The Law of Attraction [Chris Beck]

Chapter 7

Nine Years Ago

A flustered Alice Blake shoved through the hoards of students busying themselves; she had a class to get to and if she arrived even one minute late the doors would be closed. She would lose grade percentage for being absent. It was not something she could afford to do and so she elbowed her way through the students who were lounging in the halls. She wasn't the only one with that intention either. When she made it to class, she scoured the room for an empty seat. Already the professor was glancing at the clock, standing up and getting ready to close and lock the doors. He did not accept tardiness and everyone had to be in the seats and ready by the time the class began. She saw a seat next to a man, probably two years older than her, and slipped in just as the doors slammed shut.

The brown haired man glanced at her, she could feel his curious eyes on her. The semester was almost at an end, only two weeks until the semester was over and the exams would commence. He had never had her sit next to him before that day, but no one had assigned seats in university, so he didn't question it. He leaned back casually in his chair, fiddling with the pen in his hand. Alice glanced over and saw that his notes were completely illegible; that was when she knew that he was to be a doctor. They didn't say a word to each other until class was over and the prof had finished his lesson. It was her last class of the day and it was Friday night. That certainly didn't mean she had time to kill, being so close to exam time, but she was so close to being able to relax.

"Going to pub night?" The man asked her.

Alice glanced at him while she packed everything into her bag. She shook her head. "Definitely not."

"If you change your mind, I'd be happy to have you on my Beer Pong team."

She laughed. "It is tempting."

"I'm Chris."

"Alice."

Now

Alice Blake did not want to admit how flustered she was as she left the medical ward. To make matters worse, Alice had interviewed Lewis first; she hoped that her state of mind had not shown through. Lewis was a very observational person; she had to be as her job relied on it. It was up to her to be able to oversee everything that was going on with the mission and the crew so that she could make judgement calls when she had to. However, over the last few years of her life working for NASA, Alice had personal troubles that she was able to filter out when she went in to work, because it was expected of her. It was no different up here because she was in space, in fact, it was more important that she focus on clearing her head and getting through every day without letting Beck get under her skin. She felt as though she were her twenty-one year old self again, flustered and infatuated by the young Chris Beck.