Below Zero (The STEMinist Novellas #3) by Ali Hazelwood

            “They’ll be fine. Plus, sailing is a passion of mine.” He’s obviously being evasive, but the cold must have frozen my brain cells, because all I want right now is to find out more about Ian Floyd’s passions. True or made up.

            “Is it really?”

            He shrugs, noncommittal. “We used to sail a lot when I was a kid.”

            “We?”

            “My dad and I.” He stands and turns away from me, starting to rummage in the little compartments in the hull. “He’d bring me along when he had to work.”

            “Oh. Was he a fisherman?”

            I hear a fond snort. “He smuggled drugs.”

            “He what?”

            “He smuggled drugs. Weed, for the most—”

            “No, I heard you the first time, but . . . seriously?”

            “Yup.”

            I frown. “Are you . . . Are you okay? Is that even . . . Is that a thing, smuggling weed on boats?”

            He’s tinkering with something, giving me his back, but he turns just enough for me to catch the curve of his smile. “Yeah. Illegal, but a thing.”

            “And your father would take you?”

            “Sometimes.” He turns around, holding a small tray. He always looks big, but hunched in the too-low deck he feels like the Great Barrier Reef. “It would drive my mom crazy.”

            I laugh. “She didn’t like her son being part of the family criminal enterprise?”

            “Go figure.” His dimple disappears. “They’d yell about it for hours. No wonder Mars began sounding so attractive.”

            I cock my head and study his expression. “Is that why you grew up not knowing Mara?”

            “Who is M— Oh. Yeah. For the most part. Mom isn’t very fond of the Floyd side of the family. Though I’m sure he’s the black sheep by their standards, too. I wasn’t really allowed to spend time with him, so . . .” He shakes his head, as if to change the topic. “Here. It’s not much, but you should eat.”

            I have to force myself to look away from his face, but when I notice the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches he made, my stomach cramps with happiness. I wiggle in the bunk until I’m sitting straighter, take off my jacket, and then immediately attack the food. My relationship with eating is much less complicated than the one with Ian Floyd, after all, and I lose myself in the straightforward, soothing act of chewing for . . . for a long time, probably.

            When I swallow the last bite, I remember that I’m not alone and notice him staring at me with an amused expression.

            “Sorry.” My cheeks warm. I brush the crumbs from my thermal shirt and lick some jam off the corner of my mouth. “I’m a fan of peanut butter.”

            “I know.”

            He does? “You do?”

            “Wasn’t your graduation cake just a giant Reese’s cup?”

            I bite the inside of my cheek, taken aback. It was the one Mara and Sadie got me after I defended my thesis. They got tired of me licking frosting and peanut butter filling off the Costco sheet cakes they usually bought and just ordered me a giant cup. But I have no recollection of ever telling Ian. I barely think of it, honestly. I remember about it only when I log into my barely used Instagram, because the picture of the three of us digging in is the last thing I ever posted—

            “You should rest while you can,” Ian tells me. “The storm should ease up by early tomorrow morning and we’ll sail out. I’ll need your help in this shit visibility.”

            “Okay,” I agree. “Yeah. But I still don’t understand how you can be here alone if—”

            “I’ll go check that everything is all right. I’ll be back in a minute.” He disappears before I can ask exactly what he needs to check on. And he’s not back in a minute—or even before I lean back in the bunk, decide to rest my eyes for just a couple of minutes, and fall asleep, dead to the world.