Kinetics - By Andrew Peed Page 0,41

few times.

"Would you spit it out already?" I stopped him and turned him to look at me.

"I don't know what to say exactly." he said wringing his hands.

We started walking again.

"Just say whatever it is."

"Well you see I have been spending a lot of time with Rachel lately." he said stammering like a school boy with a crush.

"You like her. You want to hold her." I said in a sing song voice.

"Stop Grace. I'm serious." he looked at the ground.

"Sorry." I backed away.

"I have feelings for her. Feelings that I have never had before." he smiled but looked like he was going to be sick.

"What? Do you want my permission to date her?" I was amazed that we were even discussing his love life.

"Well?"

"Ronnie, what did I tell you right after your fight with Josh at school?" I stopped him again, but less forceful.

"Well, I just want to know that if we really got serious, things wouldn't get weird between us." he had the hardest time making eye contact with me.

"I will always love you like a brother. Nothing can change that, no matter what. No matter who you are in a relationship with, things will always get weird between us. Now." I took a breath, "Where was I. Oh yeah… You LOVE her." again in the sing song voice.

"So... What does this mean?" we started back towards the house.

"We're still friends and now I get to mess with you because, you love her.” I chuckled pushing him.

"Thanks." He playfully shoved me back.

Rachel waited for us right inside the front door. He gave her a little nod and she grinned at me. They walked into the kitchen arm in arm.

I shook my head.

I returned to my room and surfed the net until I fell asleep with the laptop on my stomach.

Chapter 18: The Will

Ronnie and Rachel spent no time getting close. I sat at the table during breakfast a few days later trying to keep my food down while being subjected to their displays.

I left the house and walked aimlessly towards the town. The sunlight felt wonderful on my skin. Sam and Ryder came out of Sam's office and as I passed by, their words fell to a whisper.

"Morning." I tried to interrupt their conversation.

"Good morning Grace." Sam smiled but returned quickly to the hushed conversation.

"Hey." Ryder nodded. The two of them continued down the sidewalk.

Once they had finished, Ryder nodded then ran to catch up with me.

"What's up?" I stopped and sat down on a concrete half wall.

"I was hoping that we could go up to the observatory tonight." he sat down next to me. His phone went off but he ignored the message.

"Yeah." We still hadn’t gone up to the top of the mountain. We had planned to, but things came up each night, "What were you talking to Sam about?"

"Nothing." He kept his face expressionless.

"Hmm... Ok, I've got your number." I also remained straight faced, "Well how about this? I came up with a code name."

"Really and that would be?" He asked relieved for the change of subject.

"What do you think about..." I paused for effect, "Sear?"

"Sear?" the words came flatly and it irritated me.

"What? I like it."

"It's good, it’s to the point." he hopped down from the wall and pulled his phone from his pocket.

"I'll see you tonight." I jumped down and continued towards the area where there were a few small shops set up.

"Wait." he held out his arm trying to stop me but he didn’t look up from his phone.

"I'll see you tonight Ryder." I held up my hand.

~//~

The hours seemed like they would last forever. I must have checked the time a hundred times, sure that any second Ryder would call canceling on me again.

He didn’t call. He knocked on the door just as the sun was disappearing over the horizon. We walked to the observatory entrance bathed in the glow of street lamps.

"So where do you want to get started?" we rode the elevator up, and got out onto the landing at the top of the mountain.

"We need to clean the mirrors and we also need to reconfigure the computers." I clapped my hands together and looked around the room.

"I'll take the mirrors, I think that will be the safest thing for me to do." He went into a closet and found cleaning solution and a bag of rags. He disappeared into the first dome.

I sat down at the center work station and booted the computer. I set my computer up on