Earth Bound (33 page)

The fish darted through the water, silver and orange and yellow and blue and red. She never knew fish could be so colorful. With the green of the plants, it was as if a rainbow had been trapped in the prism of the tank.

She knelt to take it all in. What serene beauty. She beamed up at him. “I should have known you wouldn’t have a dog.”

“I’m not here enough to care for a dog. And I needed something.” He was fidgeting with the edge of his jacket. His fingers kept going over the same square inch of fabric. He was really invested in her response.

He’d needed something to care for.
He put together this beautiful, difficult, delicate thing because he’d needed something to care for.

“They’re gorgeous. Are they”—she sniffed—“salt water?”

“Yes.” There was both sheepishness and pride in the word all at once.

“That must be tricky.”

“It is. I test the pH every day, change one-third of the water biweekly, scrape for algae, vary their diets…” He trailed off. Then he looked at her and shrugged, as if he were apologizing. “I’m probably boring you.”

As tired as she was, nothing about any of this felt boring. It was his beating heart, sitting in a tank for her to see.

Softly, so softly, she said, “You don’t just love them because they’re lovely.”

“No it’s… I mean, they
are.
”

But that wasn’t it at all. He appreciated them because they were difficult, because they rewarded him for the effort he put in.
 

Her heart swelled, sputtered. Jesus, she loved him.

She’d been meaning to tell him that once he’d shown her whatever it was they’d come to see, but she realized there was something
she
needed to show him.

She stood up. Took a few steps across the room and stooped before another tank. “I could use a shower.”

She glanced at him over her shoulder. He’d raised his eyebrows at her abrupt tone. “Um, you could use mine?”

Poor confused man. But she had to do this before she could reassure him. “Yes, please.”

There was a pause, but he led her into his bedroom, which was as spare and tidy as the rest of the place. The bed was made up in a way that wouldn’t have been out of place in an Army barracks, with perfectly crisp corners. He gestured to the bathroom door. “Everything you need should be in there. I’ll get you a towel and a washcloth. And leave a robe out for you.”

She briefly considered inviting him along, but with his insistence in the motel that he couldn’t oblige her in that way, she knew it wasn’t the right time. But once she was done in the shower…

Well, they’d probably both pass out. But there would be time for more, later.

She showered as quickly as she could, scrubbing the grit of the last few days from her skin and hair. She ran a comb—his comb—through her hair, studying her naked face in the mirror as she did. Her bare skin looked odd even to herself—most of her glances in the mirror during the day revealed a fully made-up face. He’d never seen her like this, without even powder and with her hair curling wetly. She was completely without her armor.

But he’d taken her into his house, shown her his pets—she had to give him something before she could finally tell him that she loved him.

He’d left a robe hanging on a hook on the door. It reminded her of his eyes, dark from a distance, but wonderfully soft up close. She shrugged into it, the scent of his aftershave clinging to it and surrounding her.

When she opened the bathroom door, he was folding down one corner of the bed. He stilled when he saw her, his glasses not doing a thing to lessen the intensity of his stare. “I thought you might like to rest. Or if you’re hungry… Well, I don’t have any food. But I could go pick something up.”

His gaze running across her bare skin made her nervous, made her hands itch to cover herself. But she kept them fisted in the collar of the robe.

“I’m not hungry. And sleep sounds better than anything. Anything except…” She closed the distance between them. “Can I say what I need to now? I’m ready.”

“I’m not.” He was fidgeting. She got the sense he might want to pace.

She set her hands ever so slightly on his shoulders. “Eugene?”

At this, he wrapped his arms around her. “Okay, now I’m ready.”

She smiled. She felt her lips—bare of lipstick—crackle. She might as well be naked before him. He had to know, he just had to. But if he didn’t: “I love you.”

A sense of rightness, of certainty stole over her as she said the words. It was much like the first time she’d seen the inside of a computer and thought,
This is what I’m meant to explore.

She’d loved him from the first. Probably from that moment when she’d propositioned him in his office. No, probably from long before that.

She’d fought it. She’d grown up with parents who loved each other, but took that state for granted. The love between her parents wasn’t work or a catalyst. It was a precondition. The love between her parents and their offspring? Well, was that really necessary?

In her bumbling, in her assumption that Parsons was like all of the rest of them, she’d hurt him. He of course had reciprocated. But all she could do to ask for his forgiveness was give him the future.

As his eyes softened, as his fingers dug into her back, she knew it would be enough.

He exhaled, relaxed, and came back to her. She could see the moment when it happened, when trust and hope flooded his face. It was as if they’d spent no time apart. He smiled. “I love you too.”

He caught her mouth. Lord it felt good to kiss him again. Like being rubbed all over with velvet—and the exhaustion was definitely getting to her brain.

He released her and cradled her face in his hands. He’d never looked more tired or more pleased with himself.

She shook a finger at him. “It’s going to take a lot of work, navigating our lives inside and outside ASD.”

“We’ll develop a process.”

“We’ll need to, though I am sorry I blamed you for losing the project to Maynard.”

He wrapped one of his hands around her finger. “I’m sorry I didn’t fight harder to keep it. Or see what Hal was doing.”

“These kinds of situations will keep coming up. You having to tell me no or vice versa.”

“At work, the mission will always come first. For both of us. But here… we’ll figure it out. We’re both smart.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “But maybe we can discuss it when we’ve had some sleep?”

“Yes.” When he said the word
sleep
, her brain tried to shut down, the edges of her vision going gray.

He led her to the bed. “This is your side.” His cheeks might have been flushed, although she couldn’t quite tell.

“I have a side?” But she was too tired to tease him about it as she climbed between the sheets. It was indescribably delicious to be in a bed. She felt as if she could sleep until next week.

He pulled the blankets over her, then stripped down to his shorts before sliding in next to her. He was warm and familiar and he loved her.

Tired as she was, she couldn’t resist running her fingers over his shoulders, down his chest, and around his waist. She needed to claim him in this one last way before she fell asleep.

“I should warn you,” he whispered, “I always wake up at 4:30.”

That was too damn early for any normal human.

“Also I… Well, I’ll probably ask you to marry me pretty soon.”

She chuckled. “You had better. My mother would hate to think of me living in sin…”

But before they could finish those thoughts, they fell asleep.

After the morning staff meeting, Parsons trailed Stan back to his office. Stan kept spouting platitudes about the success of the rendezvous mission and how Parsons had done such good work. It took every ounce of self-control for Parsons not to laugh.

Of course it was good that they’d pulled it off. Of course it was due to the hard work of the ASD staff—most of all, Charlie. Of course Parsons had been right all along.

But as pleased as Parsons was about that, the fact that he wanted to skip down the hall and was even contemplating humming was not because the Perseid capsule had latched onto the unmanned one. It was because Charlie had woken up next to him,
in his bed
. She had told him she loved him. She had seemed quite certain about planning a future with him.

She wasn’t even that upset he’d woken at 4:30 like usual. Or if she had been, the doughnuts he’d run out for had soothed any lingering hurt. And he’d discovered that breakfast and coffee were especially delicious when you shared them with the woman you loved.

Even now, he could crow. Well, that was if he wasn’t about to get Charlie fired. His stomach shuddered and he tightened the muscles of his belly to still it.

Parsons shut Stan’s door.

Stan glanced up, and set his morning paper down on the desk. He’d been pouring out his monologue about the many virtues of the engineering program without giving Parsons his full attention. But now, Parsons had it.

“If you’re not fishing for compliments,” the ASD chief said, “what is it we need to talk about?”

Parsons
never
fished for compliments, which was probably why he scowled when he said, “I’m going to marry Charlie Eason.”

“What!?” This came out sharp to the point of shrill.

He gave Stan a moment to collect himself.

“How long has this been going on?” Stan demanded after he swallowed.

“Long enough. Now, if it’s going to be a problem for her career—and after the past few days, I think it’s clear you need her more than you need me—I’m happy to resign. But I think it would probably be better for you to figure out how to handle it.”

Last night, Parsons had been ready to leave ASD. But now that he knew he could have his job and Charlie too, he wanted to keep them both.

“Does Dr. Eason know?”

At that, he felt himself smile. He quickly repressed it. “That I’m going to marry her? Oh yes.”

Stan paced a bit. “I was going to offer her Hal’s job.”

“You should.”

“He tendered his resignation last night, you know.”

“No, I didn’t.”
I was too busy fixing things with Charlie.
“He’s not a bad manager.” Just a terribly selfish one. “But Dr. Eason is…” Brilliant. Beautiful. Competent.
His.
“Special,” he finally said.

At that, the expression on Stan’s face went to surprise and wonder, like a child who had snuck downstairs on Christmas morning and caught Santa Claus in the act. “You do love her.”

“Well, yes. Of course. That’s why I’m going to marry her.”

“I thought you were saying you’d propose so we could keep her. Everyone is going to want her after what she pulled yesterday.”

They always would have wanted her. She was remarkable. Stupid Stan.

Parsons shrugged. “I can’t guarantee we’ll keep her. Our marriage has nothing to do with that. I thought you should be aware of our… personal involvement. And if you’re concerned about my decision making where she’s concerned—or where her department is, I guess—we can come up with a bureaucratic redundancy.”

Stan walked over to his desk and began shuffling through it. He finally produced a cigar and offered it him. “You know, it’s strange.”

“What’s strange?”

“I don’t think I trust anyone who works for me as much as I do you.”

Parsons took the cigar. “Well, I work twice as hard as anyone else.”

Stan laughed. “That’s true. I wish you joy. I really do. Both of you. You’re a lucky man.”

You have no idea.
“Thank you.”

Stan pulled out another cigar and meditatively rolled it between his fingers. “I am a bit worried about our image, though.”

When wasn’t ASD worried about their image? They spent too damn much money on public relations, if you asked Parsons. Not that anyone would. “What in particular about our image?”

“All these women.” Stan gestured at
all those women
with his cigar. “We’ll have Dr. Eason heading up computing and the Virgo Three training as astronauts. People might say we're turning into a department of women. Some of the Perseid Six are complaining about having to train with them. God knows what they’ll do if we actually send any of the girls up.”

Parsons’s instinctive response was to snap that he didn’t give a damn about the male astronauts’ tender feelings. He bit that back and said instead, “Give them some time to adjust. If the rest of us carry on as if there’s nothing remarkable about all these women around here, then soon enough everyone else will find it unremarkable.”

The cigar rolled through Stan’s fingers as he pondered that. “You’re probably right.”

I know I am.
“It can't hurt to try.”

“You’re already more relaxed. Marriage is going to agree with you.”

Yes, it most certainly was. “Thank you. I’ll get back to work then.”

Jensen waved him out. “Let me know where to send the toaster.”

“Sure thing.”

Parsons made his way back to his office, his lips trying to purse in a whistle the entire time. He’d have to be careful around here or else he’d lose his fearsome reputation.

Halfway to his office, he met Charlie coming the opposite way, chatting with Jack.