Out by Laura Preble Page A

sound
pretty cynical,” Jana remarks as she pulls one of Warren’s apron strings. “One
would almost think you find the political conversations boring.”
    “No comment.”
Warren sips from a glass of brandy. “I will have to make an appearance, though.
You young people scatter before you’re summoned.”
    The thought of
taking Carmen to my room makes me sweat all over. I don’t know what I’m going
to do…I guess I’ll have to show her the telescope. What else is there? I do
know one thing: there will be no physical contact. I will absolutely stay away
from her, and if I do that, I probably have half a chance of not losing my
mind.
    I go up first,
and Carmen hangs back to put Jana in between us. I see the hallway, the carpet,
my door, as if I’m seeing them for the first time, how she must see it.
    Jana stops in
front of my door. “This is Chris’s lair,” she says. Thank God I cleaned it up.
It’s never really messy anyway, but I dusted and picked up random books and
stuff the other day, so it looks especially put together. “The telescope is out
on the balcony. C’mon in!” She grabs Carmen’s arm and drags her into my room.
    Through the
French doors, my scope is positioned to track the best of the night sky:
shooting stars, planets, constellations. I guess Gemini is up there, but I
don’t want to look for it. “Nice view,” Carmen says, wrapping her arms around
herself as if she’s cold.
    Jana opens the
doors, letting a draft of cold air into the room. “Fresh air. Nothing better.”
She glances at Carmen, then says, “Geez, Chris, what kind of host are you? The
girl’s freezing.”
    “Oh, do you
want a blanket or something?” I grab the old blue one off the edge of my bed
and awkwardly hand it to her. I will not get near enough to drop a blanket
around her shoulders. I will not.
    “Thanks.” She
shrugs into it as a gust of air blows burnt-leaf smells into the room. “Nice. I
love how quiet it is.” She turns to me, her face a silhouette in ivory that
makes me want to write poetry or something equally dorky.
    Jana inches
toward the hallway. “I’ll leave you guys alone,” she says, going for the door.
    “No!” We both
yell.
    Jana just
laughs at us. “That whole pretending you don’t feel the way you do thing? Yeah,
that’s not gonna work. You might as well skip to the
chase and figure out what you’re going to do. See you soon.” She closes the
door, still chuckling softly.
    Could she be
more obvious? We’re alone, and it’s horrible. There’s a distance between us,
but it pulses with something, and all I want to do is grab her and kiss her. I
should just run out the door and get the hell out of here, but I don’t.
    I brought her
up here to show her stars, so I suppose I’d better do that. “My telescope’s not
the best,” I say, adjusting the eyepiece. “But you can see a good amount of
stuff.”   I swivel the scope and check for
something bright and beautiful.
    “Orion,” she
says, reading the name on the side. “The hunter. What are you hunting for?” Her
eyes. God, her eyes. Even in the low light I see them bright as embers. I
should run back downstairs right now.
    “Just a brand
name,” I mumble, moving away from her. “Just scoot down there and look through the eyepiece. You should be able to see something.”  
    She kneels on
the thick green rug I keep near the scope and presses her eye to the focuser. “It’s
all blurry,” she says, squinting her closed eye tighter. “Can you show me?”
    “Uh.” Wow. What
a suave bastard I am. “If you just lean in a little bit more, tilt your chin
down an inch or so…” She’s trying, but she’s doing it all wrong. I step in,
just to help adjust her chin. But then I’m kneeling on the green rug next to
her, touching her face, and she’s not looking at the stars anymore.
    She brushes my
hair from my eyes. “I still can’t see anything,” she whispers. “Maybe I’m not
close enough.”
    “But—”
    “