Loathe to Love You (The STEMinist Novellas #1-3)(63)

Erik appears at the entrance of his kitchen about five seconds later, looking sleepy and relaxed and handsome in his Hanes T-shirt and plaid pajama pants. “You have dough on your nose,” he says, before leaning forward to kiss it away. Then he sits across from me, on the other side of the island.

“Okay. Moment of truth.” I slide a small porcelain plate toward him. On top there is a croissant—the fruit of my many, many labors.

So. Many. Labors.

“Looks good.”

“Thank you.” I beam. “Made from scratch.”

“I can tell.” With a small smile, he glances at how three quarters of his kitchen is coated in flour.

“My culinary genius is apparently a bit chaotic. Come on, try it.”

He picks up the croissant in his huge hands and takes a bite. He chews for one, two, three, four, five seconds, and I should probably give him a little more time, but I just can’t wait to ask, “You like it? Is it good?”

He chews some more.

“Amazing? Fantastic? Delicious?”

More chewing.

“Edible?”

The chewing stops. Erik sets the croissant back on the table and swallows once. With noticeable difficulty. Then washes it all down with a sip of coffee.

“Well?” I ask.

“It’s . . .”

“It cannot be bad.”

Silence.

“Right?”

He tilts his head, pensive. “Is it possible that you mixed up salt and sugar?”

“No! I . . . Is it worse than Faye’s?” He thinks about it. Which is all the answer I need. “I hate you.”

“There is a bit of a . . . vinegary aftertaste? Did you maybe add that instead of water?”

“What?” I scowl. “I think you are the problem. I think you just don’t like croissants.”

He shrugs. “Yeah, maybe it’s me.”

Cat jumps on the island. He gingerly sidesteps our mugs and with a curious expression sniffs Erik’s croissant. “Oh, buddy, no,” Erik whispers. “You don’t want to do that.” Cat takes a delicate lick. Then he turns to me to stare with a horrified, betrayed expression.

Erik doesn’t even try not to laugh.

“I hate you.” I close my eyes, quietly planning murder and mayhem and lots of truculent revenge scenarios. I will deface his jerseys. I will pour soy sauce in his chocolate milk. I will hoard the down comforter for the next ten nights. “I hate you,” I repeat. “I hate you so, so much.”

“Nah.” When I open my eyes, Erik’s smile is warm and soft. “I don’t think you do, Sadie.”





Below


   Zero





For Shep and Celia.

   Still with no polar bears, but with lots of love.





Prologue


Svalbard Islands, Norway Present

I dream of an ocean.

Not the Arctic, though. Not the one right here in Norway, with its close-packed, frothy waves constantly crashing against the coasts of the Svalbard archipelago. It’s perhaps a bit unfair of me: the Barents Sea is perfectly worth dreaming of. So are its floating icebergs and inhospitable permafrost shores. All around me there is nothing but stark, cerulean beauty, and if this is the place where I die, alone and shivering and bruised and pretty damn hungry . . . well, I have no reason to bitch.

After all, blue was always my favorite color.

And yet, the dreams seem to disagree. I lie here, in my half-awake, half-unconscious state. I feel my body yield precious degrees of heat. I watch the ultraviolet morning light reach inside the crevasse that trapped me hours ago, and the only ocean I can dream of is the one on Mars.

“Dr. Arroyo? Can you hear me?”

I mean, this entire thing is almost laughable. I am a NASA scientist. I have a doctorate in aerospace engineering and several publications in the field of planetary geology. At any given time, my brain is a jumbled maelstrom of stray thoughts on massive volcanism, crystal fluid dynamics, and the exact kind of anti-radiation equipment one would need to start a medium-size human colony on Kepler-452b. I promise I’m not being conceited when I say that I know pretty much all there is to know about Mars. Including the fact that there are no oceans on it, and the idea that there ever were is highly controversial among scientists.

So, yeah. My near-death dreams are ridiculous and scientifically inaccurate. I would laugh about it, but I have a sprained ankle and I’m approximately ten feet below the ground. It seems better to just save my energy for what’s to come. I never really believed in an afterlife, but who knows? Better hedge my bets.

“Dr. Arroyo, do you copy?”

The problem is, it calls to me, this nonexistent ocean on Mars. I feel the pull of it deep inside my belly, and it warms me even here, at the icy tip of the world. Its turquoise waters and rust-tinted coastlines are approximately 200 million kilometers from the place where I’ll die and rot, but I cannot shake the feeling that they want me closer. There is an ocean, a network of gullies, an entire giant planet full of iron oxide, and they’re all calling to me. Asking me to give up. Lean in. Let go.

“Dr. Arroyo.”

And then there are the voices. Random, improbable voices from my past. Well, okay: a voice. It’s always the same, deep and rumbling, with no discernible accent and well-pronounced consonants. I don’t really mind it, I must say. I’m not sure why my brain has decided to impose it on me just now, considering that it belongs to someone who doesn’t like me much—someone I might like even less—but it’s a pretty good voice. A+. Worth listening to in a death’s door situation. Even though Ian Floyd was the one who never wanted me to come here to Svalbard in the first place. Even though the last time we were together he was stubborn, and unkind, and unreasonable, and now he seems to sound only . . .