Page 33 of The Love Simulation

I tilt my head in their direction.I’ll dance as soon as you get out there.

He shakes his head and walks toward his room, and I know I’ve won. That’s what I thought. Although I’d love to see what kind of moves he has.

“Come on, Brianna,” Simone says.

“I’m good,” I tell her, just like I told Roman. I can only imagine the words Superintendent Watts would have for me if I got up and danced with them.

“Suit yourself,” Simone says.

When I catch myself tapping my foot to the beat, I get up and go back to our room. Sometimes it sucks trying to keep up boundaries. It sucks, and it’s lonely.

Chapter Thirteen

The next few days are much like the first. After breakfast and alightworkout, we go back outside to work on clearing the debris again. It still takes up all of our morning, leaving most of us drained, but we do tack on cleaning in the Hab. In the short amount of time we’ve been here, dust has managed to coat every surface. Because of that, Jordan insists (and I silently gnaw at my cheek to keep from saying something about him asking nicely) that we clean at least twice a day.

On the fifth day, our appointed technical gurus—Angie and Jordan, with Simone there for extra help—begin cleaning the solar panels.

“What about the antenna?” I ask while they’re getting into space suits. “I think we need to get it up as soon as possible.”

Jordan nods. “You’re right, we do. But the solar panels out there are filthy. If we don’t clear them today, we might run out of power. Then it won’t matter if Mission Control sends us anything.”

I didn’t think being a subordinate would be the hardest part here for me mentally. But Jordan is our commander, so I let it go again and follow his lead.

“I’ll start wiping down the kitchen,” Roman says onceour three teammates are outside and he and I are left to take care of cleanup duties.

I nod without directly making eye contact with him and start wiping down the living room. I wipe down the couches and the thirty-two-inch TV no one has used yet. We’ve been too tired. Next I move to the comms station. It’s a large desk with different buttons, all helpfully labeled, and multiple screens that live stream different views from outside. They also connect to cameras on each of our helmets. Since Roman and I are inside, our cameras are off. Lastly, a screen has our names and shows our vitals.

I find the screen showing what Jordan and the ladies are up to. They’re facing the solar panels with buckets on the ground and rags in hand. Jordan moves his hand around excitedly, clearly saying something, while Simone is shaking her head and Angie stands with one hand placed on her jutted hip made bulky by the suit. Obviously, getting the panels cleaned is going fantastically.

There have been little gripes here and there, but overall everyone has been getting along. I’m finding it more difficult to stay out of conversations that get a little too personal or not laugh when someone is teasing. Vincent’s advice to not hold myself back from my crew comes to mind, and I decide to offer them a little encouragement. When I switch the comms on, I hear an annoyed “Cancún” from Angie, and lean forward into the mic.

“Keep up the good work, guys,” I say, upbeat as possible. “Y’all are doing great!”

“And let me guess, after we finish out here, you’re going to throw us a pizza party?” Angie deadpans, and surprisingly Jordan snickers.

I laugh awkwardly. “Okay. I’ll let y’all get back to it.” I click off and bite my lip. Well, that went horribly.

Did they not appreciate the pizza I ordered for them? At intermittent times during the year, I’d have some delivered for the teachers to show appreciation. It wasn’t much compared to the amount of work they put in with the students, but I couldn’t talk Principal Major into doing anything else. And now I feel silly for thinking I was doing something great.

“Got ’em!” Roman announces.

I turn around to see what he’s talking about and bite back a grin. “Roman, I know those aren’t…”

He grins wickedly. “Found the pizzas.”

He’s holding up a bag of dehydrated pizza slices.

I break down and laugh. “I’m pretty sure if I try to serve everyone pizzas, they’ll chuck me out the door and lock the hatch.”

Roman shrugs and places the pizzas back in a lower cabinet. “Their loss. I have it on good authority they taste better than delivery.”

“Is that so? By whose authority did you hear that?”

He smiles sheepishly. “Mine. I got hungry while everyone was sleeping last night and made one. Don’t tell Jordan though. I don’t want to hear him go on about conserving our rations.”

“My lips are sealed. But what I want to know is if it was really that good,” I say skeptically.

Roman raises his head like he’s about to nod, but chuckles and shakes his head no. “It’s not. But it is on par with the cafeteria pizza.”

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