Page 1 of 20% Stud 80% Muffin
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Earth…the not-too-distant future
Is running away toanother planet really the best option?
“Earth to Geo.” Ginger tapped her manicured nails on the café’s darkened vid-screen table, scrolling the breakfast menu. I squinted. How did she paint those tiny little cherries on them?
Saturdays at Toni’s Café with Ginger were nonnegotiable. Every booth was packed, and the air was thick with the tang of toasted sourdough and cinnamon-dusted lattes. Toni’s was the only place in this dive town with espressothat wasn’t too sour or acidic—Ginger’s words, not mine—and it was a tradition going on eight years.
Dressed in silver lamé, she literally shone as she sipped her Italian espresso. Her black-tipped bangs were framed by stick-straight silver-white hair. Opposites in so many ways, I scuffed my worn steel-toed boots against the floor and fingered the hole in my frayed jeans, sighing as I recalled loosening my belt another notch that morning.
She pushed the off-planet employment brochure toward me the same way she did every week. Constantly scanning them for costume design inspiration, Ginger always had the latest one. “C’mon. Now’s the time.”
At least three of these brochures lined the bottom of my recycling bin at home, and I’d unstuck one from under the popcorn bowl earlier.
She leaned over the table between us, knocked the brim of my Space Invaders cap from my head and rustled my overgrown curls. “You’re too cute and just too amazing overall to let Cameron keep bringing you down.”
My ears grew warm as I pulled my hat back down over them.
“You need a change. It’s time to kick that douchebag to the curb.” Ginger didn’t sugarcoat.
“You trying to get rid of me, Ging?”
“Not in a lifetime, but it’s resonating in my bones. You’d be so perfect for this. They’re recruiting an archbuilder…” She paused before her eyes grew cartoon-character wide. “Plus”—her voice softened—“I know you don’t want to hear it, but Cameron looked awfully cozy in his social feed last weekend.” Her knuckles turned white around the tiny espresso cup. “Who the hell is that guy anyway? Wasn’t Cameron away on business?”
I shook the numbness from my fingers, but my stomach roiled. Whenever Ginger pointed out one of Cameron’s indiscretions, I folded my emotions and refolded them before safely slotting them into a locked box, like a ballot to be dealt with never.
I sighed, the earnestness of her words hitting harder than usual this time. “’Kay, you got me. What the hell’s an archbuilder?”
“I researched the shit out of this, Geo.” She smacked the rolled brochure into her palm. “It’s a home builder. You’d be doing what you love, acting as a project manager, but on another planet. How cool is that?”
My mind flicked from one far-fetched image to the next and landed on a picture of Tatooine—beige, plagued by windstorms, sandworms and…fictional.
“You could try it for a year. It pays so well, you’d have enough to start up your own construction company when you got back.”
My fingers drummed the table. Could I really leave it all behind?
Outside of my work crew, if I were kidnapped tomorrow, I could count the people who would notice on one hand—two fingers, to be exact. Ginger and Cameron. And Cameron wouldn’t miss me so much as he’d miss how much I babied him.
“They have an orientation session this weekend at the Center for InterplanetaryAccessibility.” Ginger’s sing-song voice carried over the sharp whistle of the café’s milk steamer.
My jaw tightened and I twisted my fingers around my coffee mug. “Ging.” I swallowed the hard knot in my throat. “You think they would let me take Charz and Pika?”
Ginger reached across the table and took my hand. “Maybe…you could negotiate it into your contract?” Despite her lethal fingernails, a wave of comfort filled me. She paused for a second. “You know I love those little rats. I could keep them for you for a year.”
My eye twitched over leaving my dogs behind, but no matter how unlikely, visions of aliens with large teeth and no manners swallowing them whole horrified me more.
Besides her persistence about sending me off-planet, Ginger’s advice had always been sound. Still, the outrageousness of this proposition blindsided me as if I were the star of a blooper reel. My resolve weakened, and my heart raced at what the future might hold. Cameron would finally appreciate me if we had time apart. Right? Plus, my own company, shiny and new—just a year away.
“But what about my house?”
Cameron loved living in my house, but he sure as hell didn’t take care of it.
Ginger’s brazen smile, hidden behind her espresso cup, flashed in her eyes the way it always did when she got her way. “You just leave that to me.”
I scratched my three-day-old stubble as Charz and Pika pawed at my legs. The two eager Jack Russells yipped for my attention. I crouched low, and my socked feet slipped on the kitchen tiles. “Damn it.”
Cameron always put the dog treats in the far reaches of the floor cabinet. As I struggled to reach them, his fresh-from-the-shower scent drifted down the hall. Next, he’d pull on some sweats—the ones that dipped low enough to show his v-line and perfect abs—pocket his cell phone off his bedside table, then turn the house upside down to find his glasses. Lastly, he’d dig through the dryer for some socks. Good luck there. I hadn’t done the lazy bastard’s laundry this week.
