I shrug. “I just assumed, because you are never in my classes and I like morning courses.”
Laughing, he glances over at me. “Touché. I guess I just like to be near the action.”
We stop in front of the sorority house. It’s a quiet night. I can hear the murmuring of people at a frat house down the street. But otherwise, it’s only the sounds of crickets and frogs.
“Thanks for walking me home,” I say. “And for…rescuing me from Anthony.”
His gaze is intense, and I look down because it makes me feel things that I don’t want to think about right now. “You’re welcome. I’ll see you next week,” he says. He pauses as if unsure of what to do next. I step back toward the house and give him a little wave before turning around and walking up the three steps onto the porch. I look over my shoulder as I open the door, but he’s already disappeared into the darkness of the tree-lined street.
Chapter Ten
Clark
“You all will need to go to get your IDs made first. Since the low-level security checks were part of our interview process, you are good to go once you have that ID. It will allow you access to the building where you work. It will also allow you to park in the employee parking lot,” Curtis says as six of us sit around a conference table.
I recognize Clay and Brynn from my classes, and of course, Megan. But the other two students must be from another local university.
“Let’s go around and introduce ourselves first. We have three universities represented this semester. Four of you are from Maryland State University, one from Jefferson University, and one from Tubman College. We’re excited to have you all with us,” Curtis says before everyone says their name and a brief introduction. The lady from Tubman College introduces herself as Sylvia Robertson and the guy from Jefferson is named Patrick Hackman. I file away the names of the competition.
“OK, now I have paired you up based on your interests. You will be working as a team assigned to a unit. Sylvia and Clay will be with the Mars robotics division. Patrick and Brynn will be working with the telescope program. And Megan and Clark, you will be with our new Mission to the Moon unit. The folders in front of you have maps marked with where you’ll need to go. They also have all the other general information you need. We’ll meet here every other week for an hour lunch seminar. We’re going to have folks from different programs coming in to speak with you. Now, if you’ll follow me, I’ll show you to our security offices,” Curtis states as he heads to the door.
I look over at Megan. She gives me a tight smile that I can’t read. Shit. Is she pissed because she’s paired with me? FML. Is this going to be an awful experience? I take a deep breath. No. There’s no way this won’t be awesome. I’m not going to let anything bring me down.
I follow everyone down a hall and another corridor and then another and up a flight of stairs. I know we’ve reached our destination when I see “security offices” overhead. The next hour is filled with paperwork and confirming all our security checks are completed. It ends with us all having our IDs in lanyards around our necks supported by ribbons embossed with NASA on them.
I look down at the map in my folder. We are in the building next to this one. Curtis wishes us all well and I head toward the stairwell and back downstairs with Megan in tow.
“I didn’t know you were interested in the moon project,” she says as we walk.
I give her a pointed look. “Seriously?”
She blushes and something about that makes me want to kiss her again. “I mean, I wasn’t sure that you still had a thing for the moon.”
Her wording makes me laugh. “A thing?”
Her face reddens even more. “You know what I mean,” she grumbles.
I press my lips together to stop myself from laughing.
“You suck,” she mutters as she quickens her pace in a subtle attempt to get away from me.
I take larger steps and catch up with her in two strides. “Yes, I still am fascinated by the moon. Yes, I still take my dad’s telescope out back whenever I get a chance and sometimes up to the hill. Yes, I’d love to be an astronaut, but building the vehicles they drive up there would be equally as cool,” I admit in rapid-fire.
She pauses and looks up at me. “You still go up to the hill?”
Shrugging, I keep walking and she jogs a little to keep pace with me. “Yep.”
“I…didn’t know that.” She’s quiet as we enter the building. Her mind is likely as full of memories as mine. The hill was our spot. It was part of a park in our little subdivision. Most of the kids always played on the playground, but the hill at the end of the field, that’s where Megan and I would play cops and robbers or pretend we were working at mission control for NASA. There’s an old hollowed-out tree up there where we’d keep things. I’d be lying if I didn’t leave things there still, from time to time.
We show our badges to the man at the front desk and he points us toward our new offices. A young woman greets us as we enter the program’s office space.
“Hi! I’m Raquel Benningfield. I’m going to be working with you both. We’re so excited to have you join us for the semester. A lot is going on around here and we could use the help,” she says in a jovial voice as she motions to two small cubicles. “These are your desks. I’ll get you set up and then we’ll go over all the important stuff.”
Megan
Clark and I spend the entire day getting settled into our new space. Raquel seems nice and she set aside a lot of time to help us get acclimated. By the end of her tutorial and introductions around the office and password setups on the computers, I’m exhausted and excited for the weeks to come.
When we finish, Clark walks me to my car. “I guess I’ll see you Thursday,” he says as I get in and drive away. I watch him disappear in the rearview mirror as I exit the parking lot.
I cannot believe we are stuck working together for the semester. I almost died when Curtis read our names. Never in a million years did I think we would be paired up for this internship. And for that, I feel like an idiot. How could we not be paired up? We both love the moon. We both have been fascinated by the moon since…well, since I can remember. Those things don’t just change.
Memories had flooded my mind when he said he still went up to our hill. We’d spent so many nights there in the tent Clark got for his eighth birthday. We thought we were badasses because our parents let us camp out there. Truth be told, you could see both our homes from the hill. And more than once, I caught our parents walking in the park. They always had an excuse, like the dog needed a walk, but I knew they were checking on us. I wonder when Clark last went up there with the telescope. His dad had an awesome telescope, but he had a smaller travel one that the kids were allowed to use whenever they wanted. I was always jealous of that.
Hell, I was always jealous of a lot about the Moore family.
By the time I get home, I’m in a funk. I don’t know how to feel about Clark or the internship.
“How was it?” Stella asks as soon as I enter the house.
I shrug. “Good, I guess. I mean it was just the first day, so lots of tutorial stuff.”
“You guess? Come on, you were so excited about this. What will you be working on? Do you get to work with any cute astronauts?” she asks with a grin.