Below Zero (The STEMinist Novellas, #3)

by Ali Hazelwood

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.

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

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…”

“Hannah.” The shock of hearing my name—in Ian’s voice, cocooned by the whistle of the wind, and through the metallic line of my satphone, no less—has me instantly shutting up. Until he continues. “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.