When The Stars Align

by Jeanette Grey

  In the driver’s seat, Heather tipped her head to look at them in the rearview mirror. “Yeah. Why?”

  “Can you drop me off there?” Jo asked.

  Heather scrunched up her brow. “Now?” Adam was thinking the same thing.

  Jo nodded. “I just need to check some things real quick.”

  Shrugging, Heather said, “Sure, I guess.”

  “Awesome.” Jo turned to Adam and shifted as if to move out of his way so he could get out.

  Nope. No chance. He had less than zero interest in stopping at the office now, at eight o’clock on a Saturday night after a day at the beach, but if he let Jo go, his chances of coaxing her to his room declined exponentially. He cleared his throat. “I’ll go with you.”

  Heather’s mouth twisted up into a too-knowing smile, but Adam wasn’t focused on that. Jo turned to him. “Really?”

  “Sure.” He didn’t have to explain what he’d be doing there. Chances were he’d mostly be following her around, trying to keep her from staying too late. “Why not?”

  “I can only think of about a million reasons.”

  So could he. He kept them to himself.

  Once everyone else had cleared out, more than a couple of them shaking their heads at him, he and Jo hopped up to sit closer to the front for the quick drive to the observatory. Heather and Lisa were nice enough to drop them in front of the office building instead of making them hike in from the back lot where the van usually got parked.

  “Have fun,” Lisa told them as they got out.

  Heather winked. “But not too much fun.”

  “Ha-ha,” Jo said, desert dry, and Adam marveled again that she was having such an easy time joking about it now.

  He kept his peace, walking alongside her halfway down the empty hall. Until finally he couldn’t contain it anymore. “What happened?”

  “Hmm?”

  “You were so worried about everybody finding out, or thinking less of you. Then today, you suddenly decide you don’t care?”

  “Why? Do you care?”

  Of course he cared, only not in the way she was implying. “I told you. I’ve been wanting to show you off since day one.”

  She rolled her eyes at that but didn’t actively call bullshit.

  And maybe he was pressing. He grabbed her arm, stopping her before they could go any farther. Pulling her around until she was facing him. “Seriously, though. What changed?”

  She hesitated, her gaze going to the side before returning to him. Even then, it focused somewhere to the right of his ear. “I don’t know. I just…” She shrugged, no affectation to it at all. Her defenses were so low he could hardly see how they were continuing to fall, but they were. For him. Standing straighter, she looked him in the eye. “I didn’t want to be afraid anymore.”

  His beautiful, brave girl.

  He leaned in, cupping a hand around her cheek. Laughing. “I’ve never met anybody less afraid than you.”

  He wanted to prove to her just how courageous, how amazing he thought she was, but before he could take that last step forward to catch her lips with his, a voice sounded out from the other end of the hall.

  “Ms. Kramer! There you are.”

  They turned as one to find P.J. peeking out of the doorway that led toward the telescope control room. Her expression was oddly expectant. Like she’d been waiting for Jo to drop by.

  Jo curled her hand around Adam’s and drew it down, away from her face without letting it go. “Dr. Galloway?”

  “Oh, and you’ve brought Mr. McCay with you. Lovely. Come along. We’re in here.” P.J. waved them to follow her. Adam looked to Jo questioningly, but she seemed as mystified as he was. P.J. held the door to the control room open for them, saying, “I wasn’t sure if you’d get my message, but we were able to squeeze in some observation time, and I was sure you’d want to see—”

  P.J. cut off as Jo froze. Her palm went clammy in Adam’s, and when he turned, it was to find her suddenly, shockingly pale.

  “Jo?”

  Jo’s throat worked convulsively before she choked out, “What’s he doing here?”

  Adam frowned, following her gaze to the bank of monitors. To the same chairs where he and Jo had sat together just a handful of nights before. A woman Adam had never met sat scrolling through the data, while to the side, near the racks of servers, stood a man. He was a little shorter than Adam, dressed in a black collared shirt and khakis, his hair going gray at the temples.

  At the sound of their voices, he looked over his shoulder at them, eyes sharp and dark. His chin lifted, his shoulders drawing back. He was staring right at Jo.

  P.J. faltered, and a sinking feeling crept into Adam’s gut.

  “Jo?” he repeated. “What’s going on?”

  “The hell if I know.”

  The man at the other end of the room took a single step forward. “Josephine.” He looked her up and down. “What on earth are you wearing?”

  Jo flinched, and Adam did, too. Gripping her tighter, Adam asked, “Jo? Who is that?”

  She pulled her hand from his.

  Voice wavering, speaking only loud enough for Adam to hear, she said, “My dad.”

  Oh, of course, her—

  “Wait, what?” For a second, all Adam could do was stand there, gawking between the two of them, absorbing all the things he’d missed the first time around. The shape of the man’s nose and the set of his eyes. The way he carried himself.

  A low, sudden burst of rage rolled through him.

  In this very room, Jo had told him about this man. Adam didn’t pretend to know the half of it, but he knew that this was the guy who’d made Jo feel like crap about herself for most of her life. The guy who’d made her feel like she wasn’t enough.

  It took everything he had in him not to walk right up to him and punch him in the face.

  But while he’d been wrapping his head around it all, Jo had taken a step away. And then another. She turned on her heels. Adam made to reach for her and pull her back, calling her name, but she shrugged him off and shouldered her way through the door.

  It felt like he’d been slapped.

  By the time he came to his senses, the door was slamming closed.

  And Jo was gone.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Jo stormed down the hallway, scarcely seeing where she was going and not even giving a flying fuck.

  It wasn’t fair.

  Here. Her father was here. Just when Jo had finally managed to make these huge strides in her life, the very day she’d opened up and let her goddamned guard down. Let herself stand in the ocean half naked, let her boyfriend kiss her in the surf—even fallen asleep on his shoulder. Just when she’d allowed herself to actually have fun for once, surrounded by these people who had become her friends.

  He had to show up here. Now. When for one fraction of a second she’d managed to be happy.

  The unfairness made her want to scream and stamp her feet like a fucking five-year-old.

  And oh God. The things Dr. Galloway had been saying as she’d beckoned Jo to join her. They hadn’t made any sense at the time, but they came together now, forming an ugly picture she could hardly stand to look at without spitting bile.

  She’d assumed Jo knew he was here. Of course.

  Jo turned the corner, out of sight, and put her back against the wall, rubbing the heels of her hands into her eyes until it hurt, until she saw stars, and she could claw them right out. A barking mockery of a laugh burned her throat, choking her like smoke. Like the ashes of the last twenty-one years. Because any normal father would tell his kid he was coming a few thousand miles to end up at the same tiny point on the map where he knew she was going to be.

  She’d told him. In an e-mail, the same way she communicated anything in the rare instances she had to. She’d gotten a terse acknowledgment, so he’d seen it all right. And shit. Fuck. She skated her hands to her hair and tugged, hard, yanked until her eyes watered, but her stupid brain still wouldn’t shut up
.

  She’d done everything she was supposed to. Followed him into the sciences and kicked ass at it, even if she was a girl and it was so goddamn hard. She hadn’t meant to, but she’d even picked astronomy, because she loved it, because it made sense to her. Not even out of any idiotic desire to prove something to him or to herself.

  And yet. Deep beneath it all, beneath the tattoos and piercings and bitch boots and everything else that told people to stay the hell away from her, she’d hoped. Hadn’t she?

  Still hoped, somewhere in the softest, most useless part of herself, that he’d… what? Be proud?

  She’d been so stupid.

  Dr. Galloway had said it herself. Her dad was here to do some observations. Not for her. Never, ever for her.

  And yet she still managed to be surprised.

  He’d insisted on calling her by her full name. Worse, the only thing he’d had to say to her beyond that was to ask her about her clothes. She tore her hands from her face and glanced down at herself, and hell, of course he had. She was grimy and covered in salt, her hair a wreck, and she wanted to tear these awful trunks off her body. She’d walk the whole way home buttfuck naked for all she cared. Because that would be better, wouldn’t it? At least that would make it clear exactly what she was.

  Back the way she’d come, a door opened, the sound of it followed by the rapid thuds of footfalls against linoleum tile. She calculated in her head. Probably Adam, but it could be her dad, and her heart rate soared. Neither option was good. Lord knew what she’d say to her father, and if it was Adam…

  No way could she handle that. She was falling to pieces here, and he’d want to, what? Hold her? No. Absolutely not. He already knew too much, and if he saw her like this… Just the idea of it had her muscles going taut. Not that it mattered. She was shaking. She’d been such a fool to let him see as much as he had already.

  She had to move.

  Peeling herself off the wall, she started putting distance between herself and whoever it was. She’d turned the wrong way in her rush to leave, toward her office instead of the exit, but that was fine. Maybe Adam or her dad would go the opposite direction. She’d sneak out the other door and circle around, get to her room—

  Where she’d have to hide this all inside again. Because she had a roommate. A roommate who was nice and normal, and Carol didn’t deserve… this. No more than Adam did. No more than Jo did.

  She didn’t deserve to have the root of all her fears show up here, in this place where she’d decided she was safe for once.

  The walls around her blurred, but she didn’t stop. The hallway disappeared beneath the soles of her boots, and she wasn’t hearing much, but if there was anyone behind her, they weren’t close, or they weren’t making a lot of noise. Hell, maybe they’d given up. That would be for the best, even if it ached.

  She somehow made it almost all the way to the observatory gates before the sound of someone running behind her broke past the buzzing in her head. Fuck. It had to be Adam then. Her father would never go to such lengths.

  Steeling herself, curling her hands into fists, she rounded on him. She didn’t want him here, and she was good at driving people off. It was what she did. What she’d always done, even when she hadn’t meant to…

  But he’d stopped. A good half dozen paces behind her, and he had his hands held up in front of himself like she was the cops or something. Trying to show he wasn’t armed.

  As if she couldn’t have figured that out for herself. The expression on his face… Fuck, unarmed, he might as well have been naked. Everything about him was soft and accommodating, and…

  And what would it be like to go ahead and fall into that? He’d wrap her up tight and safe, encourage her fucking breakdown even. She was sure of it. She could let herself go in his arms, shatter apart.

  But how would she ever hold herself together again if she did?

  She shook herself and stiffened her spine. “Don’t,” she warned.

  He raised his hands even higher. “I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”

  “Do I look all right to you?”

  “No.” He edged forward, driving her farther back. “Running out of a room like that actually gives the opposite impression, you know.”

  Awesome. She shifted her gaze skyward, but it only made the stinging in her eyes burn hotter. She dug her nails into her palms as hard as she could, maybe hard enough to bleed, because there’s no way in hell she was crying.

  “Go away,” she managed.

  “No.”

  “Seriously, just go—”

  “No.”

  She threw her hands out to the sides. “What the hell do you mean ‘no’? A girl tells you to leave her alone, you do it, okay?”

  “Not my girl. Not when she’s hurting.”

  “Fuck you.” His girl, her ass. “Just because we fucked a few times—”

  “Don’t.” He shook his head, and he was maddeningly calm. It made her even crazier. How dare he? How could he try to turn this into… into… “You’re upset, and you’re saying things you don’t mean.”

  “Don’t tell me what I’m feeling. Don’t tell me what I think.” She jabbed her fingers at her own chest. “Don’t pretend just because we… whatever…” He didn’t want her to call it fucking, fine, she wouldn’t. “It doesn’t give you any right.”

  But he turned soft eyes at her. “Jo. Please.”

  “You want to say no? Well, I can do it, too. No. I don’t have to.” Have to what? Pour her fucking heart out to him? Let him in on her whole pathetic story? Didn’t he already have enough of it?

  He’d already dug so goddamn deep, getting her to talk about her mother, getting into her pants, getting her to kiss him in public.

  “Look,” she said, “maybe this has all been a mistake, so just… just, go back to the lab or to your house or whatever.” She swept her arm out toward the road ahead of them. “I’ll give you a head start and we can pretend none of this ever happened, and you don’t have to feel obligated to give a shit.”

  “Is that what you think this is?” And how dare he look so… so… wounded? “An obligation?”

  What else would it be?

  What else was she supposed to say?

  Oh, hell. Her eyes threatened to brim over, and she couldn’t do this. She felt so weak, like such a girl. Such a sad little cliché. She had to get rid of him, and fast, before she became even worse than that.

  Her throat wobbled, and she turned around and closed her eyes. She couldn’t look at him for another minute. “Go. Just go.”

  For a long moment, she thought he actually might listen, and a whole new well of emptiness opened itself up inside her heart. Him turning away from her—it was her fault. She’d done what she’d always done, pushing and pushing, and she shouldn’t be surprised it had finally worked.

  She’d known she couldn’t keep this for long.

  And then his voice rang out against the night. “Jo.” It came out soft. Pleading, and that made the hole inside her ripple, threatening collapse. Why did he have to sound so kind?

  But of course it had to get worse.

  “Please, Jo. Please don’t shut me out.”

  Her entire chest cavity squeezed, a river of pain she didn’t begin to know how to cope with. She’d always been so good at pushing it down, ignoring it, but this display of fucking tenderness. It broke her.

  Something inside her snapped.

  She whipped around, the loss and hurt coalescing into one last flare of flame. Consuming heat, and anger, and there he was. Open and vulnerable and all the things she couldn’t afford to be.

  She surged. The rage carried her, and she was right up in his face, ready to bite, ready to spit, and she drew her arm back to let it go, to throw her fist into his awful, perfect, understanding face.

  Except he caught it. Unflinching, he grasped her knuckles in his big palm and held her hand there.

  “No,” he said.

  “Fuck you. Fuck you and just…
just—” She flung out again, but he grasped her other wrist, too.

  And he gazed down at her, expression unchanged, jaw firm. “You can say whatever terrible things you want. Hurt me as much as you feel like, but not like this. You want to let off some aggression, we can do that. But you don’t want to do this.”

  She struggled against his hold, squirming and writhing and working to get a hand, a fist, an elbow out. She’d kick him in the balls or step on his feet or—

  But his grip was solid. He turned her around and fit her spine to his chest, wrapped her arms around herself and held them there, her hands pinned, and she couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t see and couldn’t hear, and he was restraining her, and how could he?

  How could he still be here?

  “Shh,” he said, but it wasn’t condescending. It wasn’t cruel.

  She didn’t have any idea what to do with it.

  And it was a different kind of snapping. A wholly new sort of a disconnect in her misfiring, awful brain.

  He was here. The boy who’d earned her respect, and whose respect she was pretty sure she’d gotten right back. The strong, beautiful man who took her apart and who allowed her to pin him to his bed.

  He’d given her every inch of leeway, right up until now. When she was throwing everything she had into pushing him away, because people always went away. They found out who she was, or in her father’s case, they knew from the start. And they left.

  But Adam was right here, putting his foot down in the face of her bullshit and refusing to let her self-destruct.

  And all the fight went out of her at once.

  He caught her before she could sag too far, the iron bars of his arms going cradling instead of confining. As the first hiccup of breath forced its way past her throat, he was shifting her, getting her turned around, and the next thing she knew, they were on the ground. Right there by the side of the road. He set her in his lap, her face pressed to his neck, and he was surrounding her, supporting her. Keeping her, even after all the ugliness she’d unleashed.