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

            “Don’t apologize,” I tell her. “He thought your name was Melissa till twenty minutes ago.”

            She frowns. “What? For real?”

            Ian blinks from my side, looking slightly abashed.

            “Well, still.” She shrugs. “I promise I don’t have anything against you personally. I’m just not generally a fan of the Floyd family.”

            “Neither am I.”

            Mara’s eyes lit up. “They’re horrible people, right?”

            “The worst.”

            “Thank you. Hey, we should secede! Form our own official branch of the family. That video of you peeing in a Lowe’s that they forced me to watch over and over? I’d never mention it again.”

            Ian smiles. “Sounds great.”

            Mara smiles back, but then she leans back in to hug me once again and whisper in my ear, “I’m not even sure he’s really a Floyd. His hair is barely red.”

            I burst into laughter. I think I’m home for real.



* * *



            • • •

            I want to stay awake and bask in the joy of having Sadie and Mara in my living space again, but I fail and conk out the second we get to my place. I wake up in the middle of the night, Sadie and Mara on either side of me in my queen-size bed, and my heart is so full, I’m afraid it’ll overflow. Apparently this is what I am now, a unicorn rainbow marshmallow kitten creature. Bah. I wonder groggily where their boyfriends went, promptly fall back asleep, and find out the answer only several hours later, when the sun shines bright into my kitchen and we’re sitting at my cluttered table.

            “They were going to stay in a hotel,” Mara says. She is having Cheez-Its for breakfast without even bothering to look ashamed. “But Ian told them they could bunk with him.”

            “He did?” My fridge is full, even though I unplugged it before leaving for Norway. There are several new boxes of cereal on top of it, and fresh fruit in a basket that I didn’t know I owned. I wonder which one of the dependable adults in my life is responsible for this. “Does he have the space?”

            “He said he has a big place.”

            “Hmm.” I can’t believe Sadie’s Viking boyfriend gets to see Ian’s apartment before I do. Oh well.

            “So,” she says, “this seems like the perfect opening to grill you and find out whether you’re boinking Mara’s relative. But it’s obvious that you are. Plus, you just almost Popsicled yourself at the North Pole. So we’ll go easy on you.”

            “That is very considerate.” I pluck a grape from the mysterious bowl. “I’m not, though.”

            “Bullshit.”

            “No, really. We fooled around five years ago, when we met up for Helena’s interview. Then we had a huge argument six months ago, when I told him to fuck off after he vetoed my expedition because it was too dangerous—not because he thought I was an idiot, like someone told me. Then he came to save my life when I almost died on said expedition.” I don’t mention our night together on the boat, because . . . there’s nothing to say, really. Technically, nothing happened.

            “As far as Told You Sos go, this is an excellent one,” Mara says.

            “Right? That’s what I thought!”

            “Hang on,” Sadie interjects. “Did we know that he was the one who vetoed your proposal? And did we know about the fooling-around-five-years-ago bit? Did we forget?”

            “We did not,” Mara says. “We would not have forgotten. Thank you for keeping us updated on your life, Hannah.”

            “Would you have cared to know?”

            Their Hell, yeahs are simultaneous.

            Right. Of course. “Okay, let’s see. We kind of made out at JPL. Then he asked me out for dinner. I said that I didn’t date, but I’d fuck him anyway. He wasn’t interested and we went our separate ways.” I shrug. “Now you know.”