Before You Go (YA Romance) (14 page)

She squirmed on the couch, trying to get comfortable, and he leaned back, too, narrowing the space between them to inches, coming in close enough to get another whiff of her perfume.

“You can lean your head on me if the back of this thing is too high for you. It’s not very comfortable. I should have grabbed a pillow.”

Margo’s heart missed a beat.
Pillow.
Logan. It was all she could do not to giggle like a lottery winner.

Okay, obviously time to accept the fact that she liked him.

But did he like her?

“Sit back.
Kind of lean against my chest.
Like that,” he said, encouragingly, as she snuggled between his shoulder and the couch.

“Are you sure?”

She could feel his low
mm-hmm
vibrating through his arm into hers.

It felt tense, the arm, and in a rush, she realized she was being stupid. He probably didn’t like this. He probably didn’t want to do it any more than he’d wanted to hold the goggles for her.
Duh.
He was just feeling guilty.

She wished she could go downstairs. Her head ached suddenly, a throb that soon burst like some kind of firework. She squeaked, and Logan was on her in an instant.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah.
I’m fine.” Her eyelids fluttered; his face was close enough to kiss; his hands squeezed lightly on her upper arms.

“Are you really?”

“Yes.” She leaned away from him, and he backed off.

“What happened?”

“It was just a little…burst.
When I lifted up my arm.
It felt kind of like when you hit your funny bone, but it went all the way up behind my ear.”

“Do you want to go downstairs?”

“No.
Not at all.
…Unless you want to.”

He shook his head,
then
lifted the goggles from her lap. She tried to stay still as he came in close to her side, so close they were pressed together tight.

His warm, rough voice was right next to her ear. “You should see some stars now.”

Margo gasped when the night sky lit up before her like a high-definition movie. She almost dropped the box, and then his voice was in her ear, just a whisper, raspy, warm. “Find the button that’s shaped like an ‘X’.”
 

“Okay.”

“Press that, and I’ll give you a tour.”

“A tour of the sky…”

“We’ll start at the sun first. This isn’t real time, obviously. It’s a picture I took earlier.”

Margo
squinted,
nervous about the light, but the image that came up was liquid brown.

“If you’re wondering why it isn’t bright, I put up a filter. At its full light, it’d blind anybody, even from the ground, but for you it needs to be extra dark.”

For
her
.
Margo’s heart tapped its toes.

“See those paler spots, coming up kind of like arches? Those are solar flares. That’s something we look at here. Press the button when you’re ready.”

The sun looked like it had freckles. This pleased Margo. She pressed the X, and they moved to Mercury.

 
“We don’t know much about this one. Nobody’s really looked at the surface. They did some stuff in the seventies, but only for about a year. It’s not quite as interesting as Venus.”

He was quiet while she studied the images, big, bold things in dampened Technicolor. Mercury was grayish purple, almost like the moon without its holes.

“Venus is the third-brightest thing in the sky. Most people think it’s a star…” Up close, it looked like a bowl of tomato soup with milk swirled in.

Mars was incredible, rusty smooth. Logan’s tone changed when he talked about that. He spoke faster, lighter, his hands in her hair moving slightly, so he tickled her temples.

“If there was going to be life somewhere in our solar system, it would probably be on Mars.”

“And you’re going to find it one day, right?”

He chuckled, liquid velvet. “Not me. I’ll be lucky if I get to go. But I’d like to help. And, hey, if I found it, I’m not complaining.”

“You should name it Marge.”

“Is that your nickname?”

“Yep.”
She smiled, and he made a sort of thinking sound, like maybe he’d consider it. She wished…

Onto the asteroid belt, and Ceres.
His voice was relaxing, hypnotic. Somewhere out near the
Kupiter
belt, she noticed that she was totally slumped against his chest. He noticed too.
 

“Are you tired? I’m probably boring you to sleep.”

“No,” she said. “I like this kind of stuff. It just seems so cliché.” His hands, over her ears, moved a bit, and she worried he was going to take down the goggles. When he didn’t, she went
on,
baffled by the way things just flowed out of her. “You know the whole thing about nature versus nurture?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Well, I’ve always liked to go with nurture. Like, how you turn out is about more than just who your parents were.”

He chuckled. “Amen to that.”

“Anyway, when I realized it’s not true—not entirely true—because some biology comes in, like DNA and stuff—it makes me kind of… I don’t know. It’s just weird. I mean, I don’t even know her.”

His left hand tensed, holding the goggles while his right arm lowered. She held her breath as it slid around her waist. For the longest moment, they just sat there. She could feel his ribs press into hers. Finally, so quietly she could barely hear him he said, “My dad thinks reading is a waste of time.”

Margo laughed; it was choked off when his hand landed near her hip.

“Let’s go somewhere else… somewhere out into the Milky Way.
Maybe about eighteen-thousand light years away.
You’re not getting dizzy, are you?” The stars were sliding by, little lines of pearl.
 

“I’m… good.”

She could feel him breathing, hard chest going in and out. His arm around her waist was solid. Warm. He shifted, pulling her closer, so her back was flush with his chest, his chin almost resting on her shoulder.

Figuring his hand must be getting tired of holding the
goggles,
she raised her right hand and grabbed the other side. The things trembled—her or him?

She saw a picture that reminded her of Earth’s solar system, but with some shapes she didn’t recognize.

“This is just a prototype,” he murmured. “Press the circle key, you can zoom in. I’ll show you something you might like.”

She did, and a smeary picture moved mechanically in front of her.

“It’s just a couple of pixels, but you see the color variation on the edges of that little dot?”

“Yes.”

“You’re looking at a little slice of reality I like to call The Great Planet Marge. Discovered just a few weeks ago, it’s been confirmed by telescopes at some of the world’s lesser observatories. Its name will be changing from a long meaningless number to the name of discoverer’s choice sometime in the next few days.”

Despite her focus on the blob, and the way her head still hurt, Margo whirled around, desperate to see if he was kidding. Logan grinned, and she slapped him lightly on the shoulder. “Don’t mess with me.”

“I’m not.” He raised both hands in mock surrender. “I would have thought you’d be happy to be the namesake for such a…cool place.” He grinned at her, laughing at his corniness. “There could be ice on Planet Marge—and ice could mean water, which could mean life. You could be the prototype for billions of other little
Margos
.”

“Or other big
Margos
, intent on gobbling up earthlings.”
Margo laughed.

“They’ll be studied for their…unusual qualities.”

Margo froze as the pad of his finger found her temples
—
 
“
…For their very pretty brown eyes.” —and lost her breath as his rough palm spread out around the curve of her jaw. “...and for their soft skin.”

As his hands stroked up, into her hair, she knew that Logan was going to kiss her. His face came close to hers; she could smell the mint of his breath. “I think what they’ll be best known for is their hair. Envy of all the other aliens that orbit their same star.”

As his eyes sparked, Margo reached out and caught the back of his neck. An instant later, his mouth covered hers.

Whoa.

He was soft and hot, like liquid silk. She opened her mouth, and his tongue glided in. She melted as his arm circled her shoulders, burned as her tongue met his; she trembled as she licked inside of his mouth. The taste of him, warm mint, and the scent—just Logan, making her head spin. His hand caressed her neck, fingers inching up her shivering nape.
His mouth stroked and tugged, always gentle, slow and easy, until her heart had slipped down to her toes and she found herself floating off the couch.

When he pulled back, she was panting.

“I’m sorry.” He dropped his face into his hand, and she could hear his ragged breaths. “I’m sorry,” he said again. His head lifted. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“You didn’t.”

“We should probably go.” He stood.

“Was it bad?” It was stupid to ask, but she couldn’t help it. She watched him drag his hand over his face.

“No,” he said, finally.
“Wasn’t bad.”

She took his hand and stood. His fingers curled over hers for just a second, then slipped away.

“I had a nice night,” she said quickly.

“Thanks for coming.”

That was it? He seemed so cold now.
Almost angry.

“
Logan,
did I… I mean, do you regret that…”

“No. But you should go.”

She did.

14

Logan turned his phone off and slammed it into his fist. He wanted to chunk it off the balcony, but his logical side won. Doing so would be counterproductive. It was his only phone, and since it was the middle of the afternoon and he was outside the fourth floor of the O, someone could see him do it.

Pushing his hand through his hair, he sucked a deep breath and remembered the hitches in his sister’s voice.

“Logan, I’m at the hospital. Mama stumped her toe and she broke it. Nothing really happened… She was trying to help Daddy get to their bedroom, and…I don’t know. She’s clumsy I guess.” That was the spot where Maggie’s voice had reached up—because that was the lie.

He actually needed to talk to his sister to find out what really happened, and he knew she was the only person he
might
get it straight from. There was no sense calling his mother. He wouldn’t get anything out of her.

Did he need to go home? His stomach dropped, and he felt a pressure on his lungs. The thought of going home always made him feel like he was suffocating.

Going home…