Below Zero (The STEMinist Novellas, #3)

by Ali Hazelwood

Caring what others think is a lot of work, and—with a handful of exceptions—I’m not a huge fan of work.

I wanted to stop feeling as though I were rotting in my own aimlessness,

I did not come here to make friends, but hurt my weird Cheez-It friend or my other weird soccer friend and I will beat you up with a lead pipe till you piss blood for the

rest of your life.

Perhaps. I feel little, but surpris...

My hair, eyes, sometimes even my soul, are black-hole dark. And here he is, Martian red and ocean blue.

He is fully smiling now. He has a heart-stopping dimple on his left cheek, and . . . Okay, fine: he’s aggressively hot.

“I’ll need a lot of therapy before I can become a mother.”

He is, very

simply, a never-before-experienced mix of cute and overwhelmingly masculine. With a complex, layered air about him. It spells simultaneously Do not piss me off because I don’t fuck around and Ma’am, let me carry those groceries for you.

Wow. A male engineer who’s not an asshole. The bar is pretty low, but I’m nevertheless impressed.

“Beautiful. You are very, very beautiful. Probably the most . . . And you’re obviously smart and funny, so . .

That I can’t really imagine anyone sticking around for something that’s not sex once they really get to know me?

“You can change your mind whenever. No deadline.”

“I’m not.” A pause. “It’s more of a brisk walk.”

“Just relax and think of Mars, okay? I’ll be there soon.”

He’s still staring at me. Like he’s found his long-missing house keys and is afraid he’ll lose them again if he looks away.

Ian becomes a faceless, anonymous figure, and there is something freeing in that. In not letting myself remember that I used to think of him fondly, and by name.

I’m still confused, scared, hungry, and guilty. But when I glance up at Ian, maybe I feel a little less cold.

Both times, I felt bizarrely, incomprehensibly safe.

“I was just afraid that something might happen to you. And I don’t trust Merel. Not with you.” He says it—you—like I am a remarkable and important thing. The most precious data point; his favorite town; the loveliest, starkest Martian landscape. Even though I pushed him away, over and over, he still came in a rocking boat in the middle of the coldest ocean on planet Earth, just to get me warm.

“Hannah, there is nowhere else I’d rather be.” I laugh, watery. “Not even—not even literally anywhere else?” I hear him chuckle just before I fall asleep.

The last thing I do before falling asleep is lean my head against Ian’s shoulder. The last thing I remember him doing is shifting a little lower, to make sure that I’m as comfortable as I can be.

“I think about it a lot,”

“Is that why you came to rescue me?” I tease. “Because you were thinking about it? Because you have been secretly pining for years?” He meets my eyes squarely. “I don’t know that there was anything secret about that.”

I cannot finish the sentence, because I’m being tackled by two small but surprisingly strong goblins.

my heart is so full, I’m afraid it’ll overflow. Apparently this is what I am now, a unicorn rainbow marshmallow kitten creature.

“Hannah, if that changes. If you ever find yourself able to believe that someone could care about you that much. And if you wanted to actually . . . have dinner with that someone.” He lets out a laugh. “Well . . . Please, consider me. You know where to find me.”

“Seems improbable, since I already like you.”

Being here with Ian is more like hearing a song I’ve listened to millions of times, this time with a new arrangement.

With Ian, I always decide to stay.

The following day, our kiss is on the front page of the New York Times.