forbidden - chris beck

Chapter 6

"Yes." I nodded with a blushing smile. I placed my hand in his one and felt him gently hold it as he guided me to where the others were.

Once we were amongst the others, he pulled me close by my hand and slid his arm around my waist, his other hand enclosed around mine. I placed my hand in his shoulder, trying not to make it obvious that I was heating up, but I'm sure he could see it on my face.

To distract myself from his close embrace I decided to talk about something.
"It's great that we're all doing this for Lewis. She needed it." I smiled over at her as I watched her giggle in Vogel's arms.

"Yeah, this is the most fun I've had in a while." He looked down at me with a grin. 

I shook my head and let out a small laugh. "If only NASA saw what we were doing right now."

"I think they'd freak out if they realised they spent billions to get us up here, just so we could dance around," he chuckled.

It's not like we did this often. Most of the time we were working, even beyond the assignments. We were a about a month and half through our journey to Mars and this was the first time we did something like this. Usually in our free time we kept ourselves to ourselves.

"So how are you holding up?" He he moved his head down slightly to catch my gaze. "Missing Earth yet?"

"Definitely, I miss my family way more than I thought I would." I nodded.

"So..." He hesitated before continuing. "No special guy waiting for you back home?"

"No." I spoke quietly, not wanting to go into the subject matter of my parents pressuring me to find someone quick. Was it really idiotic of me to want to wait for the right person?

Beck must have noticed my fall in mood because he spun me around with his arm and let a smile grin spread across his lips.

"Maybe that's because you haven't found a guy who can match my mad dance skills." He pulled me closer to him so that our bodies were millimetres apart.

I let out a small laugh, attempting to hide my blushing cheeks. "Your dance moves are quite something."

"Ok, dancing aside, I'm a space doctor. You won't find one of those down there." He gave a smug smile.

I shook my head, "My parents would absolutely love it if I brought a guy like you home."

"Then why don't you?"  I tried to look for a hint of him joking, but he wasn't.

"Because it's absurd," I looked up at him trying to figure out if he was lying or not. "You're my friend."

"Ouch, did I just get friend-zoned?" He let out a small chuckle, but I noticed that he looked genuinely upset. I hope he didn't think anything else of us. Beck had been a great friend and I didn't want to ruin that.

"No... Um... I mea-"

"I'm kidding Ava." he chuckled as he saw me struggling to find the right words. "Besides," he twirled me around once more in his arms. "We are going to spend the next few hundred days together. Who knows what'll happen."

I smiled nervously, but questioned to myself whether he was being serious or not. He couldn't possibly have meant... I mean he doesn't want... He did realise that even if there was the remote possibility that I would... That kind of thing wasn't allowed. Period.

~

The night turned out to be a success. Lewis thanked us all for cheering her up and I think it worked pretty well. Unfortunately, she stuck to her rules and told us to get to bed when the song was finished.

I tried not to think about the things that Beck said but they were all that occupied my mind that night. I just hoped that nothing would happen to ruin our friendship and I really hoped he didn't think we were more than that.

I figured it was probably best for us to just stay out of each other's way for now. The less distractions the better.
~

The morning after was my first space walk. I had to go out and fix a panel on the edge of the outer shell which was lifted with the pressure. It wouldn't really cause any harm to us, but if it got worse it could damage the entire outer canvas beyond repair.

Once locking in my visor, me and Watney waited in the airlock and stepped out into the sparkling sky.

Since he has the upper body strength that I so terribly lacked, he would be making the repair whilst I handed him the required tools and helped him to hold things in place.

When we were out there things were going smoothly. We had a pretty good system going and we were getting the job done surprisingly quickly. Watney couldn't resist some cheesy space jokes and I laughed just to make him feel good as well as the fact that some of them genuinely made me laugh.

After around two hours of repair work, it was time to head back. Getting to and from the airlock during an EVA was one of the hardest things to do. Watney let me go first but as I leaped to grab a hold of the door I hit my head against the airlock. It hurt, but I jut shook it off.

Once we were in the airlock Watney turned to look at me. "Well that was fu-" he stopped asking and moved closer to me. "How did that happen? Are you okay?" He said with concern. I want sure why he was talking about until the airlock opened and I took my helmet off. That's when I felt the moist blood on my head trickling down the side of my face.

"Ouch, yeah I'm okay." I said as I pressed against the wound, realising it must have happened when I hit my head.

The commander walked over to us and saw my face. "What happened Collins? Are you okay?"

"Yeah." I shook my head. "I just bumped my head, it's nothing." I waved off the matter. I just had to wash off the blood and it'd be fine.

"It doesn't look like nothing." Lewis wasn't going to let this one go. Honestly the space walk had tired me out and I just wanted to relax for a little while, but it looked like she had other plans.

Lewis pressed her ear piece and spoke into it. "Beck, get your medical supplies out and tend to Collins."

"Honestly, I'm fine Commander." I quickly replied.

"Take your suit off and head down to Beck. That's an order Collins." She spoke sternly before walking off to her station.

Great. Just great.