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Chapter Two

ASHLEIGH

After delivering drinks for another table, I drop the empty tray on the counter, then turn to the refrigerated case along the wall and gently slide a slice of the German chocolate cake into a takeout container. I turn back toward the counter and startle when Star Trek Guy is standing on the opposite side of the counter less than two feet in front of me, with his arms spread wide and his large hands resting on the countertop.

His hoodie is tight, so I don’t miss his muscular chest and arms. With his hat on backward and the ends of his hair peeking out, he looks younger than he probably is.

“So, you’re truly a Star Trek fan?” he asks.

“Why would you doubt that I am?” I close up the container with his friend’s cake.

“Lots of people are fans of a particular series or movie, fewer people are true fans.” He says it as if he’s inviting me to join a secret club, rather than questioning my qualifications.

My chest and shoulders shake with silent laughter. He has no idea how much that show influenced the trajectory of my life. “How do I know you’re really a Star Trek fan?”

He leans toward me, just slightly, and his voice comes out low as his warm breath skims across my cheek. “Try me.”

I know he’s talking about me testing his Star Trek knowledge, but somehow those two words come across as distinctly sexual. Or maybe it’s been too long since I broke up with my ex, Colby, and I’m just sex-deprived.

“Okay,” I say the word slowly as I think about what I could ask him. “What is the name of Section 31’s dangerous AI?”

He rolls his eyes and one corner of his mouth turns up. “Really? You’re going to start with a total softball like that?”

I shrug my shoulders and raise my eyebrows as I wait for his response.

“Control.”

“What area of space did Enterprise NX-01 spend most of its time exploring?” I ask.

“The Delphic Expanse. Star Trek: Enterprise was an underrated masterpiece.”

At least I can tell he’s watched multiple series. Let’s go for something a little more challenging. “Alright,” I say, thinking up the most obscure trivia I can remember, “what is General Order 7?”

He stands up straight, and suddenly he’s towering over me. He has to be over six feet tall, but I don’t feel threatened by the way he looms so large, like I sometimes felt around my ex. Somehow, Star Trek Guy reminds me more of a gentle giant.

He tucks his hands into the pocket of his hoodie, and says, “No Federation starship may visit Talos IV. That’s according to Captain Pike, who despite being burnt to a crisp in The Original Series, has the best hair ever in Strange New World.”

I can’t hold in the laugh, because damned if he’s not right. Anson Mount, who plays Captain Pike in Strange New World, has hair that’s spawned its own fan club within the Star Trek fandom.

“I guess you really are a Star Trek nerd,” I say as I print out the check for his table and slip it into the bill presenter, wishing that this knowledge made him less attractive instead of more. “My uncle, who introduced me to the show, always said it was for smart people. So congrats, I guess you’re smart.”

He laughs. “I don’t know about that. But I am fascinated by science, astronomy, and the concept of space travel.”

Probably not as fascinated as I am by it, I almost say. But I doubt he’s over here chatting me up late at night because he’s interested in hearing about my graduate school plans.

Flirting with a girl because you think she’s cute and you’re both into Star Trek is one thing. Learning that she’s going to get a doctorate in aerospace engineering so she can work on emerging space technology is another. And besides, I don’t know for sure yet that it’s going to happen for next semester, so I don’t want to jinx myself by telling him.

I glance at the way BOSTON is written across the back of his hat, sitting right along his forehead, and I recognize the blue and white color scheme of the block lettering. I nod my chin toward his hat. “So, you’re a hockey fan?”

“You could say that,” he says.

“Are the Boston Rebels your favorite team?”

“They are now. I grew up as a Toronto fan.”

“Why’d you switch allegiances?”

His eyebrows dip as he appears to consider the questions. “A lot of reasons, I guess. Are you a hockey fan?”

“I didn’t grow up with hockey,” I say, “But I’ve watched some games?—”

“Order up for six!” Jefferson, one of our line cooks, calls from behind me.

“Gotta go do my job,” I say, relieved to be escaping the conversation before having to admit that the main reason I started following hockey was that my ex, Colby, plays for Seattle. I stack the take-out container with the cake on top of the bill presenter and hand them over to him. “Here you go.”

I turn and grab the two plates for table 3, ignoring the way they burn the tips of my fingers. And then I walk away, pretending like I can’t feel his eyes as they track my every movement.

I have no business flirting with a cute guy in my diner. I just got out of a toxic relationship with a pro hockey player who carried himself with the same air of confidence. Even if this guy does seem more emotionally stable than my ex-boyfriend, and he appears at least as interested in my brain as he is in my body, he could still turn out to be like Colby in the end.

I drop the plates off for the couple at table 6 and then glance over at table 3 where the four guys sit as I head back toward the kitchen.

That pull of attraction to Star Trek Guy, and my inability to take my eyes off him, have me almost running face first into the swinging door when I fail to put my hand out as soon as I should, but luckily I slip into the back without causing a scene.

I pull out my phone and bring up my email, hoping to see a new message from the chair of the AeroAstro graduate program at MIT.

“Stop checking your damn email,” Jefferson calls out when he sees me scrutinizing my phone.

“I can’t help it. I need to know if I got the funding.”

“It’s only December 14th,” he says. “You said they’d let you know by the 16th.”

I glance around at the string of multicolored outdoor lights hanging around the top perimeter of our kitchen. They’re up year round, but they feel particularly festive as we approach Christmas—they’re big and gaudy and feel exactly like the type of lights someone would string along their roofline.

“Right,” I say. “ By December 16th, so it could be sooner.”

I was supposed to start my PhD program a few months ago, but when my uncle got sick last spring, someone had to take care of him and help run the diner. So I did what I needed to do for the man who took over raising me when my parents died—I deferred my enrollment so I could be there for him like he’s always been there for me.

It meant they offered my funding to another student, but I don’t regret it.

Since I can’t take on the debt that would come with this PhD, I need to wait to start the program the next time a fully-funded research opportunity presents itself. The head of the department told me there might be another research grant opening up in the spring, and if it comes through, it means I’m moving across the country in a month.

“It’ll come through when it comes through,” Jefferson says as he wipes his forearm across his forehead while standing over the hot griddle. “I know that’s not the answer you wanted, but just relax. It’s almost the holidays.”

“Yeah.” I sigh and reach out to rearrange an ornament hanging from the tinsel strung above the prep area beside me. “There’s nothing to do but wait.”

When I return to the front of the diner, only StarTrek Guy is left at table 3.

“If your friends stuck you with the bill,” I tease, “you need better friends.”

“Like you?” he asks, raising an eyebrow. With his pale eyes, sharp jawline, and sandy hair, not to mention all those muscles, he reminds me of exactly the type of guy I should be avoiding post-breakup with Colby.

“We’re not friends.”

“Not yet,” he says with an air of cocky confidence that should be a turnoff, but the boyish grin makes him endearing instead.

I don’t know why I’m flirting with him. I’m planning to move across the country for grad school, so there’s no reason to get involved with anyone here in Seattle. I don’t need those kinds of complications in my life. Leaving my uncle behind is already going to be hard enough.

“I told them to go,” he says. “We just flew in tonight and we have to be up early tomorrow for—” He glances around. “—work.”

“Oh, you’re not from here?” Suddenly he’s even more attractive.

“No. And this is my first time in Seattle. So tell me, if you only had tonight and tomorrow, what would you do?”

I tap my index finger on my chin as I think.

“Okay, so tonight the sky is really clear. You should head to Kerry Park in the Queen Anne neighborhood. It has the best views of downtown Seattle, and the ferries going across Elliot Bay look like little streaks of light across the water. It’s only about a mile from here.”

“And what do I do once I’m there?”

“There’s a viewing area, and you just admire the scenery. There are some really beautiful houses in Queen Anne that are all lit up right now for Christmas, and from Kerry Park you can see the lit Christmas tree on top of the Space Needle.”

“They put a tree on top of the Space Needle?” He sounds doubtful.

I laugh. “Not like an actual tree, it’s…you just have to go see it.”

“I feel like I need a tour guide. And the way your face lit up when you were talking about the Christmas lights and the view—you seem like the perfect person for the job.”

I roll my eyes. “Like I’d take a perfect stranger somewhere in my car.” He’s cute, but I don’t really know him.

“We can take an Uber. Or walk if it’s really only a mile.”

“Yeah,” I laugh. “It’s a mile uphill and it’s pretty cold out. You don’t appear to even have a jacket.”

“It’s above freezing. Trust me, I don’t need a jacket.”

“Hey, I value my appendages, but if you don’t…” I shrug. He looks so damn sure of himself that I almost want to keep him out on that viewing platform long enough that his balls shrivel up.

“So how soon are you off work?” he asks, glancing around the almost empty diner.

Am I agreeing to this? I think I am, even though I’m not sure why. A few weeks without a boyfriend, and suddenly a hot guy who likes Star Trek has me throwing caution to the wind?

“I just have to close out the tab at table 6,” I say, nodding my chin toward the table across the room.

He hands me the check presenter stuffed full of cash from his table, gently sets his big hands on my shoulders, and turns me toward table 6. A shiver of anticipation runs down my spine when he leans in and says, “Let’s get going, then.”