Chapter One

Atlanta, Georgia. Home. It didn’t matter that Dennis Long hadn’t lived in the burgeoning, busy city since he’d left for college when he was seventeen, or that Haskell, Wyoming was home now. Atlanta never really left a person’s blood. The sound of cicadas on hot nights, sleeping on the porch when his mom couldn’t afford to keep the air conditioning on, sweet tea after roaming around Grant Park with his buddies all afternoon, winters that teased without ever quite delivering...it was part of who he was. Those steamy streets and the humidity that turned his normally docile, brown hair curly, would always remind him of a happy childhood.

Well, an almost happy childhood. There were a few things that made his heart speed up when he thought about them. The way the kids on his block would tease him because of his height, pick him for the basketball team, then laugh at him when he tripped over his feet for one. Always being fawned over by teachers for being gifted, then called “brainiac” by the other kids as soon as those teachers’ backs were turned for another. Not to mention his complete inability to understand most people’s humor.

Oh, and her.

Angelica Jones.

“Dennis, man, where are you going?” Dennis’s old friend Leon called to him as he veered down a side aisle in the massive Georgia Tech auditorium. “Friends and Family seating is down this way.”

Dennis snorted, but scooted back out of the row of seats he had started to slide down. “I’m not family, and I don’t know if I exactly qualify as a friend.”

Leon laughed and slapped him on the back as he came close. “Come on, man. If you’re not a friend, then I don’t know who is.”

Dennis sent Leon a sideways look, but followed him down the aisle to a section near the front of the auditorium, nearest the stage where the doctoral program graduates would be receiving their diplomas. He and Leon had been thick as thieves from the ages of ten to when Dennis left to take UC Berkeley up on their early admissions offer. Leon had been the only other kid in their Ormewood Park neighborhood who was tall enough not to make Dennis feel like the Jolly Green Giant. A fact which didn’t make Dennis feel at all easy about sitting together near the front of the audience. They were bound to block someone’s view.

“I can’t wait to see the look on Angie’s face when she spots you sitting with the rest of us,” Leon said as they edged their way down a row of seats with a “Reserved” sign on the end. “She’s going to straight-up trip when she sees you.”

That’s what I’m afraid of, Dennis worried. He had a plan, though. Angelica hadn’t seen him in more than a decade. Since then, he’d earned his masters and PhD in record time, worked on a government rocket program where he’d had top secret clearance, and had secured an important position at Paradise Space Flight, a company that was going to turn heads in the next few years. He’d grown up, worked out, lost his boyish chub, and aside from the fact that interacting with most people was a thousand times more complex than the equations he solved every day, he was well aware of the image he now presented. And if using the charm he’d learned how to fake to convince Angelica to come work for Paradise Space Flight would help, then he would turn it on as high as he could. Rubbing in how well he’d done would be icing on the cake.

At least, that was the plan.

“She knows I’m coming,” he told Leon, testing out his newfound confidence—and hoping it didn’t come off as too cocky. Although cocky might work if he was going to play up how much he’d changed. “Paradise Space Flight has been trying to recruit her for their propulsion development team for almost a year now. Nobody can figure out why she doesn’t have a job lined up already. I’ve been sent to help seal the deal.”

“You don’t say.” Leon grinned at him over his shoulder, not buying the suave act at all, as they reached the middle of the long row of seats. “You and Angie always were the two biggest brains on the block.”

Dennis laughed, but he couldn’t keep his smile in place. They were the smartest on the block, no question about it. But that hadn’t put them on equal footing. Not by a long shot. At least not until today. Today was the day he would show Angelica Jones that it was time she showed him the respect he had always deserved.

“Land sakes, is that Dennis Long I see?” A dark-skinned woman with grey hair and a fashionable, flowered dress stood from her seat in the row in front of them, joy in her eyes.

“Hi, Mrs. Jones.” Dennis raised a hand to wave at her, but Angelica’s mom twisted to wrap him in the biggest hug she could manage with a chair between them. A thousand memories of sunshine days, home-baked cookies, and all the love his mom hadn’t had time to shower him with swooped back on Dennis, and he smiled, blowing his cool guy image to pieces.

“Look at you.” She held him at arm’s length, raking him from head to toe. “Mmm! That California sunshine sure did do you good. Angie’s going to pop a gut when she sees what a tall drink of water you’ve become.”

Dennis felt his face go hot as slithers of embarrassment zipped through him. His smile turned sheepish. “Thanks, Mrs. Jones, but I’m not in California anymore. I moved to Wyoming last year.”

“Oh, that’s right.” Angelica’s mom squeezed his arms one last time, making a sound at the muscle she found there, then rocked back to study him with a smile. “That company of yours was smart to send you, of all people, to woo my Angelica.” Dennis blushed even harder at the word “woo,” his gut tightening. “But you’d better watch out for that NASA guy who keeps calling. He’s determined.” She added an expression that said she was being polite.

“Dennis can take him,” Leon said, nudging Dennis’s shoulder with a sly grin. “He’s got all sorts of advantages no one else has.”

“Such as?” Dennis sent him a doubtful look.

“History.” Leon nodded. “No one else in the world has the kind of history you’ve got with Angie.”

“You can say that again,” Mrs. Jones laughed. “You remember the time you followed Angie home from that picnic when the two of you were, what, eight?”

“Was that the time Angie decided she was a princess and Dennis here was her squire?” Leon asked.

“It was part of that,” Mrs. Jones laughed on. “You picked a whole mess of dandelions along the way, and when the two of you reached our porch and you handed them to her, why, Angie took those flowers with a smile and shut the door in your poor face.”

Mrs. Jones and Leon laughed. Dennis tried to laugh along with them, but his chest ached at the memory, making him feel eight years old and two feet tall again. “I don’t know if I remembered to thank you for the cookies you handed me out the window,” he told Mrs. Jones.

“Cookies were more than Angie got for those antics,” Mrs. Jones replied, shaking her finger. “That little princess got sent to bed without her supper for being so mean to you.”

“Probably not for the last time,” Leon added as an aside.

“That’s the truth,” Mrs. Jones laughed.

If Angelica had been punished every time she was mean to him, then Dennis doubted she’d gone a single week without missing a meal or being sent to her room. Still, kid Dennis had thought being teased and treated like a puppy was all worth it for the days when Angelica was in a good mood and played nice.

“I was so proud of the two of you when you won that science fair,” Mrs. Jones went on with a sigh, her eyes taking on the gloss of the happy memory. “Up against all those rich kids from Alpharetta and Buckhead. The two of you sure did make us all proud.”

“Careful, Mrs. Jones. Dennis will get a swelled head if you go on praising him like that,” Leon said with a wink.

A fanfare of recorded music indicated that the commencement ceremony was about to begin. Dennis and Leon took their seats, but Mrs. Jones kept talking.

“Not our Dennis,” she said as though Dennis had lived the twelve years since leaving Atlanta right next door to her. “I swear, you never had a vainglorious or big-headed bone in your body.”

More embarrassment crowded in on Dennis. “I dunno, Mrs. Jones.” Particularly since his plan to dazzle Angelica involved bragging about how awesome he was now. Inwardly, he sighed. There was no way he was going to pull that off.

Mrs. Jones snorted and waved a hand. “Honey, you’re too good a soul to go acting all high and mighty. Angie, on the other hand....” She made a disapproving noise and took her seat.

“Angie always was a firecracker,” Leon said, settling his big frame into his chair as comfortably as he could.

Dennis had to squirm to get comfortable himself, but that had less to do with the chair designed for someone half his size and more to do with the reminder of who he’d been and, arguably, who he still was. And how Angelica had affected him. Then and, unfortunately, now. He did his best to hide a sigh. His plan to show Angelica up with his accomplishments was already on the rocks.

Mrs. Jones took her seat in front of Dennis at last, but twisted to ask, “How’s your mama?”

The music swelled as faculty and staff dressed in academic robes took the stage, so Dennis only had time to say, “She’s fine. She likes San Diego, and I think this third husband, John, is really good for her,” before he was cut off by an announcement.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please rise to welcome the Georgia Institute of Technology’s College of Engineering doctoral graduates.”

The audience rose to its feet and burst into applause as a short line of graduating students of all ages, decked out in impressive academic robes, marched from the back of the auditorium toward the stage. Dennis rose with them, the knot in his gut spreading. Every ounce of determination he’d built up for the job of selling Angelica on PSF wavered as he searched the line for her. The moment he spotted her, his heart flopped into his stomach.

Half a second later, it dropped to a much lower, much more inconvenient location. Angelica was gorgeous. He’d only seen pictures of her in the last ten years, and as flattering as those had been, they didn’t do her justice. Gone was the pretty girl he’d regularly made a fool of himself over. In her place was a poised, sophisticated woman. She held her chin high. Her chocolate skin was smooth and unadorned with make-up. She didn’t need any to shine. Her lips looked as soft as ever, as soft as they’d been when she’d given him his first kiss.

And she walked by without even seeing him, even though she glanced right at her mother and waved. In a millisecond, Dennis’s throbbing heart shattered. Just like that first kiss, she moved on without a second thought, leaving him sweating and clueless.

Dennis Long. Angelica’s eyes would have zipped right to him if he was standing in the middle of the crowd at a championship Falcons game, dressed the same as everyone else. Thank God she spotted him before he saw her. Her chest tightened, a lump caught in her throat, and it took every last ounce of willpower not to look at him as she passed the row where he sat. Why was he there? She’d known he was coming to talk about Paradise Space Flight, but no one had warned her that he’d be at the graduation ceremony.

Pull yourself together, Ange, she scolded herself, smiling to the outside world. If you can face down a block of all-male professors to defend your dissertation, you can deal with Dennis Long sitting in the audience for one ceremony.

She nearly stumbled as she climbed the stairs to the stage. That took her right back to the day, the very moment, that Dennis Long had walked into her life. Second grade. Recess. Tina Malone had pushed her out of line for the slide. She’d fallen and skinned her knee and elbow. And Dennis had been there to pick her up and walk with her to the teacher to report what had happened while she’d cried.

The graduation marshal directed her group to their spot for the ceremony. Angelica discreetly took the seat at the end of the row. Valedictorian was supposed to be a secret, but the convenience of being at the end of the row when it came time to get up and take the podium outweighed the need for surprise. There were enough other graduates shuffling into seats and faculty members poised to get up and make speeches of their own that for the time being, all Angelica had to do was sit back and wait.

And remember. Dennis had been the tallest boy in their class. The other kids picked on him, but at seven years old, she had never understood why. He was her hero for rescuing her from the bullies. At least, he’d been her hero until those same bullies ragged on her and cut her out of games and called her Mrs. Cracker for sitting next to a white boy all the time. That’s when she’d done it. That’s when she’d chosen popularity over friendship.

The ceremony started with an initial address from the dean of the college. Angelica spent about three seconds trying to pay attention before her mind and her eyes drifted. As subtly as she could, back straight, hands folded in her lap, she peeked over to where Dennis was sitting, right behind her mom. Her breath caught in her chest at the sight of him. He’d changed. The height looked damn good on him now. The lines of his face had hardened, but not so much that he looked mean. He was frowning, but Dennis Long couldn’t have looked stern or tough if he’d tried. What he could look was sexy as hell with his tousled hair and big, brown eyes.

A quivering ache formed in her belly. If she could go back and tell teenage Angie how hot that awkward boy—who she spent all her time pushing away without ever being able to really let go—would turn out to be, her whole life might have been different.

Dennis’s gaze flickered away from the dean and met hers. With a shock like lightning, Angelica snapped her focus away from him and back to where it should be. Her heart pounded, and she could feel a sweat that had nothing to do with the summer heat in the air-conditioned auditorium break out along her skin.

Yep, things could have turned out differently all right. If she’d been as smart as everyone told her she was, she’d’ve been nice to Dennis instead of torturing him. She would have encouraged him instead of laughing at him and making fun of him in front of her friends. She stood and made her way to the podium when the dean announced her. And chances were, she would have ended up as Mrs. Cracker after all, raising a bunch of tall, thin, mocha babies instead of going to school. She would have helped her babies with their homework instead of conducting her own, breakthrough research.

In the end, she stood by the decisions she’d made, but that didn’t stop her from wondering.

She reached the podium and smiled at the applause that greeted her. “Ladies and gentlemen,” she began her valedictory speech. “Faculty, staff, family, and friends. When we think back on all the great discoveries that have been made in the world of science and engineering, certain images come to mind. Monoliths of modern technology. Rockets that have broken the boundaries of this earth. Dreams of the future, and paragons of the past.” She changed her stance. “So I bet you didn’t expect to see a woman of color up here speaking to you today.”

A ripple of laughter passed over the audience. She encouraged it with a smile, setting people at ease with a skill that had always come naturally to her, whether she deserved it or not. She fought to keep from looking at Dennis, judging what he thought of her.

“But I stand before you today not as a novelty or a cute little side-show to the real advances mankind is capable of. I am here as a testament to perseverance, a model of what can happen when you dream bigger than anyone around you can imagine, and when you fight for those dreams with your whole heart. Because what is the advancement of science but pushing the way we see things beyond the limitations of what has been true in the past? What is discovery but the results of shedding outmoded ways of thought in favor of a belief that anything is possible, and the answers to all our questions are out there for the finding, if we have the grit to go after them?

“Ladies and gentlemen, I stand here before you today not as something new and unique, but as a personification of everything that scientific endeavor has represented since man- and womankind looked up at the stars and wondered what was out there.”

She’d taken so much time and care in writing her speech. There were so many weights on her shoulders, from the burden of representing her race and her gender all the way down to the much heavier weight of making her mom proud. That much was easy. Her mama smiled at her from the row right in front of Dennis, full of pride. But all of her words, all of the sights and sounds around her blending into a buzz in the background, couldn’t make up for the ache that kept spreading through her, all because Dennis Long had showed up when she least expected him. If she hadn’t had the words of her speech written out and safe on the podium in front of her, she didn’t know what she’d say. Not with Dennis there.

She appealed to the audience not to crush the dreams of young people by telling them they couldn’t do what they dreamed of because of their background, their income, their gender, or their disabilities. But she knew full well that the girl she’d been had stepped on Dennis’s dreams on a daily basis. Her gaze kept zipping back to Dennis. He watched her with a blank expression. She spoke aloud about the importance of encouraging children, but all she could think about was the bully she’d been, pushing him down emotionally every time he’d come to her wanting nothing but friendship. By the time she reached the carefully crafted end of her speech, smiling and nodding at the rush of applause that followed, her heart was about ready to break.

She couldn’t get back to her seat fast enough, as the dean’s congratulations brought with them another round of acknowledgment from the crowd. She had so much to make up for, so much to apologize for. Knowing it was coming didn’t make it any easier. And here she thought she’d come face to face with Dennis again in the meeting room of one of the nice, tasteful hotels downtown. Nope. It looked like what needed to happen was about to happen in the middle of an auditorium of family and colleagues.

She walked across the stage to receive her diploma. Almost eight years of intensive post-graduate study, internships, and dedication, and all she could think about was leaving the stage and getting to Dennis. She had no idea what she’d say to him when they were face to face. I’m sorry? I was a little bitch back then? It’s hard to swim against the crowd when your social standing depends on it? Nothing she came up with sounded right in her mind.

When it was over, diploma in hand, she marched off the stage with the rest of the men and women receiving their degrees, out of the auditorium and into the foyer where family and friends would come to mingle with them. At last, her smile dropped. She moved to the side and craned her neck, waiting for Dennis to come out. Waiting. Like she’d been waiting for so long to...to what? Explain herself? Ask for forgiveness?

At last, several inches above everyone else, Dennis walked out through the auditorium doors, her mom on one side, Leon on the other. Angelica’s heart shot to her throat. There was a decent chance she might be sick, but she was a coward if she let that stop her. Her mom spotted her, said something to Dennis, and pointed to where she stood.

Dennis glanced up and met her eyes. Prickles broke out on Angelica’s skin. She waved, took a step forward, moved to—

“Miss Jones, what a fantastic valedictory.” The shock of being stopped just when she’d worked up the gumption to face Dennis took years off Angelica’s life. She turned to find a middle-aged man in an expensive suit smiling at her.

“Thank you,” she said by rote. “And you are?”

The man reached out a hand. She spotted the insignia pin on his lapel just as he said, “Nathan Holstein, from NASA. Don’t worry, I didn’t expect you to recognize someone you’ve only talked to on the phone.”

“Oh, right. Mr. Holstein.” As important as it was, and as hard as she tried, Angelica could only barely crack a smile. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted her mom dragging Dennis toward her, Leon practically pushing from behind. Dennis didn’t look happy. In fact, he looked—

“I was wondering if you’d given any more thought to our offer,” Nathan blasted into her chaotic thoughts once more.

“Your offer, yes,” she repeated.

Nathan’s face brightened. “It that a yes-yes? Can we expect you in Houston soon, then?”

“What?” Angelica’s eyes widened. “Oh, I—”

“My baby!” her mom exclaimed as she, Dennis, and Leon dodged their way through the crowd and finally reached Angelica’s side. “You looked lovely up there. I’m so proud of you.” She threw her arms around Angelica in a huge hug.

Angelica squeezed her tight, wanting nothing more in that moment than to hide in her mama’s arms.

“You must be Miss Jones’s mother,” Nathan said, extending a hand. “We’re so pleased that she’s going to be joining us at NASA.”

“Oh, I—” Angelica choked, snapping her wide-eyed gaze to Dennis.

“NASA?” Dennis’s eyes flew wide...moments before his entire expression crumbled.

She hadn’t been in Dennis’s presence for more than half a second, and already she’d hurt him again.

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