Star Crossed (2 page)

            Regardless, maybe today would be the day. She would walk into the coffee shop next door, stroll to get her Americano, turn casually to leave and be stopped by a gentle hold on her elbow. She would look up at a dreamy man that had reached out to keep her from running into him and he would smile at her and she would
know.
She would just know that he was the one. It was going to happen today, she just knew it.

            Skylar's hopes rose when she noticed how many people were milling around the coffee shop. They died quickly, though, when she received her coffee and was out the door without anyone even looking at her, let alone sharing a cosmic connection with her. Her favorite barista, the one she always told Tara about, wasn't working that morning. Granted, his tattoos and gauged ears would probably cause her mother to have an early heart attack if she were to bring him home, but he had the best smile.

            She sighed as she started walking to her car and her gaze dropped to the ground as she began milling through her purse for her keys. How she always managed to lose them when all she had done was put them on top of the pile of things was beyond her.

            “Hey, in front of you,” a voice said, startling her enough to stop. She hadn't been close enough to the road to have to be paying attention to where she went yet, had she?

            Her worries abated when she realized that she hadn't been spacing out too much. If Chris hadn't been coming up to her to chat she might not have nearly run into him. Christopher Nash had a rugged sort of look to him despite the fact that she knew he was almost entirely an academic. His hair was a sandy sort of brown that made his mustache difficult to see but made the dark brown of his eyes stand out dramatically. He was notoriously the nicest man that everyone knew while also being the most inaccessible.

            Tara didn't believe someone could be as uninterested in a relationship as he seemed to be, but to Skylar the truth of it was far too obvious. At first he was waiting until he was done with high school, then college was too important, and then graduate school, and now he was sometimes too involved with his thesis to acknowledge that anyone else existed.

            “Are you alright?” he asked her as he readjusted the messenger bag he wore slung over his shoulder. It looked heavy, like he was carrying all of his research around with him today.

            “Oh, fine, sorry. I just lost my keys.”

            “Again? Don't you ever clean out your purse?”

            Skylar huffed indignantly and then reached out to tug at the messenger bag. It was slightly gratifying to watch his crossly amused glare. “I could ask you the same question.”

            “Hm, well, these are books and a laptop, not makeup and sunglasses.” He smiled to take the sting out of the retort and asked, “How have you been? Are you on your way to work again?”

            “Yeah, back to the old grind.”

            “I hope there isn't any actual grinding there. I don't see a place that sells meat pies anywhere around for you to give the people meat to.”

            Skylar frowned. “What are you talking about?”

            Chris chuckled and shifted his weight awkwardly. “I guess you haven't seen many musicals. There's a character in one that doesn't have enough meat so lets a serial murderer bring her some. He's a barber, which is kind of similar to what you do.”

            “I'm not a masseuse, actually, and I don't think they're similar to barbers.”

            “They are the male equivalent to them, as far as that time period goes.”

            Skylar rolled her eyes. “I guess I'll have to take your word for it.”

            “Guess so. Anyway, did you see that guy you've been trying to talk to?”

            Skylar smiled and wondered how anyone could think Chris wasn't that interested in relationships at all. He may be busy but he always made time to keep up with what his friends were up to. “No luck there. I have been talking to this other guy, though, and he seems nice. Here,” she said as she pulled out her phone and pulled up a picture of a freckled ginger. “His name is Joey and he seems really nice.”

            “Didn't a guy named Joey stand you up recently? You said you weren't going to go for people like him any more.”

            “He just didn't meet me when he said he was going to, even though Tara was trying so hard to set us up. I think if he was interested then he wouldn't just come up with a bunch of reasons why he can't see me, right?”

            Chris's gaze faltered. “Yeah, that sounds about right. How did you meet the new Joey?”

            “A friend at work introduced him to me at a club. Isn't he cute?”

            Chris shrugged. “I don't dig guys that way so probably am not the one to ask about that. Good luck with that, I have to get started. If I don't make a breakthrough or two in my research today then I'm going to have to ask my professor for another extension.”

            “What are you working on?”

            “One of my long papers about boring theories,” he said dismissively. “My mentor says the only people that care to hear about it usually get pulled away by starting a family or making more money.”

            Skylar frowned. “How come you don't want to get a better job? Isn't there not a market for teachers anymore?”

            He sighed. “Depends on what they're teaching and where. I might have to move to get the job I want but I'll see where it takes me. I think economy is more interesting than business and I've stuck with it so far, so we'll see where it goes, I guess. Anyway, have a good shift. If you get bored and want to keep me company later then I can see if I can afford to take a break.”

            “You should take breaks anyway. It isn't healthy to do nothing but work.”

            “The opportunity cost of--”

            “Oh, going all fancy on me, are we? I guess that's my cue,” she said as she went to move her car so that she could go in to work.

            “Have a good day,” Chris bade her as she left.

~~~

            Chris watched his friend as she walked distractedly to her car and then shook his head at his own thoughts as he purchased his coffee and claimed his favorite table to sit and work at. Skylar's constant need to keep trying to 'talk' to people was starting to worry him. They had been friends for years but had grown apart when college hadn't been something she was interested in and he had gone away to school. They still talked, but not at all like they used to.

            Even if they did, though, he wasn't sure if she was the same person that he used to hang out with on the bus to and from school or during lunch period. He felt as though he had been in school so much that he was still very similar to his teenage self. Chris mostly exercised his mind, after all, aside from his occasional camping trips through the mountains. He hadn't had the kind of experiences that he considered life changing, such as growing from the kind of person that was a good friend to the kind of person that could be a good husband.

            Besides, after he'd seen the way his friends behaved he couldn't stomach the thought of dating someone. If all dating was for was to find different ways to get his partner drunk or laid then he was certainly not interested. He had enough to worry about with his studies without thinking about what was going to be his latest score, or without wondering if the person he was with had some kind of hidden agenda. Guys weren't the only ones looking to get into as many people's pants as they could, after all.

            Which was part of why he didn't go into business, he thought as he pulled out his books and started working. Fewer girls went after the guy that wasn't going on to make hundreds of thousands of dollars one day and he had no interest in painting a target on his chest. Besides, he enjoyed long hours of research and plugging numbers into mathematical theories. It all had a kind of order which allowed for prediction and study, which suited him just fine.

            He could still recall his first economics teacher, a tall and somewhat quirky man with a prideful twist to his personality that still made Chris smile. His tests were the kind that included questions such as 'which is greater, the current unemployment rate or Mr. Benson's biceps?' His joy in teaching and carefree attitude had inspired Chris to one day be as awesome as he was, and the way that the world was had inspired him to aspire to stay a student for as long as he could.

            Students, after all, didn't have to face debt and family issues and all those other external costs. He relished having the opportunity to forgo those costs and focus on his own life but there were times that he talked to his friends that he wondered if he even knew what he was giving up. He'd buried himself so deeply in his work by now, though, that he had all but trapped himself in his promises to one day date or one day take his motorcycle rides farther than state lines.

            He wasn't a biker in the stereotypical sense but he had worked hard when he was younger to earn his bike. Newspaper routes, lawn work, some errand work and babysitting had all amounted to a glorious old bike. His dad had been confused by the purchase at first, but learned how to help maintain and improve it until one day his dad caved in and bought a bike of his own to go on adventures with his son.

            Chris's grip tightened on the table before he forced himself to relax. His mother had said she forgave him for fostering his dad's interest in the hobby that had eventually gotten him run off the road. He still couldn't get the pale, cut up face of his comatose father out of his mind. For almost a week they had been hopeful that he might pull through, that wearing a helmet might have made some kind of difference, but there was no denying the lack of brain activity when they managed to bring him out of the coma.

            He hadn't taken his bike out of the garage since then, had been more devoted to his studies, and had been less inclined to search out someone else to be in his life. After all, why fall for someone if they were only going to leave you one day?

~~~

            “How goes the research?”

            The question seemed to jar Chris out of his thinking and Skylar smiled. He was so cute when she managed to startle him. During the time that she was answering phones and setting up appointments and guiding guests and whatever all she was asked to do by the actual masseuses he had camped out quite thoroughly at his table. There were several books open to certain pages or sitting partially open with a pen marking his place. Some were peppered with colorful sticky notes and there were several sticky notes attached to his laptop to remind him to add something or look for this other book.

            “What was that?”

            “I asked how your research was going,” Skylar said as she plopped down in the chair across from him and draped her purse on the back of the chair. There wasn’t really space anywhere else, as much as he had spread out.

            “Oh, slowly today. I keep hitting blocks or finding out that I have the wrong book for what I need or not getting enough evidence to support my arguments.” He stared at his laptop screen in accusatory consternation and Skylar giggled.

            “I don’t think it’s your computer’s fault. No need to fire it with your lasers.”

            He smiled at her and she had to mentally scold her heartbeat when it sped up. He was much too busy to bother with dating and his heart had been broken when his father died. He didn’t need someone coming along and forcing him into a relationship he wasn’t ready for.

            Even if he had the kind of eyes she could stare into all day. Their stern expression had shifted when he had looked over at her and she reminded herself yet again that the caring she saw in them was not especially for her. He cared about all kinds of people, had several friends besides her. It wasn’t at all that he liked her and she was wasting her time pining after him.