Chapter 9 Leif
Leif
Noelle’s surprisingly fast—I don’t catch up with her until I skid around the corner to see her pushing through the doors that lead to the parking lot.
I crash out after her. “Noelle!”
She’s just standing there in the snow, but at her name, she whips around as if surprised I would have followed. Her eyes are wet.
“I’m sorry!” she says. “I’m so sorry, Leif. This is amazing news, the most ama—” Noelle’s voice cracks, her chin dimpling.
It’s freezing out here, and we’re only in thin shirts. I tell myself that’s why I don’t hesitate for a second before pulling her against me, wrapping my arms around her. “It’s okay,” I say into her hair.
I’ll stay if you want me to.
The words come unbidden to my mind. I want to speak them out loud, but some small, childish part of me clings onto them, holds them greedily inside.
It’s not because they’re not true—which is shocking enough.
It’s because I’m fooling myself if I think we’re only friends, and I know I can’t stand on this earth with this woman and just be friends.
So I don’t offer to stay.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers again.
“Stop saying that.”
Noelle looks up, wiping her eyes. “I’m happy for you, Leif. Beyond happy. It’s just—it’s a huge deal.”
She takes a step back, and I know she needs the space, so I don’t follow. Instead I nod, shoving my hands in my pocket. “Yes.”
“When do you leave?”
“Next December.”
Noelle’s eyes well, making my chest clench. “So I’ll miss you next year?”
That’s the worst part. Besides leaving her here.
“Yes,” I manage.
Noelle nods, pinching her lips together and looking away, blinking fast. “It’s scary. Are you scared?”
I run a hand over the back of my neck. “Shitless.”
“But you’re excited, too, right?”
I smile. “When Larry made the announcement—he’s my boss—I yelled. We were all at this meeting, and I jumped up and yelled like a little kid.”
Noelle laughs. But a moment later, her smile falters. “It’s risky though, right?”
I can’t help the warmth that spreads through me at her constantly coming back to concern.
“You’re worried about me?”
“Of course I’m worried about you!”
I consider my words carefully. “There’s always risk.”
“How much?”
“Well there are no birds in space, if that helps.”
“Shut up,” she laughs. But she’s serious again in an instant. She walks back to me and presses her hands against my shirt, brushing off a bit of flour. “How much, Leif? How likely is it that I’m never going to see you again?”
I clench my jaw. I can’t lie. “1.2-1.4%. But there haven’t been any fatal space trips since 2003.”
“1.4%” she whispers.
“That’s a generous number. It’s not likely that—”
“How many times have we seen each other?”
“What?”
She grips my shirt in her fists. “Just answer me, Leif. I know you can add it up.”
I brush the hair from her forehead. I don’t have to think. “Four years.”
“How many days?”
“Twelve days. Sixteen if you count the times we talked on your parents’ phone.”
But I only needed one to know I loved you.
I don’t say that, of course. Instead, I say “Sixteen days over four years. I say each day counts for at least a month.”
But Noelle’s doing her own calculations. “Sixteen days. Okay. And we kissed on one of those days.”
It was more than just a kiss. But I don’t say that either.
“So our odds of kissing each other are 6.5% higher than you not surviving this trip.”
My statistics prof’s head might pop off at that math, but heat curls in my lower half. I cram my fists back in my jeans, not wanting to disrespect her request that we stay friends. “What are you saying, Noelle?”
But I’m interrupted by Noelle slipping her arms around my neck. “I want better odds.”
I’m so stunned by the touch—the soft press and warmth of her lips against mine—I don’t even kiss her back before she pulls away again.
“There.”
Nothing’s operating properly. My head is swimming. That heat surges through my whole body. “No,” I say.
“No?” Her eyebrows bunch.
“That’s only a quarter percent. If that.” I splay my hands over Noelle’s hips, pulling her toward me.
Noelle’s pupils dilate. “What’s a full percent look like?”
My hands flex against Noelle, and then move as if on their own. One slips against the back of her neck, while the other holds her tucked up against me. Then I crash my lips against hers.
I wasn’t lying when I said I leaped into the air when I found out I’d be on the first lunar mission in decades.
But this—the sensation of finally kissing Noelle like this again after years of fighting not to—after years of only remembering it… I struggle to describe it. The soft warmth of her, the sweep of my tongue against hers, the way her body melts against me… this is weightlessness.
This is like we’re in the stars together.
I break the kiss, my heart thundering. Can she hear it? “Do you know why I really want to go to space?” I whisper against her lips.
“Why?”
I brush a thumb over her lips. “I need to see the stardust you’re made of.”
For a moment, our eyes remain locked, our breath intermingling. Then I kiss her again, falling into my Noelle.
She really is made of the stars.
“Found the mistletoe, huh?” A voice says.
We break apart, gasping for air. Noelle brushes her hand over her mouth; the spot I’d just been. I don’t want to stop. I want to carry her to the car and drive her anywhere, hell, the side of the road, and show her the depth of my feelings toward her.
But an older man in a big black coat over gray coveralls stands before us. He points a thick finger up to the concrete overhang above our heads. A cedar bough has fallen from a nearby tree and extends over us. It’s not mistletoe. It looks nothing like mistletoe.
But I smile anyway. “I guess we did.”
He chuckles.
After he’s passed through the door, I turn back to Noelle. My chest hurts to look at her.
But she’s got her arms up, doing something at the back of her neck. I only see what it is when she pulls the necklace out of her shirt. It’s that gold chain with the tiny clover on it.
“You keep this,” she says, closing my hand around it. “I’ll feel better if you have it.” She looks up. “Merry Christmas, Leif. This year and next.”