IT WAS TOMORROW. AND I was excited about it. And that probably wasn’t a good thing. I floated through the morning high on whatever pheromones the girl I called Luna had put off yesterday. The girl was like a drug. I practically fucking skipped to work this morning. It was ridiculous and still I couldn’t stop thinking about her no matter how hard I tried. So, I’d left work and come to my afternoon classes and sat through them not hearing a damn word. It was a good thing my grades were good because I knew there would be plenty of days ahead of me that I’d be sitting here thinking of that moment. The one where I told her the truth. The truth that I really hadn’t even admitted to myself yet. Because I can’t not watch.
What was wrong with me? I never got this worked up over anything or anyone. It was so out of character, so different for me. I couldn’t stop myself from going to her, from being with her. I didn’t want to.
God, our faces had been so close together that night all I had to do was lean forward and my mouth would have been on hers. Her molten eyes had spoken volumes in those seconds after I’d made my confession and they didn’t say the things I thought they would. She wasn’t angry or scared, or upset.
I’d lain back stunned, wondering if anything at all ever scared that fearless girl.
“Mr. Nova, please stay after class,” Professor Johnson interrupted my thoughts.
English class was over and everyone was getting up to leave and there I was still daydreaming about a girl whose name I didn’t know.
The girl beside me walked by and made sure to run her hand down the length of my tattooed arm. “Nice tats,” she murmured seductively before giving me the look. The one that said you can meet me in my car in the parking lot and have me in the back seat. I got those looks a lot. They didn’t interest me. I didn’t have the time or inclination for random hookups anymore.
Grabbing my bag, I got up and walked through the classroom, ignoring the girl and knowing I was going to get the lecture of the century for not paying attention in class.
“Have a seat, Adam.” He pointed me toward the seat right in front of the classroom and grabbed some papers off his desk.
Curious what was happening, I sat down, watching him. He turned toward me and placed something on my desk. With furrowed brow, I looked at the paper. It was mine. The same paper I’d turned in only days ago.
He sat at the desk next to mine and pointed at the paper. “We need to talk about that paper.”
“Okay,” I replied and I knew how I came off—aloof. I wore my nonchalance like a damn armor. It was the only way I knew how to be.
“It’s brilliant. Your work on this one is amazing. The way you used chemistry and mathematics to describe the evolution of the stars and planets—”
“Jesus, not this again, Prof. It’s a damn English class.” I stood up, ready to get the hell out of there because I knew what was coming. Teachers at technical weren’t supposed to care so damn much, but this one did, and as much as it flattered me and fed my ego it got on my nerves because he could never understand my circumstances.
He stood up and followed me, right on my heels as I headed toward the door. “Come on, Adam. You know the English is good. And I know, I’m just an amateur astronomer, but you, son, you’re something more. You don’t belong at some dinky tech school.”
I stopped and spun on a heel until we were face-to-face and lied like hell. “I like it here.”
Couldn’t he just leave me alone? It wasn’t like I had a choice. I was just going here to get my basic classes and hoped to one day have enough money to attend a university close by.
He shook his head. “Bullshit, Adam. Your high school grades, your grades the past year here, they don’t say that you like it here. They say you’re fuckin bored. You’re a brilliant mind and you belong in one of the best Astronomy & Astrophysics schools in the country. Not rotting away here. Let me help you.”
He tried to land a hand to my shoulder, but I shrugged him off and sprinted for the door. “Not interested, Prof,” I lied again. I didn’t like lying, but it was a hell of a lot easier than the truth. The truth that I couldn’t leave my father to fend for himself. Not on his meager disability wages. No, he needed the income from my job as well. This dinky technical school was just going to have to cut it for now. Hell, how about somebody give me some damn credit for going to school at all.
And even though I had a chip on my shoulder the size of Jupiter, I still was excited to head to the field.
Feeling pissed about my circumstances and even more pissed off that the professor kept pushing the issue, I stalked across the grass, exhausted after working all morning and schooling all damn day. It all seemed so monotonous. So never-ending.
Like always, she was there, waiting. Only this time, she was looking for me.
“Hey,” she said quietly from the blanket, her dog taking a nap on the ground beside her.
I nodded toward the dog. “Laelaps.”
She shook her head on a giggle. “Nope, just plain old Harry.”
I sat down next to her, my jean-clad thigh pressed to her naked one. Her shorts were dangerously short.
“And you?”
She pushed her hand out in front of her and I couldn’t do anything but take it. We shook as she said, “Livingston Rose Montgomery at your service.” She said it in a thick Southern accent that almost made me smile.
Instead, I lay back on the blanket and looked at the stars, still weary from the day and cranky from class.
“God, today sucked. I freaking hate etiquette classes and I had two today. Two! I mean, how much torture is a sixteen-year-old girl supposed to endure? Being Southern is hard, Nova.” She nudged her thigh to mine and I grumbled out an acknowledgment that wasn’t a word at all but more a sound.
Sixteen. And I was nineteen. She was too young for me, but I was drawn to her in an explicable way that I couldn’t deny.
Already I was feeling better from just being near her. I felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. Like maybe classes at the tech school and taking care of my dad weren’t so bad as long as this girl was here at night.
“What do you think this means, Adam?” She was gazing at the stars.
“What means?” I mumbled.
She motioned to the sky with her chin. “This.”
My eyes darted to the sky and then to her. “I think it means in the grand scheme of things, we’re small, so unimportant. Look how big the universe is.” My voice was quiet.
She turned to me slowly, her face serious. “For such small things, we can make a huge difference, though, right?”
I couldn’t stand how hopeful her eyes were.
The question burned on my tongue. “Is that what you want to do? Make a difference?”
Gazing at the sky, she answered, “Absolutely.”
That was it. That one word, but it said it all. There was no doubt in my mind Livingston would change the world.
She was only quiet a few moments after our exchange and eventually started talking about her school work, her dog, her friend Mel. I heard it all while never uttering a single word. Jesus, the girl could talk. But I didn’t want to know about those things. The things I wanted to know were more personal. More hidden.
When she finally quieted and was staring into space herself, I asked the question I’d been wanting her to answer all night.
“Why do you do it?”
Her head snapped over to look at me and her eyes were wide. Her jaw dropped and she pressed a hand to her chest. “Did you”—she pointed at my face—“just actually open your mouth and move it while sounds came out of it?”
I rolled my eyes and laid my head back down with a sigh before turning my head to the side and giving her an eat shit look.
She giggled. “What? You’ve said all of two words to me. I’m in shock right now. I might keel over and die. The earth is moving under my feet. I feel the sky tumbling down—”
I almost laughed at her ridiculousness. “Isn’t that a song?”
“I don’t know. Is it?” She grinned, being totally cute and throwing me back into silence.
But I didn’t need to talk. God knew she could totally talk enough for both of us.
“Why do I do what?”
“Lie out here all the time? Come to this field when you could stay at your cushy home on the island? Talk to yourself like a maniac?” My questions were fucking endless when it came to Livingston Montgomery. I told myself it was because I was curious. It was a lie. I told myself it was because she was intriguing. It was a lie. No, I couldn’t get enough of her. I was obsessed. I wanted to know everything. I wanted to see the stars through her eyes.
Her eyebrows hit her hairline. “A maniac? Wow. I think I liked you better when you didn’t say anything. In fact, I think you were best when you just left notes in a glass bottle.”
I just stared, waiting on my answers, trying not to let her words wound me. I was quiet, reserved. Someone who really knew me may say shy and socially awkward. Most other people just thought I was an asshole thug. But I shouldn’t have asked the questions the way I did. I wasn’t good with words or feelings or even people, really. On top of that, I was still grouchy as fuck from class and taking it out on her.
She blew out a long breath and swallowed. “You shouldn’t just assume things about people, Adam. Not everything is always as it seems.” She shot me a dirty look. “And you have no idea what my life is like, and trust me, it is far from”—she threw up air quotes—“cushy.”
I just stared at her, not knowing what to say mostly because she was right. I shouldn’t assume things and part of me felt bad about it, but the smarter part of me knew she was safer over there. On the island. Away from me. And definitely away from this side of town.
Her brow was furrowed and her jaw was clenched. “What are you looking at?” she growled, standing up and crouching next to her side of the blanket. She started to roll up the blanket until she couldn’t anymore, because I was still lying on it.
“You can move.”
“I know I can.”
She pulled on the blanket.
“Get off my blanket, tattoo boy.”
“That’s mature,” I deadpanned.
She pulled on the blanket hard, while her dog danced around her nervously, but I didn’t budge or attempt to move. She was actually being kinda cute and I felt myself smirk.
“I don’t give a flying fuck if you think I’m mature! I’m sixteen! I can be immature if I want, asshole!” she yelled from above me and my smirk almost became a full-on smile.
“You kiss your mother with that mouth, young lady?”
She paused and stared down at me, her jaw clenched before she pulled hard on the blanket and sent me rolling into the grass. I cussed as I landed face down on the grass.
She snapped the blanket over me as she continued to roll it. “No, I don’t kiss my mother at all, you stupid, jerk face, assuming asshat. I can’t because both of my parents are dead and I come out here to talk to them. I come out here for some peace.” She stepped over me like a piece of shit she was avoiding getting on her shoe and started speed walking toward the bridge that would take her home.
And I was. I was a big old piece of shit. Jesus, I stuck my foot in it tonight. I wondered to whom she was going home to if both of her parents were dead. And I felt like a dick. A big one. Not because of how I’d spoken to her or the things I’d said. I was just me. And I’d long since given up people’s ideals of what they thought I should do or say because I usually said whatever the hell I wanted when I talked. And it was mostly awkward and sometimes not nice, but it was always honest. No, I didn’t feel bad about our conversation. I felt bad that she’d lost her parents. I felt bad that she came here and talked to balls of gas and heat, instead of actual people. I felt bad that she, for some reason, felt this place was safer than her home on the island.
“Livingston Rose Montgomery!” I yelled, getting up off the ground. She didn’t turn around, but I swore that her dog gave me a dirty ass look. Hell, I deserved it. I didn’t feel right chasing her. I thought maybe it would scare her and that was the last thing I wanted. I needed for her to come back like I needed air, but I wouldn’t frighten her.
“Livingston!” I shouted louder this time. She didn’t turn around or acknowledge me except for the slow rise of her middle finger over her head while she continued to walk with a slow swing to her hips that made me realize she had a great ass.
I chuckled low. She was all heat and fire, that girl. It was a wonder she hadn’t already burned me to a crisp. I was already counting down the seconds until I could see her again.