Page 32 of The Kiss Countdown

My heart hammers in my chest as I once again can’t get my body to reconcile the fact that all of this is fake. It’s a race to get back to my shuttle, but everything is moving so slowly. Damn the moon’s weak gravity.

“Try leaping,” Vincent says.

I do what he says, but just when it feels like I’ll make it back to the shuttle in one piece, chunks of space debris begin hammering down.

I jump back, and Vincent’s right there, in actual reality. “Whoa,” he soothes. “You’re okay.”

I don’t believe him for a second. I grab his arm and squeeze my eyes shut while the commander continues railing in my ear and particles fall from the sky. I guess eventually my mission is deemed a failure or I die or something, because the screen goes black.

And this is exactly why I could never be an astronaut.

Vincent pries my fingers off him and takes off my gloves, then goggles. I look to him as I escape the box of doom. While he clearly feels sorry for me, as he should for sending me in there, he also looks seconds away from laughing.

I hit him with my frostiest glare until his smirk disappears, but when a smile cracks through, I stomp away from him.

“Where are you going?” he asks, easily catching up with me.

“To the restroom.”

He hangs back by the gift shop as I walk into the women’s bathroom. I don’t even need to go, but I wash my hands, then move to the paper towel dispenser. After drying my hands, I put the damp, rough paper against the back of my neck and sigh. Why does it feel like my failed mission is some sort of bad omen for this act with Vincent? All these doubts are creeping up again. What if I get in front of his parents and they ask me the kind of questions his girlfriend should know about space, and when I don’t, they instantly peg me as an imposter. Then I’ll have no choice but to come clean.

“Excuse me,” a lady with dripping hands says, interrupting my doomsday thoughts.

“Sorry.” I instantly move from in front of the dispenser and throw my paper towel away before leaving.

Vincent waits for me in the same spot where I left him, a respectable distance away from the restrooms. No smirks or laugh lines adorn his face. Instead he looks at me with the most contrite eyes that tell me he’s sorry for laughing earlier. He looks so pitiful that now I want to laugh.

As I approach, he presents a stuffed animal from behind his back. It’s the cutest round teddy bear wearing a white space suit and plastic helmet.

“What’s this?” I ask.

“I couldn’t let you leave here with only a sour stomach, now, could I?”

I don’t hesitate in reaching for the toy. Maybe it’s the little kid in me who never had extra money for cute mementos from school field trips or it’s simply that I love gifts in all shapes and sizes, but just like that, I forget about my worries from minutes prior.

After testing the bear’s softness, I hug it to my chest. “Thank you.”

He looks pleased as he smiles down at me. “You’re welcome. And now I think it’s time to feed you.”

Gifts and food? Hell, be still my heart.

The shock has worn off by the time we get to the boardwalk. Vincent and I sit on a wooden bench facing Clear Lake, where boats move across the water, leaving trails of upturned waves in their wake.

“So do you think you’re ready to take astronaut training?” Vincent says.

I set my new stuffed bear down beside me and snort. “Even if someone offered me Bezos amounts of money, I would not go into space. I like it fine enough down here, thank you very much.”

I look up at the sky and briefly imagine what hurtling thousands of miles per hour above the earth right now would be like. It all seems so inconceivable.

“So have you always been a daredevil, and becoming an astronaut was like the ultimate level you had to achieve?”

Vincent chuckles. “I’ve always wanted to make a difference. Life is too short not to give it your all. After I finished school, I got into teaching, and that was fun. Then I did Search and Rescue. Neither of those fulfilled me like exploring space has. I may not be directly impacting lives, but I am impacting the future and laying the foundation for us to make a home in deep space.”

“What was it like in space? I know I did the virtual reality, but tell me through your eyes.”

He looks toward the sky while he thinks. “It’s nothing short of amazing. Looking out the window and floating above Earth helps you appreciate life. My favorite moments happened during space walks. I’d get to sit on top of the ISS, turn off the lights on my helmet, and gaze into infinity. There’s nothing comparable.”

I want to close my eyes to experience the picture Vincent paints, but then I’d miss the way his face transforms and his eyes shine with wonder. It’s so evident that he’s found something to be passionate about in a way most people never will.

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