“I love you, too. I’m so proud of you.”
I held onto him, breathing in his sweat, licking the salt off my lips from when he’d kissed me. I thought my chest might cave in.
This. This was mine. Jupiter was mine. And I was going to do everything in my power to make sure it stayed that way.
Chapter 78
Present Day
Ipressed down hard on my legs, trying my best to halt thetap, tap, tap,but I could still feel them jittering underneath. It was possible I’d had too much caffeine already.
It wasn’t like I’d been mainlining it, but that was only because I hadn’t found a suitable I.V.
Yawning, again, I peered over to the glowing red clock above The Lions’ field.
“He’s on his way up. I just had a notice he walked in downstairs.”
I smiled over at Penn Shepherd’s P.A., Melony. I’d been waiting outside for the last thirty minutes, no doubt getting on her nerves.
It didn’t occur to me that he wouldn’t be here, because he wasalwayshere. Always somewhere in the stadium; usually hovering over me, checking on what I was up to next, sometimes lurking in the hallways, straightening one of the framed team shirts which hung along the walls of the executive entrance.
One time I found him arranging the sweat towels in the gym.
Penn Shepherd washands on.
Even Lowe had started complaining that he never seemed to sleep, and we weren’t yet half-way through the season.
I jumped up as he walked out of the elevator. Finally!
Taking the wad of messages that Melony was holding out for him, he flicked through them, only then noticing that I was standing right next to his office with a large box under my arm.
“Oh, Marnie! Did we have a meeting?” he startled, “or are you trying to make me look bad by being at work before me?”
“No, to both,” I scoffed.
What a ridiculous thing to say.
A wry smile flashed on his lips as he passed by, walking straight into his office. “So to what do I owe the pleasure then?”
I took a second to blink my sight back after being momentarily blinded by the sun hitting his windows. It really was a beautiful day outside. My old office had been underground, in the depths of the Johnson Space Center, and I’d almost forgotten how much better a sunny day made things seem.
“I wanted to show you something.” I lifted the box up as much as I could. “But I can come back if you don’t have the time.”
“I always have time for you Doctor Matthews. You are turning my team into winners. Want some coffee?”
I kind of did… but instead replied, “No thanks, I’ve had some already.”
He shouted his coffee order to Melony, then perched on the edge of his desk and nodded to the box. “What’s that then?”
Thatwas something I’d been waiting nearly a month for, after I’d had the green light on the One Percent program.Thatwas Phase Two.
It’s not so much that time flies when you’re having fun, but more like when you’re working so many hours you forget what day it is. It was hard to believe it had been six weeks since I’d sat in this same chair and presented my One Percent idea to him, because even as I’d spoken the words, I hadn’t been entirely sure it would amount to anything.
We’d started gradually; a system of phases and tiny tweaks that wouldn’t create attention – the tape, the sleep schedule, Jupiter’s bat baggies – which had proved to be surprisingly popular, were all Phase One.
Overall, it had gone relatively seamlessly. Even Jesus Rodriguez seemed to have come around, especially after I’d shown him the data I’d been studying – the results of which said, without doubt, The Lions were leaps and bounds ahead of where they’d been in the standings at this point in the season compared to any of the previous five.
And he should know, because he’d been with the team for the entirety.
