brave. It’s my idea of being stupid.”
That’s my girl.
“Hey, you’re the one who said you didn’t want the standard dinner date. And don’t tell me that you’re not a tad bit curious.”
Gracie eyed Luke as he passed into the observatory and across the dark Victorian foyer to the foot of the main staircase. There, in the corner of the foyer, was a cast iron antique safe—the size of a vintage ice box. Luke bent down to rotate its brass combination lock.
“One of my fraternity brothers is an astronomy major,” Luke explained. “He gives the public tours here every Friday night. But on Saturdays, it’s free and clear.”
Luke swung open the safe’s door and retrieved its treasure. “Voilà,” he said, jingling the observatory’s keys in the air.
Gracie peered at him. “You know this is really wrong, don’t you?”
“It’s only wrong if we get caught. Fifty-five minutes, Sassy,” Luke coaxed her with a flip of the keys. “Don’t tell me you’re all bark and no bite?”
The last thing Gracie Harris wanted was to give Luke Ellington the satisfaction of making her look weak, which Teddy knew was her only weakness. She trailed him up the main staircase to the first landing, then towards the foot of a second staircase, wading through blackness to a narrow set of curving wooden steps. There was an entrance at the top—a miniature iron door, painted black and reinforced with uneven rivets. Luke inserted his key into a crudely-cut hole and pulled down on the door latch, thrusting his whole weight against the door jam. The dungeon door skid open, screeching heavy on its century-old hinges. Flicking on the lights, Luke revealed the interior of the observatory and its enormous telescope, resting in the center of a circular room with original hardwood floors and maple paneled walls. The cathedral dome arched fifty feet into the air, an aluminum egg shell protecting the telescope from sunlight and rain. The air was cold and musty like the inside of a moldy refrigerator. But even Teddy was impressed.
“Wow, look at this!” Gracie exclaimed, then quickly covered her mouth as her high-pitched voice echoed against the metallic dome like an acoustic ping pong.
“Pretty cool, huh? Sounds like you’re inside a beer can.” Luke’s voice darted left to right, top to bottom, before pinching into silence. Gracie approached the telescope and peered up at its thirty-foot tubular canon, dwarfing Luke and Gracie. It was suspended upside down, its far end almost touching the apex of the dome and its eye piece dangling at shoulder height.
“Don’t ask me how this thing works because I have no idea,” Luke admitted, taking a glimpse into the eye piece. “And Jerry said if I touch the telescope, he’ll kill me. But watch this—”
Jeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry…Teddy called out. But he knew it was futile. Luke was in control now, and there wasn’t a damn thing that Teddy could do about it.
Luke pushed two call buttons on an old-style elevator panel. The room shuttered with a mechanical gyration as two giant panels of the dome abruptly unhinged and slowly retracted like vertical window shades. The fresh night air was sucked into the insular space, and Gracie gazed up into the expansive midnight. The infinite universe was splattered with stars, speckles of sparkling paint against a navy canvas. The telescope pointed towards the opening in the dome, a white missile waiting to be launched out into the unencumbered night.
“Look, there’s Mars.” Luke pointed.
“Where?”
Luke grabbed Gracie’s hand and towed her towards him. “Look, there,” he directed her gaze. “That fiery, red dot blinking high above the horizon in the east.”
“I see it!” Gracie exclaimed. “Wow… it’s so red.”
“Its orbit is the closest to the Earth tonight, more than any other night for the next 2.2 years.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. A pretty rare occurrence. Kinda like the number of times you meet someone special.”
Luke flashed Gracie a smirk, and Gracie rolled her eyes, acknowledging Luke’s deliberate attempt to lay it on thick.
“How come you know so much about stars, anyway? I thought you were an econ major.”
“I’m an econ major, but only because my father’s paying for my tuition, so I can graduate and help him run his company, not sit around and stargaze.”
“You could always pay your tuition yourself. Then you’d be able to do whatever you’d want.”
Luke shrugged and peered out into the vast sky. “Some days, I wish I could do a lot of things. You know, it might sound kind of dumb, but I come up here when I want to be alone and think about the world. Just look out at the stars and wonder what’s it all about? What’s the point, you know? Is there meaning to it all?”
Gracie studied Luke, drawn in by his confession. “Do you really think there’s a point to it all?” she asked. “I mean, a reason behind everything? Some kind of predetermined destiny or purpose or something?”
“Why not? That’s what Einstein believed. The Therory of Determinism. All future events are predetermined.”
“Well, I guess it’s hard for me to believe that when there’s so much suffering in the world.” Gracie’s thoughts quickly passed over her own hardships, her father’s death, her mother’s heartache, her own struggle to balance school and work.
“Besides, I want to live my life as my life, not like an actor playing out a pre-written role.” Gracie circled around the telescope, attempting to peer into its eye piece.
“Just because you’re acting in a play doesn’t mean you can’t make up your own lines as you go along.”
Teddy rolled his eyes. Oh please. Somebody stab me, now.
“Oh, jeez,” Gracie laughed. Where did you read that?”
Luke stuffed his hands in his pocket, and leaned against the curved wall of the observatory. “The back of my Wheaties box this morning.”
“Yeah, right,” Gracie snapped. “Well, you wanna know what I think about when I look up at all those stars in the sky?”
“Shoot.”
“I wonder about all the lonely people in the world, and I wish they weren’t so lonely.”
Both Teddy and Luke peered over at Gracie, but it was Luke’s eyes that held her gaze. “Maybe a lot of those people choose to be alone, even though they don’t have to be.”
“Or maybe being around the wrong people makes them feel lonely,” Gracie corrected him.
“Well, how do those ‘people’ feel…” Luke said, approaching her with delicate caution, “about hanging out in an observatory with a rich kid from the Northshore?”
Luke glanced at Gracie. Gracie glanced at Luke.
“I don’t know,” she betrayed a smile. “I’m still trying to decide.”
“Trying to decide on whether or not you’re having fun yet?”
“No, trying to decide on the number of other girls you’ve invited up here.”
That’s my girl. Don’t let him think that this song and dance is actually working on you.
“Zero,” Luke countered, his smug smile fading away with a solemn glan
ce up into the starry night. “I always come up here alone—until now.”
“Oh, I see—” Gracie said, circling around the telescope and away from him. “I suppose that means I’m supposed to trust you.”
“You know, Sassy, it’s not a bad thing to trust me just a little, and let your guard down. I’m pretty sure you might actually have a good time.”
“I just think you need someone to keep you honest,” Gracie confessed. “And I’m not sure I want to be that girl.”
“What if I think you’re the perfect girl?”
“Then I’d say you’re lying because you hardly know me.”
“Fair enough,” Luke smirked, realizing Gracie had caught him spun up again in his own flirtatious web. “But you wanna know what I do know?”
“Shoot.”
“I think deep inside…you’re not as tough as you seem.”
Luke held Gracie’s gaze, a long look of unspoken understanding as she stood in a solitary beam of moonlight. Teddy glanced over at Luke with hatred. It was as if he knew her without even trying. After a moment, Gracie broke their connection and nodded towards the telescope.
“I think you should figure out how to work that thing. Otherwise, we’ll have to wait 2.2 years just to see Mars the same way again.”
Luke hesitated, a departure from his routine nonchalance. “We could get in trouble.”
“Yeah, I know,” Gracie nudged him. “But I don’t mind a little bit of trouble. Especially for something rare.”
Their eyes settled on each other’s gaze in a natural moment of silence before Luke set about examining the switch box connected to the telescope. Teddy, on the other hand, felt a deep desire to retch into Luke’s designer loafers.
“He’s right, you know,” a familiar voice called from the shadows. “She’s not as tough as she seems.”
“Son-of-a-bit…” Teddy stopped cold, suddenly realizing exactly what was going on. “It’s you—”
Teddy turned to see Louis Castellini, a three-thousand-year-old keeper with a dubious track record of overseeing lascivious lower dimension assignments—rakes, libertines, and immoral playboys—all with penchants for playing the female field, regardless of the century.
“Boy, she certainly needs to learn how to loosen up,” Lou added, all sunshine and smiles. “What’s the matter, kid? You don’t look happy to see me.”
“You’re Luke’s keeper? Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse…” Teddy held his head.
“You get Louie, Louie,” Lou winked.
“Please… just put me out of my misery and make me self-combust.”
Teddy glared at Lou with profound disdain. This was their relationship in a nutshell—ever since Teddy and Lou had first met—back in the fifteenth century when Lou’s pageboy knocked up Teddy’s dairymaid. He was starting to believe it wasn’t a coincidence that he and Lou were meeting again, especially considering the fact that Lou routinely was watching over bad boys with negative energy, and Teddy was always assigned to women who couldn’t seem to resist them.
“Well, let me be the first to congratulate the happy couple.”
Teddy flashed a wicked glance at Lou.
“Guess who’s marrying Luke in three years?”
“No—” Teddy insisted. “No way. Absolutely no way.”
“Way, kid. Straight from the Dimension Council.”
“No, Lou. This is only one date. One. After this, Gracie’s right back to putting the freeze on this jerk.”
“Oh, really? Looks like you missed the memo, hot off the press from DC Central.” Lou waved a paper in front of Teddy’s nose, taunting him with arrogance. “No way around it now. It’s signed, sealed, and delivered. A little something called, ‘Destiny.’”
Teddy pawed at the paper, attempting to snatch the victory flag from his hand, but Lou whirled away and tucked the page inside his suit jacket. Lou had worn the same 1920s suit jacket and butterfly collared shirt since Prohibition; there was something endearing to him about an era that smuggled alcohol and glorified gangsters.
“There is no way that Luke is part of Gracie’s Destiny.”
“Look, I’m not thrilled about it either. In fact, it seems to me that your girl is all wrong for Luke. Like she’s got an inferiority complex or something.”
“As opposed to Luke’s superiority complex?”
“Yeah,” Lou goaded Teddy. “And she’s a little bit…you know. Boring. She needs somebody to show her a good time. Make her believe there’s more to living than just death, distrust, and hardship. Make her believe that she deserves to be happy, you know? Because right now, kid, she’s so damn sad on the inside it’s almost making me weepy-eyed.”
“Maybe that’s because you finally realize that your assignments are always douche bags.”
“I said almost, didn’t I?” Lou corrected Teddy, circling around the observatory and peering up at the night sky through the dome’s opening.
“Boy, would you look at that?” Lou sighed. “Kinda makes you wish you were still up there, lounging around in star dust in the higher dimensions, instead of down here, babysitting lower dimension assignments in a screwed up spatial world.”
Lou padded down his suit’s breast pocket, withdrawing a pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket.
“But then, again… the spatial world is the only place that has these…” He lit up the cigarette and attempted to inhale its fibrous tip. “Someday, maybe I’ll actually have a chance to enjoy the real thing instead of just the idea of it.” Lou had been hanging around the spatial world since before the Romans, and he still hadn’t given up on trying to enjoy a real physical cigarette.
“Well, maybe the spatial world wouldn’t be so screwed up if you didn’t let your assignments hit on my assignments.”
“I hate to break it to you, kid,” Lou gazed at Teddy, sidelong, “but this isn’t all about Gracie, even though I know your 455-year-old kindergarten existence has a hard time believing the planet doesn’t revolve around your assignment’s happiness. She’s gonna make Luke a better man. Show him the error of his ways, get him to settle down, teach him how to really love a woman, yadda, yadda, yadda, and all that nonsense,” Lou took an indulgent drag, as if he really could savor it.
“I thought that was your job,” Teddy countered.
“I like it better when your girls do the work for me. And besides, you know what this really means, don’t you? It means you and me… we’re gonna spend every damn day together for the rest of our assignments’ married lives.”
“Not if I can help it.”
Lou smiled like a sly Cheshire. “Well, there’s nothing you can do about it. If you intervene, you’ll be removed from your post as Gracie’s keeper; you’ll be sent right back to pigeon probation, and I doubt you could handle lower dimension pigeon duty for another two months, much less for eternity.”
“I’m being punished,” Teddy whined, cradling his head. “It’s all part of some big Dimension Council conspiracy against me.”
“Hey, cheer up, cry baby. Maybe the Dimension Council just thinks you could learn a thing or two from me.”
“Like what? How to keep your teeth after three thousand years?”
“Look, I get that you despise me,” Lou reached out for Teddy’s hand and blunted out his cigarette in Teddy’s palm. Teddy watched its embers fade away into oblivion. “And I’m happy to report the feeling is mutual. But right now, your girl thinks she doesn’t deserve to be happy, and Luke’s gonna change all that.”
“I can take care of Gracie myself, just fine, thanks. We don’t need your Prince Charming Ellington and his cheesy, playboy pick-up lines saving poor Cinderella.”
“Well, you don’t have much say in the matter. It’s a mandate from the Dimension Council, which means it’s their Destiny to be together, and the only person who can change that now is Gracie and her Free Will.”
Lou glanced over his shoulder at Gracie and Luke. “And it looks like Gracie’s Free Will just might give Luke a ch
ance.”
“Watch this,” Luke said, flipping off the lights in observatory, shrouding its interior in darkness.
“Luke!” Gracie cried out in alarm.
“I’m here,” he whispered, slipping behind her and holding her hand. “Shhhhhh,” he calmed her in the dark. “Now, watch—”
Like the underground illumination of a bomb shelter, dim red lights suddenly flickered on.
“White lights refract in your eyes,” Luke explained. “It clutters your vision when you try to look up into the night sky. But red lights make everything clearer. Now, look into the telescope.” Luke guided Gracie’s body to the eye piece and she peered out into infinity.
“I can see, Mars,” Gracie exclaimed. “I can see it perfectly. It looks like a sparkling ruby.” Gracie smiled and relaxed in Luke’s embrace. They were enveloped by shadows, illuminated only by the observatory’s infrared scarlet glow.
Teddy watched as Luke and Gracie fell silent. Luke stared intently at her. There was a connection between them. They both felt it. Luke slowly coaxed Gracie towards him before cautiously kissing her, his lips tenderly touching her own. It was an unexpected expression of genuine attraction. Lou was right. Teddy was losing her.
“Yep, kid… just what I thought,” Lou noted with dry victory. “Looks like she just might give Destiny a chance after all.”
When Luke pulled away, he embraced her as they peered up at the stars. Teddy gazed at Gracie’s carefree smile, something he hadn’t seen in a long time. It was true that she needed to believe she deserved to be happy like everyone else. Since her dad’s death, Gracie’s life had been filled with nothing but struggle and grief. There never seemed to be enough unburdened moments to make her smile. Just endless hardship—long hours of work and worry—keeping her from daring to dream about a happier life. But Teddy knew that Gracie deserved to be happy like everyone else. She deserved to struggle less and enjoy life more. She deserved to be taken out to fancy dinners, attend Puccini operas, and stargaze in the romantic moonlight. But more than anything, Gracie deserved to find true love. The problem was—Teddy wasn’t confident that Luke Ellington was the one person to love Gracie more than anything, even if the Dimension Council mandated that it was her Destiny. In fact, Teddy became more and more certain Luke Ellington would be the one person who would break her heart.
Love, Greater Than Infinity (Book 1: New Adult Romance) Page 4