Page 5 of To the Moon
An hour later, the space station came into view. I angled the shuttle to the docking bay, and we began the extensive and highly choreographed docking dance. Forty minutes later, we were shaking hands with the two astronauts currently living aboard the space station. They'd already been up here for two of their six months' stay.
"Your suits are … interesting." The Italian, Dominico, tapped my oversized helmet. "You look more like deep-sea divers than astronauts."
I removed my helmet, placed it on an empty hook where it vastly outsized the others already hanging, and shrugged. "What can I say? My dad's got a big head. He wanted headgear that would fit him."
The two astronauts laughed, but Gunnar glared at me while he removed his own oversized helmet. Was itdesigned to match mine for looks alone, or would it serve a greater purpose, allowing us to breathe after shifting into wolves?
Oblivious to my concerns, the astronauts gave us a tour and pointers on how to eat in zero gravity. We spent a couple of hours listening to tales of spacewalks and rover malfunctions. Then it was time to trundle back to our bunks.
We would be sleeping standing up, if you could call it that. They'd placed Gunnar and me on the opposite end from their lived-in sleeping quarters. Our vertical cubicles faced each other, though we could anchor our sleeping bags to any of the three walls. Thankfully, all I could see of Gunnar was his face once he zipped himself inside his foam cocoon. I did the same, eager for a nap. After being awakened by a knock at my cabin door earlier in the night, I'd started the day long before dawn. Now, all I wanted was rest.
I had the best sleep of my life for the next eight hours. I woke to find Gunnar asleep in his bunk, his bag still anchored to the side of the shuttle facing mine. If he were even a little less hostile toward me, I'd think he did it because he wanted to ogle me. This was even more disturbing. Maybe he wanted to murder me in my sleep.
The thought was completely at odds with the peaceful, almost sweet, grin on his face while he slept. It was a welcome change from his usual glare. Gunnar was attractive in a severe way, all sharp angles. Even the hard line along his scalp added to his beauty. He shaved most of his head bald, leaving only a gelled cap of dark hair too short to curl at his crown. He'd gotten a freshtrim on the ship, the only amenity charged to his room beyond the complimentary food and drink budget.
I'd read his file along with his expense sheet, but he was nothing like what I'd expected. I'd worked with foster kids through my charity, Tomorrow's Hospitality Today, which funneled less fortunate kids into my endless supply of service jobs. Those kids were meek and mild, tired and trampled. They'd never been given a chance before they met me, and they craved it like their next breaths. They didn't question me. Hell, they didn't frown in my general direction. They had nothing but smiles and positive attitudes for their benefactor.
Gunnar treated me like his most worthless coworker, even though I was the one with the aerospace degree, and he was the lowly coder along for the ride. I'd met other foster kids who lived out of spite, but I'd never had that spite directed at me. Here was a man who would bite the hand that fed him, and he'd gloat about it.
If my assumption about him was correct, he had his genetics to thank for his place on the shuttle, not his brains. It was my duty to prevent my dad and his cronies from sending the shuttle off course. If we skirted around the moon in a predictable orbit, always staying within the Lagrange points' influence, we would be fine. If not … Gunnar would discover whether he could get as hairy as I did on the far side of the moon.
Gunnar's eyes snapped open and the glare returned. "Take a picture. It'll last longer."
"What are you, five?" I asked. "I zoned out, thinking about the mission."
"That's not my name." He sneered.
I sighed. "You are not the mission."
His eyebrows flicked up and down. "That's not what your mom said."
I'd heard it plenty of times before. Mom jokes were everywhere. I'd expected better from Gunnar, though. He'd been taken away from his own mom, and surely, he'd met orphans in his time in foster care.
Something in my frown must have told him he'd taken it too far. "Shit. I'm sorry. I forgot."
I unhooked my sleeping bag from the wall and unzipped it, eager to get away before my unchecked emotions got the better of me. My mom's death was an old wound, but the Band-aid over it came off so easily, especially when everyone knew about it.
After we'd returned to the U.S. after our fateful trip to Ukraine, Dad's Hollywood producer friend had made a documentary about our summer in Chernobyl. I spent hours watching the raw footage, wondering if he'd captured the exact moment our radiation levels had tipped over from safe to unsafe, and when my mother's uterine cells had started growing unchecked.
I shoved against the wall a little too hard. Instead of gliding into the hallway, where I could change direction, I went right past it and into Gunnar's personal bunk.
"Shit, man! I said I was sorry!"
"I didn't mean to—" My body collided with his, shoving him against the memory foam. "I …" His scent filled the small area, same as when we were in the shuttle. The air was thinner on the space station than it was on earth. I shouldn't have been able to smell him at all, but, "You smell good," I whispered.
"So do you," he forced out through clenched teeth. Something hard poked against my hip through the fabric of his sleeping bag. "I mean it. I'm sorry I mentioned your mom. I should have known better."
I settled my chin against his shoulder and sniffed his neck, trying to place where I'd smelled that exact flavor of sunflowers and sage before. I pawed at the back of his head, pulling him closer to me.
"What are you doing? This is inappropriate."
"Oh? Who's the one with the boner?" I ground my hips against him, and he hissed.
"Look, I apologized. Now, I'd like you to get the fuck off me, please."
The please did it for me. He'd never once addressed me with any amount of politeness. I shoved off him, flying back toward my own cubby until my back hit the wall. "Ow."
"I'm … I'm truly sorry, all right?" Gunnar zipped himself out of his sleeping bag and dropped his hands to his waist, grabbing the flashlight at his hip before it could float away. He caught me staring at it. "Yeah. Not a boner. I fell asleep reading, and this got stuck in my sleeping bag."
