Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Before we can leave for Houston, we spend one night in a hotel in Longyearbyen, Svalbard’s main settlement. It offers a bottomless breakfast buffet and keeps the rooms’ temperature about ten degrees higher than needed for comfortable inside dwelling—truly the stuff of post-crevasse-Hannah’s dreams. I’m not sure whether Ian shares my bliss, as he disappears as soon as I’m settled in. It’s fine, though, because I have stuff to do. Mostly writing a detailed report updating NASA on what happened, which doesn’t mention Ian (at his request) but ends in a formal complaint against Merel. After that, I stumble upon a rare moment of grace: I manage to connect to the mini-rover out in the field. I let out a squeal of delight when I realize that it’s collecting the precise type of data I needed. I stare at the incoming feed, remember what Ian said on the boat about how valuable my project would be for future missions, and nearly tear up.

I don’t know. I must be still shaken up.

We leave the following day. I’ve done what I came to AMASE for (surprisingly successfully), and Ian needs to be at JPL in three days. The first plane ride is from Svalbard to Oslo, on one of those minuscule aircraft that take off from minuscule airports with their minuscule seats and minuscule complimentary snacks. Ian and I don’t get to sit next to each other, nor do we from Oslo to Frankfurt. I pass the time staring out of the window and watching JAG reruns with Norwegian subtitles. By the end of the third episode, I strongly suspect skyldig means “guilty.”

“I guess ikke means ‘not,’ then,” Ian tells me as he wheels my still-injured self through the Frankfurt airport. I turn back to look up at him, puzzled. “What? I was watching JAG, too. It’s a good show. Reminds me of my childhood.”

“Really? You used to watch a show about military lawyers with your weird smuggler dad?”

He gives me a sheepish look, and I burst into laughter.

“Do Harm and Mac end up together in the end?” I ask him.

He half smiles. “No spoilers.”

“Oh, come on.”

“You’ll have to watch to find out.”

“Or I could look it up on Wikipedia.”

He keeps on smiling, like he thinks that I won’t. He’s right.

We are together for the last leg of the trip. Ian lets me have the window seat without me having to ask, and settles by my side after putting away our bags and wedging a pillow under my brace. He is broad and solid, his legs cramped and too long for the little space he has, and once we’re both buckled in, it feels like he’s blocking away the rest of the world. A wall, keeping me safe from the noise and the action. I’ve been restless ever since the boat and haven’t managed more than very brief naps, but a few minutes after we take off, I feel myself starting to doze, exhausted. The last thing I do before falling asleep is lean my head against Ian’s shoulder. The last thing I remember him doing is shifting a little lower, to make sure that I’m as comfortable as I can be.

I wake up somewhere over the Atlantic and stay exactly where I am for several minutes, my temple against his arm, the clean smell of his clothes and his skin in my nostrils. He’s looking at his tablet, reading an article on plasma propulsion. I skim a few lines in the methods section before saying: “I’m usually not like this.”

He doesn’t seem surprised that I’m awake. “Like how?”

I think about it. “Needy.” I think some more. “Clingy.”

“I know.” I can’t see his face, but his voice is low and kind.

“How do you know?”

“I know you.”

My first instinct is to bristle and push back. Something within me rejects being known, because being known means being rejected. Doesn’t it? “You don’t, though. Really know me. I mean, we never even fucked.”

“True.” He nods, and his jaw brushes against my hair. “Would you have let me get to know you if we had fucked?”

“Nah.” I yawn and straighten, arching to stretch my sore back. “Do you ever think about it?”

“About what?”

“Five years ago. That afternoon.”

“I think about it a lot,” he says immediately, without hesitating. His expression is undecipherable to me. Utterly unreadable.

“Is that why you came to rescue me?” I tease. “Because you were thinking about it? Because you have been secretly pining for years?”

He meets my eyes squarely. “I don’t know that there was anything secret about that.”

He goes back to his tablet, still calm, still relaxed. Then, after several minutes and a couple of yawns, he closes his eyes and tips his head back against the seat. This time he’s the one to fall asleep, and I’m left awake, staring at the strong line of his throat, unable to stop my head from spinning in a million different directions.

---

?????????When we step out of the TSA area of the Houston airport, there is a sign in the crowd, similar to the ones limo drivers hold up in movies when they’re picking up important clients they’re afraid they won’t recognize.

hannah arroyo, it says. And underneath: who almost died and didn’t even tell us. also, she always forgets to replace the toilet paper roll. what a little shit.

It’s a pretty big sign. All the more because it’s held by two not-very-tall girls, a redhead and a brunette, who are very obviously glaring at me.

I turn around to Ian. He slept on and off for the past four hours and still looks groggy, his face soft and relaxed. Cute, I think. And immediately after: Delicious. Handsome. Want. I say none of it and instead ask, “What are my idiot friends doing here?”

He shrugs. “I figured you might want to talk through your near-death experience with someone, so I decided to tell Mara what happened. I did not expect her to come in person.”

“Bold of you to assume I didn’t tell her myself.”

His eyebrow lifts. “Did you?”

“I was going to. Once I felt less whiny. And—whatever.” I roll my eyes. Wow, I’m mature. “How did you go from not remembering Mara’s name to having her number?”

“I had to do unspeakable things.”

I gasp. “Not Great-Aunt Delphina.”

He presses his lips together and nods, slowly, wretchedly.

“Ian, I am so sor—”

I cannot finish the sentence, because I’m being tackled by two small but surprisingly strong goblins. I wobble on my one functioning ankle, nearly choking when their arms squeeze tight around my neck.

“Why are you guys here?”

“Because,” Mara says against my shoulder. They are both full-on crying—so weak, so tenderhearted. God, I love them.

“Guys. Get it together. I didn’t even die.”

“What about frostbite?” Sadie murmurs into my armpit. I’d forgotten how fantastically short she is.

“Not much.”

“How many toes amputated?”

“Three.”

“That’s not bad,” Mara says with a sniffle. “Cheaper pedis.”

I laugh and inhale deeply. They smell wonderful, a mix of mundane and familiar, like airport terminals and their favorite shampoos I used to steal and our cramped Pasadena apartment. “Seriously, guys, what are you doing here? Don’t you have, like, work to do?”

“We took two days off, and my neighbor is watching Ozzy, you ingrate hag,” Sadie tells me before starting to cry harder. I pull her even closer and pat her on the back.

A few feet from us, two tall men are talking quietly to each other. I recognize Liam and Erik from their guest appearances on our late-night FaceTime hangouts, and wave at them with my best These two, amirite? expression. They wave back and answer with fond nods that tell me they 500 percent agree.

“Oh—Ian? You’re Ian, right?” Mara detaches from our hug-lump. “Thank you so much for calling us, this moron would have never told us the extent of what happened. And, um, I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch for the past?.?.?. fifteen years?”

“Don’t apologize,” I tell her. “He thought your name was Melissa till twenty minutes ago.”

She frowns. “What? For real?”

Ian blinks from my side, looking slightly abashed.

“Well, still.” She shrugs. “I promise I don’t have anything against you personally. I’m just not generally a fan of the Floyd family.”

“Neither am I.”

Mara’s eyes lit up. “They’re horrible people, right?”

“The worst.”

“Thank you. Hey, we should secede! Form our own official branch of the family. That video of you peeing in a Lowe’s that they forced me to watch over and over? I’d never mention it again.”

Ian smiles. “Sounds great.”

Mara smiles back, but then she leans back in to hug me once again and whisper in my ear, “I’m not even sure he’s really a Floyd. His hair is barely red.”

I burst into laughter. I think I’m home for real.

---

?????????I want to stay awake and bask in the joy of having Sadie and Mara in my living space again, but I fail and conk out the second we get to my place. I wake up in the middle of the night, Sadie and Mara on either side of me in my queen-size bed, and my heart is so full, I’m afraid it’ll overflow. Apparently this is what I am now, a unicorn rainbow marshmallow kitten creature. Bah. I wonder groggily where their boyfriends went, promptly fall back asleep, and find out the answer only several hours later, when the sun shines bright into my kitchen and we’re sitting at my cluttered table.

“They were going to stay in a hotel,” Mara says. She is having Cheez-Its for breakfast without even bothering to look ashamed. “But Ian told them they could bunk with him.”

“He did?” My fridge is full, even though I unplugged it before leaving for Norway. There are several new boxes of cereal on top of it, and fresh fruit in a basket that I didn’t know I owned. I wonder which one of the dependable adults in my life is responsible for this. “Does he have the space?”

“He said he has a big place.”

“Hmm.” I can’t believe Sadie’s Viking boyfriend gets to see Ian’s apartment before I do. Oh well.

“So,” she says, “this seems like the perfect opening to grill you and find out whether you’re boinking Mara’s relative. But it’s obvious that you are. Plus, you just almost Popsicled yourself at the North Pole. So we’ll go easy on you.”

“That is very considerate.” I pluck a grape from the mysterious bowl. “I’m not, though.”

“Bullshit.”

“No, really. We fooled around five years ago, when we met up for Helena’s interview. Then we had a huge argument six months ago, when I told him to fuck off after he vetoed my expedition because it was too dangerous—not because he thought I was an idiot, like someone told me. Then he came to save my life when I almost died on said expedition.” I don’t mention our night together on the boat, because?.?.?. there’s nothing to say, really. Technically, nothing happened.

“As far as Told You Sos go, this is an excellent one,” Mara says.

“Right? That’s what I thought!”

“Hang on,” Sadie interjects. “Did we know that he was the one who vetoed your proposal? And did we know about the fooling-around-five-years-ago bit? Did we forget?”

“We did not,” Mara says. “We would not have forgotten. Thank you for keeping us updated on your life, Hannah.”

“Would you have cared to know?”

Their Hell, yeahs are simultaneous.

Right. Of course. “Okay, let’s see. We kind of made out at JPL. Then he asked me out for dinner. I said that I didn’t date, but I’d fuck him anyway. He wasn’t interested and we went our separate ways.” I shrug. “Now you know.”

Mara glares at me. “Wow. So timely.”

I blow her a kiss.

“But things have changed, right?” Sadie asks. “I mean?.?.?. last night he carried you upstairs for seven floors because the elevator was broken. It’s obvious that he has a thing for you.”

“Yes,” Mara agrees. “Are you going to break my blood relative’s heart? Don’t get me wrong, I’d still side with you. Hos before bros.”

“He’s not your bro in any sense of the word,” I point out.

“Hey, he’s my cousin-or-something.”

Sadie pats her on the shoulder. “It’s the or something that gets me every time. You can really feel the unbreakable family ties.”

“We seceded last night. We’re the founders of the Floyds 2.0. And you”—she points at me—“could be one of us.”

“Could I?”

“Yes. If you gave Ian a chance.”

“I?.?.?. I don’t know.” I think about how he squeezed my hand while the plane landed. About the way he asked for cookies instead of pretzels, because I told him that they’re my favorite. About his arm around my shoulders back in Norway while the concierge checked us into our rooms. About him falling asleep next to me, and me realizing how taxing, how physically demanding it must have been to come extract me from the idiotic situation I put myself into—no matter that he didn’t so much as roll his eyes at the burden of it.

I don’t like the word dating. I don’t like the idea of it. But with Ian?.?.?. I don’t know. It seems different with him.

“I guess we’ll see. I’m not sure he would want to date,” I say, staring at Sadie’s Froot Loops. The ensuing silence drags on so long, I’m forced to look up. She and Mara are staring at me like I just announced that I’m quitting my job to take up macramé full-time. “What?”

“Did she really just use the world date?” Mara asks Sadie, pretending I’m not sitting right here.

“I think so. And without referring to the disgusting fruit?”

Mara frowns. “Dude, dates are amazing.”

“No, they’re not.”

“Yes. Try wrapping them in bacon.”

“Okay,” Sadie acknowledges, “anything is amazing if you wrap it in bacon, but—”

I clear my throat. They turn to me.

“So, you’re gonna go out with him?”

I shrug. Think about it. The idea is so foreign, my brain catches on it for a moment. But remembering the way Ian smiled at me back in Svalbard helps me push right through it. “I think I’ll ask. If he wants to.”

“Considering that he saved your life, contacted Great-Aunt Delphina, and put up two dudes he’s never seen before so their girlfriends could hang out with you?.?.?. I think maybe he does.”

I nod, my eyes fixed into the mid-distance. “You know, when I fell, my expedition leader said that no one was coming to rescue me. But?.?.?. he came. Ian came. Even though he wasn’t even supposed to be there.”

Sadie frowns. “Are you saying that you feel like you have to date him because of that?”

“Nah.” I grin at her. “As you know, it’s pretty impossible to get me to do something I don’t want to.”

Sadie bats her eyes at me. “I always manage.”

“Not true.”

“Yes, I do. For instance, in ten minutes I’m going to take you to the NASA doctor Ian wrote down the address for, and we’re going to get your foot checked out.”

I scowl. “No way.”

“I am.”

“Sadie, I’m fine.”

“You really think you’re going to win this?”

“Fuck yeah.”

She leans forward over her bowl of cereal with a small smile. “It’s on, baby. Let the best bitch win.”

---

?????????Sadie, naturally, wins.

After the doctor tells me stuff I already knew—high sprain, yada yada—and gives me a better brace I can walk on, I take Sadie and Mara to my favorite coffee shop. Their planes are leaving late tonight, and we squeeze as much as we possibly can out of the day. When we get to Ian’s apartment, I expect?.?.?.

I don’t know, actually. Based on what I know of the guys’ personalities, I figured we’d find them brooding in silence, checking their work emails. Occasionally clearing their throats, maybe. But Ian buzzes us into his place, and when we walk into the wide living room, we discover all three of them sprawled on the huge sectional, each holding a PlayStation controller as they yell in the direction of the TV. Further inspection reveals that Liam’s and Ian’s avatars are shooting at some gelatinous monster, while Erik’s huddles in the far corner of the screen. He’s yelling something that could be Danish. Or Klingon.

None of them look like they’ve bothered to shower or change out of their pajamas. There are two empty pizza boxes on the wooden coffee table, beer cans scattered all over the floor, and I’m pretty sure I just stepped on a Cheeto. We stop in our tracks at the entrance, but if the guys notice our arrival, they don’t show it. They keep on playing until Liam gets hit by a stray bullet and grunts like a wounded animal.

“I hate that I love him,” Mara mutters under her breath.

Sadie sighs. “At least yours isn’t running against the wall because he can’t use the controller?”

“Guys,” I tell them, shaking my head, “maybe I was wrong in approving of your relationships. Maybe you can do better.”

Mara snorts. “Excuse me? Is that a slice of pepperoni on Ian’s shirt?”

Sure is. “Touché.”

Sadie clears her throat. “Hey, guys, it’s great that you’re having fun, but we should really get going if we want to make our flights—”

They groan in a chorus. Like ten-year-olds asked to clean their rooms.

“I just?.?.?. can’t believe they actually like each other,” Mara says, befuddled.

Sadie nods. “I don’t know how I feel about this. Seems?.?.?. dangerous?”

I cover my mouth to muffle my laughter.