Chapter Eleven
It’s another hour before Simone and Angie emerge. While they were sleeping, Jordan scrambled some rehydrated eggs and bacon. I couldn’t bring myself to touch the eggs since I still haven’t acclimated to the horrible smell here, so I let the guys have it all to themselves and ate oatmeal while trying not to mentally replay my conversation with Roman. It didn’t work.
“Good morning, ladies,” Jordan says to Angie and Simone. “Ready to start the day?”
“Sure,” Angie says.
“I’m ready,” Simone says, only slightly more enthusiastic.
“We have to spend at least thirty minutes a day in the gym,” Jordan says. “The gravity on Mars is different, so we’ve gotta hit the weights to keep the biceps beefy.”
“Or get the biceps beefy,” Simone says with a giggle in response to Jordan flexing.
“It’s six in the morning,” Angie deadpans.
“Working out first thing in the morning is a great way to wake up,” Jordan says.
Angie huffs out a breath and looks to me to back her up. “It’s six in the morning,” she says again. “I’m not doing a damn thing until I’ve at least eaten.”
“Yeah, Jordan,” I say. “I’m with Angie on this one. I never work out on an empty stomach.”
“Okay, okay.” Jordan holds up his hands. “I know we’re still working out the kinks in our new schedule. Though I am a bit surprised teachers would have issues waking up early.”
“It’s summer break. I should be in Cancún. It’s six in the morning!” Angie gets more agitated with each statement, her eyes turning an accusatory glance on Jordan.
“Totally right and absolutely valid points.” Jordan steps back slowly, and my opinion of his survival instincts rises. He can obviously sense when danger is near and knows when to back off. “I’m going to go ahead and get my workout in. You all enjoy breakfast and whatever else you need to do, and we’ll see you in there in about, what, twenty minutes?” Angie bares her teeth, and Jordan amends his statement. “I mean, forty-five?”
Angie doesn’t answer, which gives Jordan leave to take his timeline as acceptable, and he turns to Roman. “Do you want to hit the gym with me now?”
Roman stands from his stool and walks up to Jordan, patting him on the shoulder. “Sure, man. Let’s get to it.”
I don’t miss the way Jordan shakes out his arm as he follows Roman, nor do I miss how Roman’s eyes shift to me before the two leave the common room. But I’m still confused and processing my chat with Roman, so I do my best to avoid eye contact.
“Let’s see, what should I eat?” Angie says, opening a cabinet. Finding nothing to her liking, she lets out a disgusted snort. “I guess I’m eating another protein bar.”
She heads to our room.
Simone goes to the cabinet and pulls out a cup of oatmeal and shrugs. “Oatmeal is oatmeal.”
After she gets her food ready, she sits at the table and passes me the book I let her borrow yesterday.
“Wait, you’re done already?” I ask.
“Yeah, I read it before falling asleep. I go through these phases where I either read nothing for months or I devour everything I can and finish books in, like, a day.” Simone takes a bite of her food, then looks down at it, surprised. “This isn’t bad at all.” She eats some more, pausing when she’s about halfway done. “Do you have any other good ones in your bag? I’m usually not a werewolf girly, but that one was really cute and fun.”
Angie walks back in finishing off a protein bar. I hope at some point she’ll try some of the food available. I’m pretty sure it’s not good for her to rely on so many of those.
“Angie, you were right about Felix and those tentacles,” Simone says to her, waving her fingers as if they’re her tentacles.
“Of course I was. And I heard you ask Brianna for another. I’ve got some books you can read. One has an alien that growls,” Angie ends with a wide grin.
“I don’t know,” Simone says, scraping her bowl to get the last of her oatmeal. “Growling doesn’t really do it for me. What about you, Brianna?”
I must look like a fish with my mouth hanging wide open, and for that, again, I blame Camille. If she’d never put that book in my bag, I wouldn’t have to field questions about growling. How am I supposed to face these women when we’re back at school if I talk to them about extraterrestrial romance heroes?
“Come on,” Angie says before I’m forced to answer. “You mean to tell me you’ve never kissed a man who growls? Hot does not even begin to describe it.”
“Have a lot of experience, do we?” Simone asks Angie.
Angie’s eyes take on a wistful, almost longing look before she shakes her head and smirks. “Yeah.”
Simone raises an eyebrow and looks at her skeptically. “I’m supposed to believe that not only have you been with a man who growls but you like it? I’m sorry, I just can’t. It’s hard to imagine that working well in any scenario outside of a book.”
I switch my attention back to Angie, all ears, waiting for her answer while she drinks a portion of her daily water. Inquiring minds want to know.
She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. “You bet I like it! It’s amazing. I’m telling y’all, to be with someone who wants you so bad and knows how to let his more animalistic side come out…” She ends the thought, fanning herself. “If you know, you know. Am I right?” She directs the last tidbit to me, and all I can do is blink.
Where the hell would I have found a man who growls like that in my very limited dating life? I’ve spent the majority of my adulthood trying to land a suitable career, not find some sort of Tarzan wild man. But damn if Angie doesn’t make the experience sound like all that and a bag of chips.
Instead of answering, I look at the time. “I think we’d better get changed and get to the gym before Jordan comes back and hounds us.”
Angie looks at me like the lame, mood-killing vice principal who should absolutely not be indulging in these conversations with her staff that I am and rolls her eyes.
The gym is its own separate room, though it’s still small. It’s equipped with two treadmills, two stationary bikes, weights, and yoga mats. Simone, Angie, and I stop when we get to the doorway.
It looks like Roman has taken it upon himself to train Jordan. He’s yelling at (maybe encouraging?) Jordan to finish a weight set. Jordan is standing up, doing his best to lift a good-sized dumbbell with one arm in a bicep curl. Sweat is dripping down his temples, and the strain has caused his face to take on a red hue not often seen in darker tones as he breathes in and out with his mouth.
Roman must have gotten his own workout in already, because he’s sweating too. Rather than sweat rolling down his face, it’s stuck to his shirt, making the material cling to his muscles.
Angie lets out a gasp and puts her palms together like she’s praying. “The Lord is my shepherd; he knows what I want.”
“Amen,” I can’t help but respond.
Angie looks at me and smirks with a hint of pride shining in her eyes, as if to say well done .
I quickly avert my gaze, cheeks blazing. There’s no forgetting that people are monitoring our every move and conversation, and at the end of the day, when this simulation is over, I’ll be going right back to being her vice principal. I can’t let Angie, or the whole world, see me drooling over Roman. I can’t give an inkling of a hint that I’m wondering what it would take to make Roman loosen a little bit of that quiet restraint he holds close like a secret and see some of those inhibitions slip. Would he growl?
It doesn’t matter. None of it does. Not whether or not he growls and not what he meant about being here for me. What matters is winning, and that means stopping Roman from whatever plans I’m sure he has and being able to face my colleagues and the students when I return back to school in a matter of months.
I’m the first to cross the threshold and step into the gym. I go to the bike and turn the resistance up. Can’t think about men growling if I’m too busy feeling the burn in my thighs.
By the time workouts are done and everyone has gotten a second wind, we all meet in front of the hatch. At this point, it’s evident Jordan thinks we’re slowing him down. He’s so ready to get out there.
Roman pointed out how fixing the antenna will be a multistep process. We convinced Jordan that we need to at least begin the process and chip away at it bit by bit. So we will use this space walk to clean the debris from the antenna and look for the lost rover.
“Remember, the oxygen indicator as well as the monitoring system for our heartbeats will come across with an audible warning if either is too low or too high,” Jordan says, pacing back and forth. “If that happens, we need to come in right away.”
“Yeah, yeah, we get it,” Angie interrupts. “This is the same thing they went over during orientation. Why does it feel like I’m a part of one of those mandatory trainings for school equipment we won’t use?”
“It may feel like you’re in one of those trainings, but these suits are essential to our survival. The number one reason people get disqualified is because they run out of oxygen. As long as we do our due diligence, we don’t have to worry about that,” Jordan counters.
While Angie cuts Jordan the stink eye, I glance over at Roman. Maybe I could do something to sabotage his suit to get him disqualified.
As soon as the thought is out, guilt and shame hit me. Who am I? Planning someone’s demise? I’ve never been this mean-spirited before. Then again, I’ve never had to fight for a library alongside someone who’s planning to stop it. Probably. Possibly. Ugh . After our conversation, doubts are starting to build up, and a small part of me thinks he might have been telling the truth about wanting to help us. Only a small part.
For now, I’ll put off plans that would have him choking on Martian air—metaphorically, of course—and will continue to keep an eye on him.
“All right everyone, let’s suit up,” Jordan says.
I hold in a sigh. I don’t think it would have killed him to throw in a please . We’re all adults, and I’m sure the others would agree with me and not want to be bossed around. Maybe I’ll leave one of my leadership books in his classroom when the new school year starts. But when I look at everyone, they’re moving to their suits without any issue, so maybe not.
Camille’s words insinuating I’m difficult float in my mind, and I grit my teeth.
We get as much of our suits on as we can by ourselves before turning to one another. I was the last one to grab mine, so I stand by and wait for Simone and Angie to finish helping each other before they can get to me.
“Brianna,” Roman says.
He gives me a slow once-over, and I can’t believe he’s checking me out right here, until he makes a motion with his glove-covered finger for me to turn around. I realize that look was actually him inspecting my suit. Of course that’s what he was doing. I immediately turn around. There’s a tug on my back as Roman adjusts the oxygen tank.
“You’re good,” he says at my back, so close I force down a shiver.
I turn back around so I can check him out now. Over . Check him over. I give his suit a thorough glance then make the motion with my hand for him to spin, and he does so. I look at his oxygen tank, and there’s that temptation again to go ahead and sabotage him now. I quash the impulse way down into the tiniest corner of my mind. I won’t stoop down to Principal Major’s level.
Next we get our helmets on and test the mics.
“Testing, testing, one-two-three,” I say.
Everyone else does the same, but when Roman’s simple “testing” resounds, the chill I’ve been suppressing races down my spine.
“Has anyone ever told you that you have a voice for radio, Roman?” Simone says. “It’s very soothing.”
I couldn’t agree more. Roman’s voice is deep and smooth. I’ve always thought it would be perfect for storytelling. Or, I don’t know, whispering dirty things.
Jordan’s voice says through the headset, “As I’m sure you all remember, our antenna was destroyed by a meteor.”
“Yes, Jordan, we do remember the big thing that went boom and scared us half to death,” Angie says sarcastically.
Jordan clears his throat. “Right. Well, today it’s our mission to gather the scattered pieces and hopefully find the rover!” When he gets to the part about the rover, he can barely contain himself. “I know we can do it. Ready, team? Leggo!”
We stand back as Jordan opens the first door, then we go through the tunnel, unlatch the hatch, and step out onto the Martian terrain.
“This is so cool,” Jordan breathes.
Angie sighs. “I could have been in Cancún.”