He laughed. “Yeah, it was weird. I had no clue what to do with it. I paid off my uncle’s mortgage. I paid Liam’s college tuition—before he dropped out. And I did a few other nice things with it. I went to Europe on my own. Kids’ stuff. It’s a lot of money to dump on a kid’s plate.”

I shrugged. “I was thinking of using it to pay for my medical school.”

He frowned. “Well, I guess you could. But you know you don’t need to. I’d like to see you find a way to do some real good with it. Maybe when you are a doctor. But, you don’t have to make that decision tomorrow.”

We continued to eat for another minute before he stopped chewing. He was looking off into space, as if thinking…then he let out a groan.

“What’s wrong?” I asked when he grimaced.

“This means we have to redo the prenup document.”

I made a face, and he laughed. “Don’t worry. I’ll call the lawyer. Hopefully, this won’t be too much of a pain.”

***

And, fortunately, it wasn’t.

But I couldn’t help but wonder…if I’d received that money at the time I’d started college, I would have been in vastly different circumstances. And so many things would have been done differently.

I would most likely have never done the auction.

And the auction had brought me Adam.

And I’d take Adam over a thousand trust funds. So, for that, I owed the biological sperm donor—or, rather, his ex-wife—my thanks.

The next day, Monday, when I got home from labs, Adam was sitting on the bed with the TV on. He’d had an enforced—by me—day off. But I quickly noticed the laptop on one knee, which he promptly slammed shut when I came in. His phone sat right beside him, and a remote to the TV was on the nightstand next to him.

I raised my brows. “Working?”

He sighed. Damn, he looked pale. “Checking emails. I really need to hire a new IT director.”

“But not today. And probably not until the new year.”

He shook his head, his eyes gravitating to the TV screen, which was blaring the news—a special report. There were shots of the International Space Station and mentions of NASA and astronauts.

“I’ve mostly been following this. Did you hear?”

“I’ve been in class all day—heard nothing.” I turned to the TV. “Did something happen?”

“There was an accident. Two astronauts were doing an EVA—a spacewalk. There was an accident. One astronaut’s suit was breached, and he was killed.”

“Oh, shit.” I sank down on the bed, staring at the screen. “That’s horrible.”

“Yeah, the other astronaut on the spacewalk, Ian Tyler—I know him. He was on the station the same time I was and even helped me with my training. Real kickass astronaut. A heroic sort of guy.”

Sadness tightened like a cold fist in my chest. “This is awful. I don’t think anyone’s ever died in space before.”

Adam shook his head. “Nope. Only on the way up or the way down…or in training.”

I listened as the newscaster repeated the known facts of the accident while saying a lot was still unknown, and they were waiting for a spokesman at NASA to start a press conference within the hour.

“It sucks,” Adam muttered. “I wish I could do something to help Ian. I can’t even imagine what he’s going through right now. Of course, the news outlets are going to spread hearsay and repeat rumors that will be harmful to the space program. It always suffers after accidents. Programs get canceled, and people will forget that going into space is important for everyone’s future.”

“Maybe the future of going into space shouldn’t even be in government hands, then.” I turned back to him. “Maybe it should be for visionaries with the means and the motivation. Someone said it’s going to take a bunch of smart billionaires banding together to accomplish major changes in practically every field. I happen to know a very smart billionaire.”

He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. “Are you referring to my little investment in XVenture?” he asked. XVenture was the private space exploration company I’d seen on the disclosure document.

“It didn’t look like a little investment, but yeah, that’s what I mean. Like…maybe it will take a visionary billionaire with motivation to do something more than the government is willing to do.”

“Maybe.” He rubbed his jaw and continued to stare at the screen, but I was convinced that he was listening closely to me.

“You remember what Spider-Man said: ‘With great power comes great responsibility.’”

“Spider-Man didn’t say that. Uncle Ben did.”

I shrugged. “I simply mean that you have the power to change things.”

He nodded, still watching the television with a troubled expression. Without asking him if he needed a hug, I leaned over and gave him one anyway. After the press conference, I finally convinced him to turn off the distressing news, and we had a quiet dinner alone and tried not to talk about it.

But the wheels were turning inside that brilliant mind of his, and I wondered what the result would be.

Adam had his doctor’s appointment and ultrasound for his all-clear tomorrow, and I hoped he’d feel better with some good news. The countdown to our wedding had begun. Only two weeks now.

In the bathroom, before bed, I noticed the telltale dark spot on my panties. After months and months of being AWOL, it looked like I might have a normal period.

Best not to count my chickens before they hatched. It could vanish as quickly as it had come. I cleaned up and took care of it, but didn’t mention it to Adam.

He’d find out soon enough.

 

 

Chapter 17

Adam

Inside my closet that night, as I dressed for bed, I reached into the back and pulled out my dark blue flight suit from the Soyuz mission I’d flown from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan over four years ago. Running my fingers around the mission patch and my name, A. Drake, stitched over the right breast pocket, I remembered that euphoric feeling of weightlessness, of the importance of the things being accomplished on the International Space Station.

In the news, talk of scrapping the station had started based on the dangers inherent with an aging facility that circled the earth every ninety minutes. A real possibility existed of pulling all astronauts and cosmonauts from their missions and bringing them home.




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