Page 111 of Love Around the Corner
This high up, it was cool at night, even now, in late spring. The pine-scented air was so crisp and clean here in western Colorado, like taking a drink of freezing cold, crystal-clear water. Down the mountain, in the valley below, the mid-sized college town of Greenvale, and the McArthur campus would still be busy and lit up, but up here on the mountain, it was pure darkness. The only sound was the whistle of the wind through the thick pine forest around the McArthur Observatory.
Overhead, the sky was carpeted with stars, something she’d never really been able to see back home in Brooklyn. Tonight, a new moon night, the Milky Way was visible, too. Occasionally, you could even see it down in Greenvale, if you got far enough away from the lights.
She held her hand out in front of her, pale gray-blue against the inky darkness. Without a moon, the stars provided the only light.Starlight. Here, she could actuallyseethe starlight, another thing she loved about McArthur.
There was quite a bit she liked about McArthur. They’d bent over backward to accommodate her, showering her with resources and attention. The state-of-the-art labs and computer equipment had taken her breath away the first time she’d toured the Astronomy building. The academic staff was littered with the best and brightest of the astronomy world, all of them eager to help her puzzle out her research. All along, all she’d wanted was the chance to work on this research, and now she had that chance.
All the other grad students bitched about their tiny campus apartments, but Livie loved hers. After living her whole life in the Romano house, surrounded by other people and generations’ worth of stuff, her own place felt miraculously uncluttered and serene. She hadn’t even known what she valued in her own space until she had it. She might have never figured that out about herself if she hadn’t left home.
She’d worried her fellow students might view her as an oddball, turning up with her old professor’s research in the middle of her third year, and trailing rumors of an academic scandal in her wake. Instead they’d been interested and welcoming. They’d started inviting her to departmental get-togethers before she’d even unpacked her bags, and this time, Livie said yes. Maybe she’d never be the life of any party, but she now had a handful of people she considered friends, people who were happy to tell her how to find the grocery store, or where to find the best coffee on campus. Everywhere she looked, people were willing to help her out. All she had to do was let them.
Not that she didn’t miss home. At least once a week, she’d be hit with a painful bout of homesickness, missing her family so much she could cry. But it never lasted long and there were a million other things she loved about being at McArthur—things she never would have had back in Brooklyn—that it made it worth it.
Although she’d been planning to go back home for the whole summer, she’d just heard from the Very Large Array radio telescope observatory in New Mexico that she’d been granted a research slot this summer. That meant all she’d get would be a quick visit to Brooklyn before she headed to New Mexico, which made her sad and excited at the same time.
With one last glance at the Milky Way, she went back inside to shut the observatory down for the night. The sliding doors on the dome were sticky, as usual. She was still wrestling with the controls when the sound of gravel crunching underfoot outside sent her heartbeat into overdrive.
This quiet mountainside was safer, by anyone’s estimation, than the New York City streets, but it was all about what you were used to. In New York, being surrounded by people twenty-four hours a day made Livie feel safe. These dark, empty parking lots made her jumpy as hell.
“I always knew you’d be a good teacher.”
She spun around, hand clapped to her chest, already scrambling for her cell.
Nick was standing in the open doorway.
“Nick! Jesus, you scared me.”
He grinned, and her heart began pounding for an entirely different reason. It had beenmonths, and not a single word from him. She’d have assumed he’d been sent off to jail, but Google searches turned up nothing on him. Well, Nick had never been findable online, but there were no indictments, no court cases, no sentencing—none of the official information you’d expect to see if he went to jail. It was like he’d just vanished.
And now here he was, looking too good to be true, in jeans and a leather jacket, his hair windblown from the breezy night outside, and his dark eyes watching her like she was the most precious thing he’d ever seen.
“You just created a new astronomer.”
“What?”
He jerked his chin toward the parking lot down the hill behind him. “That kid. I’m not sure what he was into more, the Horsehead Nebula or you.”
“Oh, come on.”
“I’m serious. That kid had stars in his eyes.”
His sudden appearance had shocked her senseless, but now her brain was coming back online, asking all sorts of questions.
“How did you find me here?”
“Come on, Liv. I found Interpol’s most wanted in an hour. You thinkyouwere much of a challenge?”
She laughed nervously. “I guess that’s true.”
Nick’s answering smile faded and his eyes grew serious. “How have you been, Livie?”
“I should be asking you that question.Wherehave you been? Youvanished.”
He made a face, then pushed off the doorway and wandered into the dark gloom of the observatory. She could barely pick out his features in the low light. “I told you, I didn’t have a lot of control over my situation.”
“Which was?”
“Going into lockdown for a while? They didn’t let me out much. Like, not at all.”
