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“You did it?” Gwen asks, poking her head in my office.
“We did!” I jump up and rush over to her. “He’s going to detect extraterrestrials for us! If they’re within range, he’ll find them.”
“I’m so proud of you!” Gwen says, holding out her arms.
We give each other a big hug, squealing about what is the most thrilling moment of my life. Well, career. The whole Hudson boyfriend thing is pretty fucking thrilling.
After a quick second, Gwen recoils. “Oh wow, I take it you’ve been at this for a while?”
Pulling back, I give my left armpit a sniff. “Whoa, bad. I got here Saturday morning and have been at it non-stop. What are you doing here?”
She blinks once. “It’s Monday morning and I work here.”
“Oh God, seriously? I should go home and shower before Hudson sees me like this,” I say.
“You mean your new boyfriend?” she asks with a waggle of her eyebrows.
I make a ‘keep it down’ gesture with my hands. “I don’t want him to think I’m blabbing to the whole world about that.”
Pursing her lips, she says, “I’m not the whole world.”
“Good point. Okay, I should go,” I say, rushing over to my desk, searching through the empty freeze-dried ice cream wrappers for my cell and my keys.
“Oh my God, you ate the ice cream.”
“I was desperate.” I find my cell and hold it up. “Ah-hah! There you are. God, I’ve missed forty-two messages, and I’m guessing at least thirty are from my relatives about missing supper last night.” I find my keys, then realize I can’t leave yet. “Oh wait. I need to send a quick email to Virgil, Chad, and Keenan to see if they’ll do the verification for me. Then, I should go home and eat some real food and get some sleep.”
Gwen grins at me. “I can’t believe you did it, Al. You really freaking did it! You’re going to be famous.”
“Well, SETI-famous,” I say with a little shrug. Then, unable to contain my excitement any longer, I let out a squeal. “Which is really the only kind I care about.”
I force myself to sit down, and quickly write an email, then attach the report and send it to my makeshift verification team. Just as I hit send, Hudson walks into my office. As soon as I see his face, I realize I have nothing to feel self-conscious about.
His eyes are shining and I know he’s as invested in this as I am. “Well?”
I nod. “We did it.”
He lets out a loud whoop, then hurries over to me. “I knew you could do it!”
When he’s close enough, I tell him, “You may not want to hug me. I’ve been at my desk since I left your place.”
“Are you kidding? This is the biggest moment of your life. Of course I’m going to hug you!” He pulls me out of my chair and wraps his arms around me.
It’s a truncated hug, and when we pull back, I can see he’s trying not to look like his sense of smell has been severely assaulted. “Well done, Allie! I’m so proud of you.” Turning to Gwen, he says, “She’s amazing. Isn’t she amazing??”
“She’s completely amazing,” Gwen answers. “One thing about this woman is that when she sets her mind to something, she’s going to do it. Even if she has to exist on freeze-dried ice cream all weekend.”
His face falls. “Oh, dammit, I knew I should’ve come in to feed you.”
Shaking my head, I say, “No. Honestly, this happened the way it had to. I needed to be completely alone and focused the entire time. You would’ve been a distraction.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“That’s how I meant it,” I say, pulling off my glasses and rubbing my weary eyes. “Oh God, I have never been this tired in my life. I think I could sleep for a week.”
“I’ll give you a lift home,” he says.
“No, that’s okay. I have my car here.”
