Catching Stardust

by Heather Thurmeier

  “I’ll see you there later. Maybe we’ll find the answers to the mysteries of the universe in the planetarium show.” Jude laughed. “It could happen, right?”

  Zander laughed too. It felt great to be investigating with his friend again. This time he knew it would be different. It had to be. “The answers could be anywhere.”

  Chapter Four

  Maia woke to the sound of a door slamming and raised, excited voices in the hallway. Car horns honked from somewhere outside her window. She knew without looking that she hadn’t magically materialized back home through the night.

  She squeezed her eyes shut tight and dragged the extra pillow over her head, hoping to block out the noise. Maybe if she couldn’t hear the noise of the city, she could convince herself everything that happened the day before had been some kind of crazy dream. Maybe if she concentrated hard enough, when she opened her eyes, she’d be in her own house back on Pleiades with the waterfall cascading down the rocks beside her house. Even the thought of the waterfall was somewhat soothing.

  But not enough to make her feel normal again since she was on Earth, in a noisy hotel room, hiding in a lumpy bed with scratchy linens.

  She opened one eye and peeked out from under the pillow. To the side of the bed, she could see the bag she’d found in the park—the one that must have been the casualty of a really hideous fashion experiment gone wrong since no fashion designer would ever purposefully choose to combine zebra stripes and hot pink.

  This wasn’t a dream and she wasn’t going to wake up back home unless she found a way to get herself there. Even worse, she wouldn’t be able to get back home unless she dragged herself out of bed at some point.

  First things first, try calling home again. Maybe whatever problem they’d had last night would be fixed and then she could stay in bed until it was time for her return trip. She snaked a hand out and grabbed the phone, dialed the operator and put the phone to her ear.

  “Thank you for calling Galactic Communications, your connection to the universe and beyond. We are currently experiencing a problem—”

  Maia slammed the phone back down onto the bedside table. She didn’t need to hear the rest of the message. Obviously they hadn’t gotten the problem fixed yet, if a real problem even existed. It seemed more and more likely that maybe Zeus had blocked her call on purpose.

  Reluctantly, Maia crawled out from under the covers and padded across the floor to her bag where it still lay on the floor in a heap and rummaged around until she found the clothes Zeus had so thoughtfully packed for her.

  She held up a pair of super-short shorts—because he apparently thinks I want to dress like a hoochie while on Earth—and a t-shirt that looked the appropriate size to fit a supermodel. Gee, thanks. She might be a Greek goddess, but she still had curves and there was no way her curves were fitting into either of those items—at least not without bits seeping out in truly ungoddess-like ways.

  First priority—buy new, non-hoochie clothing.

  She pulled on her grass-stained dress from the day before, knowing it was infinitely more comfortable, and way cuter than the shorts and tank would ever be. She dumped the other clothes into the wastebasket, then quickly ran a brush through her hair and twisted it into a clip at the nape of her neck. She wouldn’t win any beauty contests today, but that was fine. Beauty was highly overrated.

  Leaving the hotel, she wandered down the street in search of shops. She’d been to the city a few times before, but never to buy clothes. Her favorite places for clothes were the shops on Venus. The materials on Venus were out of this world and she’d gladly drop extra stardust to shop there given the opportunity. But since that opportunity didn’t exist at the moment, she would have to survive with regular old cottons, silks and polyesters.

  She browsed through racks of clothes in a few stores and managed to find a couple of summer dresses, some Capri pants, and a few shirts that would actually fit a woman who wasn’t built like a boy. Then she popped into a lingerie boutique and bought appropriate underwear to go with everything. If she could say one nice thing about the fashion on Earth, it was that the women here had some pretty nice options in the bra and panties department. She’d never been one for lacy thongs and push-up bras, but when in Rome, right?

  On her way back to the hotel, she couldn’t resist popping into a shoe store with a display of the most incredibly torturous-looking heels she’d seen in a long time. So Earth was tops for panties and shoes.

  As she slipped her feet into the supple leather, shimmering with silver sparkles and stood before the mirror, she knew there was no way she would return to Pleiades without these bad boys in her bag. Every girl needs a new pair of stilettos when they’re on vacation. And the toe was pointy enough to properly threaten Orion with when she returned.

  After a couple solid hours of power shopping, Maia finally made it back to her hotel room to deposit her bags and quickly change into one of her new outfits—a soft blue sundress that offset the green of her eyes and a pair of what a shoe store clerk had called gladiator-style sandals.

  She couldn’t help but giggle as she slipped her feet into the matching blue sandals and buckled the little straps around her ankles. These people had no idea what gladiators were really like. Being around for an eternity already, she’d seen everything—and never a gladiator in sandals this ridiculous.

  Although, they were surprisingly comfortable. And cute.

  Maia eyed herself in the mirror. She liked the way the thin material skimmed across her skin without revealing every curve and contour. Satisfied, she grabbed the new handbag she’d also purchased, since she couldn’t bring herself to carry around the pink zebra bag any longer than absolutely necessary, and threw her room key and wallet into it.

  It was already mid-afternoon and she was still no closer to finding a way home than she had been last night. Now it was time to get serious.

  Since she had no idea how to find her way home exactly, she hoped going to a place that reminded her of home would help. Maybe if she surrounded herself with familiar celestial things, some brilliant idea would come to her. If not, it would still be nice to be around something she knew, since the pit of loneliness in her stomach grew exponentially larger with every passing second.

  A short taxi ride later, Maia stepped onto the curb. In front of her, through the giant glass windows, she saw a huge silver ball. Of course it wasn’t really a ball, but it looked like one suspended in the middle of an enormous room by large metal rods jutting out of it at various places.

  The Hayden Planetarium—the best place she could think of to go to be completely submersed in the universe. Hopefully it’d be enough to give her some ideas on how to get home.

  She made her way into the museum, paying the entry fee with her credit card. If they only knew the places where that card had been, any scientist within a fifty-mile radius would want to put it in a little plastic baggy and study it. Who knew what kind of microscopic particles could be on it at the moment. It wasn’t very long ago when she’d gone to the Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy for a bachelorette party. She couldn’t help but smile at the memories and the number of times she’d swiped this very card during that one weekend visit.

  What happens in Sagi, stays in Sagi.

  Maia wandered around the outside of the planetarium looking at the display pictures used to illustrate a variety of cosmic information. The pictures were all adequate examples, but primitive and bordering on bland compared to the real thing. Not that she could expect much more—Earth hadn’t developed the technology needed to achieve more advanced pictures and studies yet. They would get there, just as planets in other galaxies had, but it would take some time.

  “Hey,” a man’s voice said from beside her. “I didn’t expect to see you again.”

  Maia glanced to her side. The guy from the park stood near her, smiling. Damn it to Hades, he was even cuter than she remembered. The park had been dark, but the museum was nice and bright, and seeing him in the ligh
t made his strong jaw and straight nose even more prominent. The lighting in the park hadn’t done him any justice.

  She tried to think of words to say, but her mind was muddled as she took in his tailored button-up shirt opened at his neck since he wasn’t wearing a tie. A glimpse of smooth, tanned skin peeked out from under his shirt and her eyes traced an imaginary trail down his chest, filling her mind with fantasies of it pressing against her naked breasts as he lay on top of her. Whoa.

  “And who would this beautiful woman be?” another man asked.

  “You know, I’m not sure we exchanged names last night. I’m Zander Arius and this is my colleague and long-time buddy, Jude Mallroy.” Zander smiled at her as if he expected her to say something.

  She swallowed. Speak damn it.

  “I’m Maia. It’s nice to meet you, Jude…and it’s nice to see you again, Zander.” She shook their hands, a custom she’d never quite gotten the point of. Jude gripped her hand tightly, giving her a firm shake. Too firm for her liking. It was like he tried to put all of his energy in a single handshake as if doing so would somehow impress her.

  She slipped into Zander’s next, his large hand encircled hers carefully, cautious and gentle. His skin warm on hers, awakening her nerve endings as if they’d been sleeping for eternity. She suddenly had the overwhelming urge to feel his warm touch awakening the rest of her body. Yes, that sounded lovely.

  Stop it.

  In all her eternity, she’d never felt so drawn to anyone as she did to him. Zander. And she wasn’t about to let herself feel this way now. She pulled her hand back quickly. The last thing she needed was some strange connection with a guy from Earth to confuse her.

  Some really hot guy.

  Stop. It. She sighed. Scolding herself didn’t seem to be helping.

  Her gaze fluttered up to his, and as she breathed in his handsome good looks, she couldn’t help but smile. He smiled back. She feared she might melt into the floor under the searing heat in his deep brown eyes as they peered out at her from the cutest wire-rimmed glasses, the frames so thin they were almost invisible on his face.

  She didn’t usually go for guys in glasses, but she wasn’t usually stuck on Earth either. Seemed everything was off kilter in her world. Besides, she couldn’t remember anyone looking as cute as Zander did in glasses.

  Damn it to Hades, why did this guy have to be on Earth? Why couldn’t he be from somewhere else in the galaxy instead so at least they could have a hope of dating?

  “Your eyes,” Jude spoke, breaking into her thoughts. “They’re so—unusual.”

  Her gaze flitted from Zander to Jude and then quickly to her shoes. Her stomach dropped and her palms instantly beaded with moisture, which she tried to casually wipe on her dress as she pretended to straighten the material.

  Way to act as if you don’t have something to hide.

  Crap. What was she supposed to say about her eyes? Normally people didn’t notice the little details in her irises—the tiny map of stars advertising the part of the universe she was from like a house address would here on Earth. The identifier was usually so small and inconspicuous only people who knew what they were looking for would see it. It was a quick way of identifying someone’s origin when you met him or her on a far off planet.

  But the bright lights of the museum must be enough to not only allow tourists to see the small print and details on displays, but also little details on each other. Not good.

  Hopefully, this Jude guy didn’t know what he was looking at. Hopefully, Zander didn’t either. What could she tell them that would make logical sense, ‘cause she certainly couldn’t tell them the truth?

  “What do you mean?” She prayed her voice sounded innocent. “I see people with green eyes all the time.”

  She tried to laugh it off, but she couldn’t bring herself to meet his gaze for longer than a fraction of a second. If he was familiar with the displays in the museum, he may notice a similarity in her eyes. She couldn’t have that.

  “It’s not the color, but something else,” Jude said.

  As he leaned forward, she made the mistake of looking up at him, meeting his gaze. Instinctively she leaned back slightly, but didn’t break eye contact with him. Her pulse pounding in her throat, she held her gaze steady.

  Suspicious people always looked away when confronted. She didn’t want to appear as if she had something to hide, even if she did. Hopefully he wouldn’t see what was right in front of him.

  Zander leaned closer to get a better look too. Even though she knew she was treading in dangerous territory, she somehow didn’t mind his close proximity.

  Jude stood straight again, finally vacating her personal space. Zander, on the other hand, continued to linger near her. Instead of feeling uncomfortable with his closeness, she shifted toward him as if pulled by some kind of tractor beam.

  “There’s something different about them. Are they contacts?” Jude asked.

  Oh, thank Gaia.

  “Yes, they are contacts. Of course that’s what they are.” She let out the breath she’d been holding as her heartbeat slowed back to normal. “It’s this new thing where you can get little designs sort of stamped on to the contact along with a color. It’s very new, so not too many people know about it yet. If I take these out, my eyes are just plain old boring blue.”

  She laughed and smiled, hoping to Hades they would take her explanation at face value and drop the subject. Maia waited uncomfortably to see what they’d do next. It wasn’t like she could do some kind of mind trick on them to make them believe something if they didn’t want to. That would be a very cool and useful talent, but not one she possessed the power of.

  Jude shook his head. “It’s amazing the things they can do nowadays with technology.”

  “Yes, it is. I’m constantly amazed at the new things you…we discover here.”

  “So,” Zander said, clearing his throat. He’d been silent through the whole conversation about her eyes. Did he think they were unusual too? “What brings you to the museum?”

  “Oh, you know. Looking at space stuff.”

  Trying to figure out a way off this planet.

  She smiled weakly. “I haven’t been here before.”

  Liar.

  “I thought I would stop in and see what it was like.” She shifted uncomfortably. That sounded believable, didn’t it?

  He grinned as if he were a proud father. “And do you like what you see so far?”

  Her eyes traveled across his features again, imagining a strong chest under his formal button-up shirt. Oh yes, she certainly liked what she saw. “Uh, huh,” she said, nodding like a bobble-headed tourist’s souvenir. “It’s um, very good looking—nice! It’s very nice here.”

  She licked her lips, her mouth suddenly drier than the Sahara under the noonday sun. She watched as his lips parted slightly, mimicking hers. What would those lips taste like? What would they feel like pressed against hers?

  “Can I show you around?” Zander asked.

  “Do you work here or something?” She followed him as he walked up to one of the displays and she pretended to look at them as if she could learn something new.

  “I give guest lectures here every couple of weeks,” he started. “I’m actually an astronautics engineer over at Arius Industries. Jude is another one of our scientists, but he wasn’t lecturing today. He’s just here for emotional support. His, not mine.”

  “Nice,” Jude shot him an expression full of fire. “I don’t need your emotional support, but thanks for making me look like a douche in front of the pretty girl.”

  “It’s okay,” Maia said, enjoying the banter and obvious camaraderie between the two men. “I don’t think you’re a douche.” Honestly, she wasn’t sure what that meant, but she was pretty sure he wasn’t one.

  The three of them stopped in front of a picture of a black hole. Maia was always amazed at the beauty of the universe even after spending almost her eternity a part of it. This photo was especially gorgeous
, the colors surrounding the black hole mesmerizing.

  “This is a picture of a black hole taken by the Hubble Telescope,” Zander said, sounding very lecturer-like. “This particular supermassive one weighs billions of times more than our sun.”

  “It’s amazing.” Maia wasn’t lying. She did find it amazing. Almost as amazing as hearing Zander speak about the cosmos with such passion filling his voice. Maia watched his lips move as he spoke for a few more minutes, telling her things she already knew. She tried her best to remember to nod once in a while to appear as if she was learning the information for the first time.

  The truth was, she only half listened. The other half of her brain kept imagining those soft-looking lips of his trailing along her skin with wet kisses, tasting her, teasing her, setting her delicate nerve endings on fire. A tremble raced up her spine at just the thought. What would she feel if he ever actually touched her?

  It really had been a long time since she’d taken a ride on the Milky Way with someone, hadn’t it?

  “This stuff here,” Jude said, pointing to the illustration, “is the same kind of matter that we see surrounding stars. It’s called—”

  “The accretion disk,” Maia finished for him.

  The words spilled out of her mouth before she could censor herself, her mind too distracted with thoughts of Zander’s hands and mouth roaming her body. Her words hung between them. Heat flared to life in her cheeks.

  She shouldn’t have known that little factoid. Shit.

  Jude and Zander both turned from the picture of the black hole to stare at her, mouths gaping open, eyes searching hers for answers since she seemed to have more of them than they probably expected. They shared a quick glance at each other before settling their questioning eyes on her again.

  “I didn’t realize you knew so much about black holes already,” Zander started. “I wouldn’t have spoken to you like I was giving a lecture if I’d known you were already familiar with this stuff.”