Her mother was staring at her with wide eyes. Then, after a moment, she reached into her purse and pulled out a pack of wipes.
She shook her head slowly as Airin took one. “Bugs used to terrify you. Just a few months ago, you’d scream if you saw a spider the size of a pea.”
“I know. But people can change.”
“I guess they can.” She paused. “You should remember that when you talk to Hunter.”
She took a few bills from her purse and laid them down on the bar. “Thomas is waiting out front. I have a meeting tomorrow, so I should probably get going. Are you sure you don’t want to come home with me? You don’t have to stay forever.”
Her voice was wistful, and Airin smiled at her.
“I’m sure,” she said. “But I’d like to come for a visit in a few months, if that’s okay.”
“Always.”
They went outside, where the limo was waiting at the curb. Thomas got out and opened the back door, but Airin spoke before her mother could get in.
“So . . . just to clarify. You said you still want Hunter on your crew, and you said you’d take me if I pass the tests. Does that mean there’s a place for both of us on DelAres I?”
“I suppose so. Otherwise, I’ll lose both of you to NASA.”
She got into the back seat of the limo, and Thomas shut the door before going around to the driver’s side. As he was getting in, Dira rolled down her window.
“Do you know what your grandmother would say if she were here?”
Airin took a step toward her. “What?”
“Don’t fall for a pilot.”
Airin grinned, remembering her grandmother’s favorite story. “It’s too late,” she said. “I’m a goner.”
The limo pulled away from the curb. The window rolled back up, and the last thing she saw was her mother’s smile.
Airin stood on the sidewalk after Dira was gone, wondering what to do next. A few minutes before, sitting at the bar, she could hardly wait to go back home and talk to Hunter. But now that she was free to do just that, she wasn’t sure she was ready.
She was starting to feel a little light-headed. Maybe the Blue Hawaii was finally hitting her.
She should walk around a little before heading home. That would give her time to clear her head and to think about what she wanted to say to Hunter.
She might be assuming too much about how he felt. When her mother had told her he’d given up his spot on the DelAres crew for her, she’d been sure he wouldn’t have done that if he didn’t love her.
But maybe he just felt guilty about making the deal with her mother. Maybe he thought he owed it to her.
Maybe he felt sorry for her.
The more she thought about it, the more depressed she felt. And as she walked, oblivious to the sights and sounds of Waikiki around her, her bright dream of the future started to seem like an improbable fantasy.
Chapter Twenty-Three
After Dira left the house to find Airin, Hunter left, too.
He walked down the driveway past his truck. His keys were in his pocket, but he didn’t want to drive.
He wanted to walk.
He headed makai, seaward. He walked down through the lush Manoa Valley, past the university, through the busy streets inland of Waikiki to Waikiki itself.
He ended up at the beach.
It had taken him an hour to get there. That was a lot of time to think, but no brilliant solutions had presented themselves. He was a pilot and an engineer, a problem solver, and he couldn’t come up with a single damn way to fix the damage he’d done.
The sun was setting, igniting the clouds on the horizon with red and gold. As he walked across the sand to the edge of the ocean, he waited for the beauty and majesty of the sky to work its usual magic on him.
But there was no magic.
He stood at the water’s edge and stared out at the ocean. It was wide, trackless, stretching out beyond human knowledge. The Hawaiians, the Greeks, the Vikings in their longboats—all had taken on this great unknown with unimaginable courage.
Astronauts carried that mantle now. They were the explorers heading out into the abyss, carrying with them the spark of human curiosity and adventure. In a thousand years, their ships and tools would seem as primitive as the canoes of the ancient Polynesians did today.
All Hunter had ever wanted was to be a part of the journey. A part of mankind’s great leap into the future.
That goal was so much bigger than he was. So why, now, did it seem small? How could he have outgrown something that had been a part of him for so long?
And if he’d outgrown his old dream, what had he grown into?
His phone rang, and for a moment he thought it was Airin. His heart leaped in his chest as he pulled it out of his pocket, but it was his brother’s name on the screen.
He almost didn’t answer. But they’d only talked on the phone once since the wedding, and it might be important.
“Hey, Caleb. What’s going on?”
“Nothing much. Jane asked me today how you were doing, and I realized we hadn’t talked in a while. Anything new with you?”
So . . . not important, then.
He started to tell Caleb he couldn’t talk right now. Instead, he heard himself say, “I fucked up.”
“My big brother? Not possible. What’d you fuck up? Something at NASA?”
“Not NASA. Airin.”
There was a short silence. He’d told Caleb about Airin in an email last week, but he hadn’t given much detail beyond the bare fact that they were involved.
“Okay,” Caleb said after a moment. “I think you better tell me all about it. Unless you’ve got someplace else to be?”
“I’ve got nowhere to be.”
He kicked off his shoes, sat down on the sand, and told Caleb the whole story.
It took a while. After he finished, he said, “That thing Airin thought about me. Do you think she was right?”
“Which thing?”
“She said our parents both left us, in different ways. She said if I go to Mars, I’ll be the one leaving. I’ll be leaving the whole world behind.”
Caleb was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “I think she had a point, but I don’t think she drew the right conclusion.”
“What do you think her point was?”
“That what happened with Mom and Dad affected you. But it didn’t make you want to leave other people behind. It made you afraid of wasting your life. It made you want to do something meaningful. Something that would last.”
He thought about that. “Yeah.”
Caleb went on. “But that’s not the whole story with our parents.”
“What do you mean?”
“I know things didn’t end well for them. Obviously. But love isn’t a waste, Hunter. It’s the only thing that lasts. Not the way a building lasts or being the first guy to walk on the moon, but in a way that’s more real than any of that stuff.” He paused. “I know Dad was pretty screwed up, and Mom still is, but that doesn’t mean love wasn’t the best thing in their lives. They took a chance, and it didn’t work out. But that doesn’t mean they were wrong to try.” He paused again. “When it comes to love, I don’t think it’s ever wrong to try.”
A ray of the setting sun pierced through the clouds, making him blink.
That must be why tears stung behind his eyelids.
“Damn,” he said after a moment. “It’s weird to hear my little brother sounding so smart.”
“If I said something smart, it’s because of Jane. She’s the one who makes me think about this shit.”
Hunter took in a lungful of air and let it out slowly. “I want to try, with Airin. But I’m afraid I screwed up too bad. I’m afraid it’s too late.”
“I’ve got an answer for that, and it comes from you.”
“Huh?”
“I said the same thing last year when I told you how I’d fucked up with Jane. I said it was too late to fix it. Remember what you told me?”
> “No. Was it good?”
“Yeah. You said as long as you’re alive, you can fix anything.”
Silence.
“I said that, huh?”
“Yeah. So get to work, man. Figure it out. I’ll give you a call tomorrow, okay?”
“Okay.”
He slid his phone back into his pocket.
Figure it out, Caleb had said. Like it was that easy.
The sun was gone now. The ghost of red-and-gold glory lingered on the western horizon, but night was coming. Soon the sky would be filled with stars.
He still wanted to go into space. He still wanted to travel to Mars. But if Airin wasn’t with him, none of it would mean a damn thing.
He’d rather stay on Earth with Airin than to go to the stars without her.
But what if she doesn’t want me?
Well, that was her call to make. All he could do was tell her what he’d finally figured out.
He loved her. Nothing would change that. Even if she rejected him, even if she never wanted to see him again, she would still be his center of gravity.
Now and forever.
Airin wasn’t sure how long she walked before she ended up on Waikiki Beach.
She stood where the walkway met the sand, realizing where she was and remembering the last time she’d been here. Then she spotted Hunter.
He was sitting close to the ocean, right where the two of them had kissed that night.
The night that had changed their lives forever.
A thrill went down her spine.
She walked across the sand and sat down beside him.
“Hey,” she said, wishing she’d come up with something more profound.
His head jerked around. “Airin,” he said, as though he couldn’t believe it. “What are you doing here? How did you find me?”
“I didn’t. I was just walking, and I ended up here.” She paused. “Then I saw you.”
He was staring at her like he’d never look away.
During her walk through Waikiki, she’d planned a whole speech. She’d thought about everything she wanted to tell him. How angry she still was at what he’d done, how touched she was by the sacrifice he’d made, and how she couldn’t imagine her life without him.
But now that she was here, now that she could say anything she wanted, words seemed to fail her.
I’m a goner, she’d told her mother, as though it were that simple.
But it wasn’t simple. There was no engineering solution to her problem, and if there was an emotional solution, she didn’t have the experience or wisdom to find it.
She bent her legs, wrapped her arms around her shins, and rested her chin on her knees.
It was a cool night for Hawaii, and when the wind picked up, she shivered. Hunter moved closer and put his arm around her shoulders, and the warmth and weight of him felt so good it made her throat ache.
The sun had set half an hour ago. Mars was visible in the sky to the west, hanging low above the horizon. She was sure Hunter was looking at it, too.
When he spoke, she knew she’d been right.
“The Hawaiians called it Hokuula. ‘Red star.’”
“It was Tiu in Old English,” she said. “That’s where we get the word Tuesday—‘Mars day.’”
“I didn’t know that.”
She leaned against him, and his arm tightened around her. They sat like that until Mars sank below the horizon, and the rest of the stars in the firmament grew brighter.
“Why did you turn down a spot on the DelAres crew?” she asked.
“You know why.”
“No, I don’t. That’s why I’m asking.”
He sighed. Then he shifted, turning to face her, and she did the same. They were sitting cross-legged on the sand, their knees almost touching, the ocean lapping against the shore a few yards away and the night sky a jeweled canopy above them.
“I turned it down because what I did was so shitty. And because if it takes me away from you, I don’t want it. I don’t want to go to Mars without you, Airin. I don’t want to go anywhere without you. I love you.”
He said it so simply, as though it was the easiest and most obvious thing in the world. But those three words did something to her, something she couldn’t have explained if she had a hundred years and a million words.
“I don’t know if you can forgive me for making that deal with your mother. But whether you do or not, whether you want to be with me or not, I’m yours. I’m yours forever. All I’m asking for is a chance to make it up to you. A chance to prove to you that I—”
She didn’t move across the space between them as much as levitate across it. She was in his lap with her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck, and then she kissed him like it was the last thing she’d ever do.
It was a while before they came up for air. When they did, she put her hands on his shoulders and looked straight into his hazel eyes.
“I love you, too.”
His eyes were bright. “I’ve thought about saying those words to you and what it would be like to hear you say them back.”
“And?”
He slid his hands into her hair, and for every star in the sky there was a ripple of pleasure in her body.
“It’s even better than I imagined.”
She shifted in his lap so she could lay her head on his shoulder. “We’re going to Mars, you know. You and me.”
“We are, huh? With NASA or with DelAres?”
“DelAres.”
“You think Dira will take me back?”
“Yep. She said she wants you to command her crew. The job’s yours if you want it.”
He kissed the top of her head. “Only if you’re coming with me. Is there a place for you on the crew?”
“If I pass the astronaut selection tests.”
He chuckled. “You’ll pass them. I’m going to work you so hard over the next few years your head will spin.”
She nestled closer to him, feeling the beat of his pulse at the base of his throat. “Is it weird that that sounds sexual to me?”
He chuckled again, and the sound vibrated through her body. “Nope. Do you remember the last time we were here?”
“Vaguely. What were we doing, again?”
“Breaking public decency laws.”
“We never did get arrested,” she murmured. “Maybe we should try again.”
“Or we could just go back to the house.”
“Or get a hotel room.”
“So many possibilities,” he said.
A wave broke just a few feet away from them, and it gave her an idea. “Do you remember when we talked about weightless sex?”
“Vividly.”
“What if we start with a weightless kiss?”
“Angel, I am one hundred percent down with that. How do you propose we do it?”
She scrambled to her feet and held out a hand to help him up. “In the water.”
He got to his feet and stood beside her. “A kiss in the ocean? Hell yeah. I can’t believe we live in Hawaii and haven’t done that yet. Should we go home and get our suits, or come back tomorrow?”
She shook her head. “I want to do it right now. In our clothes.”
He grinned down at her. “Our phones and wallets might get stolen. The last time we kissed on this beach, you lost your purse. Are you ready to lose another one?”
She kicked off her sandals and dropped her phone and wallet on top of them.
“Who cares if we lose our wallets? That’s just our identity.” She gestured toward the Pacific. “That, out there? That’s our essence.”
Hunter looked at her for a second. “Okay, I’m in.”
He dropped his phone and wallet beside hers. Then they walked hand in hand into the ocean, the water soaking their pants and then their shirts, the cotton clinging to their bodies and then ballooning out.
The air was cool, but the water was warm. The moon path stretched before them to the horizon, and where the waves crested, the sil
ver light glimmered on sea foam.
“We lived near a lake when I was a kid,” Hunter said. “I used to go there at night when the moon was full, and I imagined running along the track it made on the water.”
“What did you think would happen when you got to the end?”
“I’d jump off. Out into the unknown.”
“Can you still imagine yourself doing that?”
He turned to face her, sliding one arm around her waist and the other around her shoulders.
“Yeah,” he said. “But this time, you’re with me.”
She put her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist. “I’ll always be with you,” she whispered.
His heart pounded against hers. He took a few steps farther out—deeper than where she could stand on her own.
Their mouths came together with an electric charge. Her body surged into his, and their kiss was sweet and salty and everything in between.
The ocean was all around them, cradling them in familiar mystery. But when they began to float, it didn’t feel like the water was making it happen.
It felt like their love was stronger than gravity.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to everyone at Montlake, especially Maria Gomez. Thank you to the amazing Charlotte Herscher for her insight. Thanks to my husband and son for their patience, support, and keen story sense, and to Tara Gorvine for being the best critique partner ever. Thank you to Dr. Heather Gallo for answering my medical questions, aspiring astronaut Abigail Harrison (@AstronautAbby) for answering my space questions, and my father for answering my military questions. Any errors you find are mine.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © 2014 Target Portrait Studio
Abigail Strom started writing stories at the age of seven and has never been able to stop. In addition to writing for Montlake Romance, she has written for Harlequin and is also the author of the self-published Hart University series, the first book of which earned a 2016 RITA nomination. Her books have been translated into several languages, including French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, and Turkish. Abigail also writes the steamy paranormal Blood and Absinthe series under the name Chloe Hart.
Abigail earned a BA in English from Cornell University, as well as an MFA in dance from the University of Hawaii, and held a wide variety of jobs—from dance teacher and choreographer to human resources manager—before becoming a full-time writer. Now she works in her pajamas and lives in New England with her family, who are incredibly supportive of the hours she spends hunched over her computer. Learn more about the author and her work at www.abigailstrom.com and www.authorchloehart.com.
Show Me Page 23