Chapter 11
11
On our fifth night on the Planet, we get drunk again.
It’s another sort of celebration — we made it this far, to an arbitrary number of days, and why shouldn't we toast to that? Darcie lays out a fantastic spread: a roasted lump of lab-grown canned chicken product, the essence of various vegetables, more canned bread, and even something that is so close in texture and flavor to mashed potatoes, that I’m momentarily stunned after my first bite.
“Pretty good for a bunch of weird old food, huh?” Darcie says, holding up her cup, wine sloshing dangerously close to the edges.
“It’s better than what I ate back on Earth,” says Ben.
Julian splutters. “The consummate bachelor, Benjamin is.”
Ben smiles, holding his wine to his lips. “Who has time for cooking when you’re busy doing push-ups for eight hours a day?”
“See?” Julian says, slamming down their fork and sending a chunk of chicken product careening away into the shadows. “I knew it.”
“He’s mocking you ,” Darcie says laughingly. “Nobody does push-ups eight hours a day.”
“My arms would be bigger than my torso,” says Ben.
I listen to them, happy in this moment, on this quiet planet with three people whose friendship wasn’t chosen but happened all the same. I’m full of good wine and good enough food, and everything’s gone soft at the edges. Their voices fade and become a comforting background blur as I sip my wine, lost in my thoughts.
Until Darcie ruins it.
“Wait, you know that one?” Darcie declares, standing abruptly and jostling me out of my peaceful thoughts.
I grab my cup to keep it from spilling.
Julian scoffs. “Do I know it? Bitch, I used to play it every weekend. I was the champion. What do you think we even do in graduate programs?”
“I might have guessed study ,” says Darcie.
“How uninspired,” Julian says. “We had all sorts of drinking games to amuse us.”
“Well?” says Darcie, pouring herself another cup of wine. “Are we gonna go play it or not?”
They’re already sloshed. Darcie spills a significant amount of priceless Napa reserve on the table, and Julian cackles, holding out their cup for a refill. And then the two are off, gingerly carrying their overfull cups of wine, talking loudly, and laughing as if it really is grad school again.
I’m painfully, hotly aware that Ben and I are suddenly alone.
I glance at him, feeling inexplicably shy. I meet his gaze for a fleeting breath, and then he looks away.
“You should join them,” he says, and I’m not sure if it’s my imagination, but his voice sounds more gravelly than usual.
“I don’t know the game.” Whatever game they’re playing, I definitely never partook in grad school. “I was more of a… what do you call it? Complete loser in university.”
Ben laughs. “Couldn’t have been worse than me.”
I turn to face him, leaning one elbow on the table. My heart is pounding a mile a minute. “Oh yeah? You, too, skipped going out on weekends with friends to get in some extra reading on the viability of long-term hydroponics in zero-gravity environments?”
“No, but that sounds fascinating.”
I can’t help the pleased little smile that curls my lips. He’s watching me so intently, as if he’s actually interested. “Okay, now you’re just sucking up. I don’t believe for a second that you weren’t the most adored guy in school, all the way through college. I mean—” I cut myself off. I was going to say look at you , but I catch myself at the last second. Fucking wine.
A peel of drunken laughter drifts in from outside. Darcie and Julian are fully caught up in their game.
Ben eyes me, a smirk curling one corner of his mouth. “Have you heard of BattleAxe?”
“The tabletop strategy game?”
“Yeah, the one for nerds.” He grins. “All me, baby. Could not drag me away from that game. All the way from age twelve to twenty-three. I had the biggest army. Took me years to build it, all funded by a part-time job at the local diner.”
“Stop,” I breathe, completely charmed.
“What can I say?” He holds up his hands. “I was a loser.”
I lean forward, conspiratorial. “Do you still play?”
He narrows his eyes. “That’s classified information.”
I laugh, and he brightens. I sip my wine. My heart is still on high alert, my skin on fire, but it’s muffled now. The wine is doing its work. Good. I need to relax, get hold of myself. This torch I’ve been carrying for him for a year needs to be snuffed out. Nothing can come of Ben and me. He’s too good for me.
He sips his wine and runs a hand through his short hair. His gaze strays, and suddenly, I don’t want him to decide that now’s a good time to turn in for the night. It’s late, but I selfishly want to keep him for a little longer. Even if it’s just to talk.
“What about you?” I ask, and his brows pull together in slight confusion. I realize I’m continuing a conversation that took place days ago. “Why did you sign up for the mission? It can’t be that fulfilling, wrangling a trio of scientists.”
He shrugs, holding my gaze warmly. “Lots of reasons. But I guess… well, mostly I wanted to get away from it all. I felt like I’d seen the best Earth had to offer, which wasn’t much, and this opportunity came up. So I took it.”
Another burst of laughter from outside and a loud curse from Julian.
Ben smiles. “You know, they remind me of my siblings. Idiots, all of them, but good people. Lots of potential.” He stares into the middle distance, and his smile fades a bit. “I enlisted for them, really. When I was twenty-four. I’m the middle kid, but my older brother’s an artist, couldn’t make a solid living if it killed him. My younger sister’s just an asshole, quits every job she gets. Back then, I knew I was the only one of us who had the sense to hold down a solid career. And I was never that great at math, or science, or anything else.” He glances up at me and smiles, almost sheepish. “But I am good at shooting.”
“I’ve yet to see it,” I say, touching his arm so briefly I’m sure he didn't even feel it. I can’t help it. He’s telling me a vulnerable story about his life, but I can’t drag my eyes away from his jaw, his bare neck, where his dog tags fall against his chest.
“I’ll show you,” he says quietly.
“That’s why you joined the military,” I say, suddenly realizing I need to steer this conversation in another direction, or it’ll be too late. “But why this mission, of all missions? There are other off-world explorations. Mars?”
“God of war?” Ben says, shaking his head. “Nah, not my thing. Too close to home.”
His gaze is shadowed. There’s something he won’t say. Normally, I’d leave him with his memories. But the wine forces me to ask, softly, “What’s so bad that you had to be trillions of miles away from it?”
He lets out a long sigh. “Nothing you’d want to hear about.”
“Try me.”
I think he might brush me off, stand up, and go back to his tent. But he meets my gaze, and something he sees there holds him. “I was an officer at The Three Follies.”
I can’t help the intake of breath. That battle was a massacre. Almost everyone died, chalked up to bad leadership.
“Yeah, you know it,” he says ruefully. “I wasn’t the acting general, of course. But I had authority. I had a say. And I led my men straight into a trap. Everyone died but me and two others. I’m fucking lucky to be whole after that. And when I came back home to the grand old U.S. of A., I was reviled in military circles. Treated like a traitor. They think I meant to do it.”
“Of course you didn’t.”
He smiles crookedly. “Of course I didn’t. But you know how it goes. Someone picks an angle, and that’s what the news runs with. They needed a scapegoat.”
We share a look that says he knows I’m thinking of my mother, and he gets it, and he knows I understand him. My heart swells. “I can’t believe I didn’t realize that was you,” I breathe. “I mean… I’m barely tuned into foreign affairs, but…”
“No, no,” he says, mussing his hair with his hand again. “I’m glad you’re not. It’s part of the reason I wanted to join the mission. This one, specifically. A small group, none of them military.”
I smile, and he smiles back. “You shouldn’t have worried,” I murmur. “You’re way more interesting with a dark backstory.”
“Oh yeah?” He lets his arm fall to the table. If he moved it inward, just a few inches, he could cup my elbow in his hand. Run his thumb along my sleeve. “And what about you, Jones?”
I swallow roughly. If I leaned forward, just a little, I could almost press my lips to his. “What about me?”
“You think I don’t find you fascinating?” His arm slides toward me. His thumb brushes my sleeve. “The way you think, your optimism, your intellect. It’s… intimidating.”
“Intimidating?”
“In a good way.”
Time seems to slow. There’s an undeniable energy between us, an electrical pull. Blood roars in my veins. I can’t stop looking at his mouth. His gaze, too, flickers down. Is he thinking what I am? Does he want to know what it would feel like to quench the ache inside me, the one I suspect might be in him, too?
Laughter and loud voices cut through the night. Darcie and Julian burst into the tent.
“And then I said, like fuck you’ll call me Joo-Joo!” Julian crows.
“Nooohoho!” Darcie cackles, face pink with night air and wine and laughter.
They both stop dead as Ben and I sit back abruptly, turning away from each other.
Darcie nudges Julian. “Ssh, if you stay quiet and don’t move, they’ll forget we’re here.”
“No, they won’t,” I say, standing up and pushing away from the table. “You’d alert anyone within miles to your presence with those piercing cackles. Enjoy your game, I’m going to bed.”
Still unspeakably breathless, wanting, unable to think straight, I hurry from the tent and into the night. I have got to stop indulging in that Napa stuff; it makes me unbelievably stupid. Head down, I make a beeline for my tent. Embarrassed and frustrated, I’m just outside my tent when footsteps come up behind me.
“Jones,” he says.
I stop, but I don’t turn to face him.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine,” I manage, hoping I don’t sound completely fucking horny. I can feel his warmth at my back. He’s standing so close.
“You went pale and ran away,” he says softly. “I’m sorry if… if I gave you some kind of impression. It wasn’t intentional.”
I exhale slowly. The night is chill and clean, the Milky Way spread out above us like silver embroidery on velvet. It wasn’t intentional . Maybe, maybe not. But what I do next is.