Everything in the room was loud—the motor, my heartbeat, his breathing, the rhythmic strike of his feet on the belt—and I was completely transfixed.
“Planning to kill me?” he said between breaths.
“Shit.”
I slammed my palm onto the emergency stop panel on the treadmill rail, and the belt lurched to a halt beneath his feet. He caught himself on the treadmill rails, our eyes locked, both of us breathing hard. A slow smile spread across his lips.
The monitor released one long, continuous beep into the sudden quiet, startling me.
I was so doomed.
3
Reed
I followed Daniel back through the corridors of the main station building. He pointed things out as we made our way down to the supply store.
After he had made me sign paperwork to transfer my medical care to him, because apparently I was doing an “abominable” job of taking care of my health, he had declared that I needed a minimum of six hours of sleep.
In the middle of the day.
We were on our way to gather some supplies so I could shower in the clinic’s en suite bathroom and then complete my mandatory beauty sleep, as ordered by my husband.
Daniel paused in a doorway beside a large room. I looked past him into the space.
“And this?” I asked.
“Secondary lounge.” He leaned against the doorframe. “You grab something from the store and come here when you need aminute. Main cafeteria is further down. You’ve already seen it, I am sure.”
“Yep. The chef gave me a cupcake. Best one I’ve ever had.”
Daniel smiled. “He’s kind of famous for that.” He pushed off the doorframe and continued down the corridor, talking as he walked. “When I first got posted here, I assumed the food would be terrible. Months without fresh vegetables. I figured it was inevitable. Then I met Theo and understood that he was more than just a chef.”
“Food must become a big deal when you’re isolated like this for months on end,” I said. “It stops being about nutrition.”
“Exactly.”
“Remember our army cook during deployment?”
“How can I forget?” Daniel smiled. “John was very good, but that was temporary. A few days, a few weeks, a month at most. Here, you are guaranteed to be stuck. Months at a stretch, nothing else to do except research. Every celebration, every marker of time passing—it all runs through food.”
“So the chef is more like a family cook-therapist-grandma all rolled into one?” I asked.
He breathed a chuckle. “Not sure about grandma.” He nodded at a doorway as we passed. “That’s the station store. We will go in via the back door.”
“It’s closed?” I looked back. No one was at the counter. “I don’t see anybody.”
“Runs on the honor system.” Daniel kept walking. “We’re too small a station. Technically, I’m the storekeeper.”
I glanced back at the store as we passed it. Calling it a store was generous. It was a closet-sized space—shelves stacked with snack boxes and a handful of other items, a small cash box sitting open on the counter. Even as I watched, two women in bright red parkas came laughing down the corridor, grabbed afew boxes of snack bars, dropped money into the cash box, and walked out like this was the most normal thing in the world.
He led me inside the space. As he picked items off the shelf, he kept pointing things out to me. “Don’t worry about expiration dates. Those don’t work here. By the time most things arrive by ship, it is already months later.”
I picked up a granola bar and looked at its wrapper. “I’m beginning to realize just how radically different life is here.”
“When did you get posted here?” he asked.
He gestured for me to follow him back to the clinic.
