2
Not for the first time, Tate wondered if Maria wanted to leave him.
He made himself scarce as she worked her way through the villa, a massive cement structure where voices echoed and dust from the surrounding desert gathered at an alarming rate. Hence the weekly visits from the housekeeper.
Asking her to stay for dinner the previous week had probably been a step too far. Not that anyone in his life would be surprised his only option for company was someone who worked for him, given that work was his life. But Tate couldn’t help that he loved to cook and that Quinn hadn’t been around to help him eat the prettiest lasagna he’d ever made. Being employed in a family business that stretched all over the planet, Tate and his live-in cousin were rarely in the same place at the same time. She was due back that night from Russia after mitigating an emergency with one of their suppliers.
While Quinn traveled, Tate had obligations closer to “home.” OrbitAll, the human spaceflight branch of his family’s empire, sat in the valley below their villa. OrbitAll was his baby. When the fledgling company had landed in his lap a decade ago, he had taken the wild idea of his brother’s and given it a mission: an opportunity in space for everyone. He’d grown the company, scouring the planet for people who would help them get to space. Now that he had the final two people in place—Chen, his new pilot, and Elle, who was planning the whole experience—the place would practically run itself.
Like it always did when he thought about their upcoming spaceflights, his gaze strayed to the sky visible from the sprawling windows. The sun was sinking behind the darkening hills.
Tate took out Quinn’s favorite mug and plopped in a tea bag before filling the kettle so that all she had to do was heat water when she got home. Then he made her a sandwich. She was guaranteed to be exhausted and hungry after the international flight. Done with kitchen chores, Tate leaned against the cement counter and thought again about his latest project. Elle had informed him that they needed a hotel at the launch site. He didn’t know why he hadn’t thought of that himself. OrbitAll was in the middle of the Mojave Desert. Of course guests springing a quarter-million dollars on a trip to space needed a place to sleep.
A good team made all the difference. He’d need a whole new one for this hotel endeavor. What the hell did he know about hotels? Tate lived and breathed spaceplanes. Sure, he’d built a cabin by hand, but it was A-frame, the simplest structure imaginable, and that project had taken him years. With help. At least Elle had an architect lined up. Said architect, one Rosie Flynn of Abode Design, would come by the hangar tomorrow.
“Mister Tate, I’m done for the day.”
Maria, the housekeeper, appeared on the other side of the lengthy counter, her cleaning supplies loaded in a laundry basket in her arms.
“Okay. Thanks so much. Need anything before you go?”
As he suspected, Maria peered at him through narrowed eyes. He didn’t miss that her gaze flicked around the kitchen. He really had spooked her with the dinner invite. He needed to make some friends.
“No, gracias. Bye, Mister Tate.”
“Bonsoir, Maria.”
His phone vibrated with a message as she left. He expected Quinn, but it was someone else entirely. G&T in ten?
A grin spread across his face. G&T for gin and tonic. Also, George and Tate.
His family was scattered around the globe and he wasn’t all that close with them, anyway. He couldn’t even conjure the features of his mother’s face anymore. Tate saw her yearly, for business, and only for a few minutes at a time. The family business came before family, always. He had not been sad to leave Paris, his hometown, behind. Neither had his brother, Mattias, the most rebellious of the lot. Matt now lived in Los Angeles, only a few hours south, but rarely visited the company he was meant to be running. After a blowup several years back, Tate hardly had a relationship with him, either.
George, his very first hire, had been the father and friend Tate had needed when OrbitAll had been thrust at him ten years earlier. Twenty-fucking-five years old, running a space company. As a career Navy test pilot, George had helped Tate build their program and recruit their team. He’d taught Tate more than his own father ever had. More even than the private tutors who had filled his childhood.
Absolutely, he wrote back to George.
In the mood for something brighter than his standard bourbon, Tate pulled a bottle of Geier family gin out of his freezer and moved a monogrammed glass down from the open shelves. He sliced a lime even though he knew what George would say. Fruit in your drink? What are you, a twenty-two-year-old girl? Tate knew a twenty-two-year-old girl and she did not drink gin. His neighbor at his A-frame cabin preferred beer straight from a bottle.
He swung by his bedroom for a sweatshirt, stretching into the pullover before making his way out onto the patio nearest his bedroom. The patio was his favorite spot in the endless villa that wasn’t really his. Like with OrbitAll, “his” branch of the company, he’d tried to inject some life and purpose into the villa that belonged to the estate. He’d added a rug and installed a heater so he could use the patio year-round. He’d swapped the regular floodlights for red ones so he could still see the stars. Tate loved the night sky. How could he not, when his mind was always hovering in sub-orbit? The stars reminded him that, no matter what, the world kept turning.
He settled into his favorite Adirondack chair and dialed George on speakerphone.
“T.”
“G. The traitor.”
The old man chuckled. “Hey, all I did was follow my kids to the Sunshine State. You’re the big bad wolf who tried to keep me away from my family.”
Tate laughed. No amount of money could keep George at OrbitAll once the grandbabies started arriving. He’d left for Pale Blue Dot, a newer, less-funded human spaceflight company that held the lucky distinction of being where George wanted to be.
“How are you, kid?”
Tate took a sip of tangy, ice-cold gin before replying. “Good. Finally found your replacement. Took for-fucking-ever.”
“Who’d you get?”
“Chen Lew.”
“The astronaut from Jiuquan? Damn. What’s he like?”
“Smart. Cocky as hell, like someone else I know.”
George snickered. “Hell, he’s earned cocky. The Chinese tried to cover up that last mission failure until they realized their youngest astronaut saving their space mission was actually good optics. Good hire, T.”
“He’s a good fit,” Tate agreed. “When’s your next test campaign? Anything I need to know about the new reaction control system? We haven’t tested ours yet.”
“We’re in the middle of the campaign now. I’m getting too old for this shit, I’ll tell you that much. Everything else is state secrets that I won’t divulge, even to you.”
Tate snorted. “I’ve been waiting for you to admit for years that flying is a young man’s game.” George was nearing retirement. Tate wouldn’t be surprised if this campaign was his last.
“Shut the hell up. It’s not the flying. I can’t stand sitting in conference rooms breaking down a flight minute-by-minute before it even happens. In the Navy, we could just fucking fly. Good old days. When do you go up next?”