Owen is in his room pacing. He's never had a girlfriend before. "What do I do? I've never done this before? What if she doesn't like my interest? What if she's a girl that likes expensive stuff? What if she..." As Owen is in panic mode, his older brother and sister, Thomas and Amanda walk in.
"Yo, you good? You've been in here for the past 20 minutes just talking to yourself. Plus mom called you five times to come eat dinner. And usually you're the first one downstairs." Thomas said, slightly annoyed.
Owen stopped mid-stride, nearly tripping over a stack of Astronomy Today magazines. He looked at Thomas and Amanda, his eyes wide and slightly manic.
"She said yes," Owen blurted out.
Amanda leaned against the doorframe, crossing her arms with a skeptical raised eyebrow. "Who said yes? To what? Did the NASA internship finally email you back?"
"No," Owen said, his voice dropping to a frantic whisper. "Amy. Amy Vickers. She asked me to be her boyfriend. Behind the equipment shed. Today."
The room went dead silent. Thomas, who had been tossing a stress ball, caught it mid-air and stared at his younger brother like he'd suddenly grown a second head.
"Amy Vickers?" Thomas repeated, his annoyance replaced by genuine confusion. "The girl who has more Instagram followers than this town has residents? That Amy Vickers?"
"The very one," Owen said, starting to pace again. "And that's the problem! Thomas, look at this room! It's 90% telescope parts and 10% laundry. I'm a guy who can explain the lifecycle of a Red Giant but I don't know the first thing about... I don't know, whatever it is people like her talk about! What if she expects, like, five-star dinners? I have twelve dollars and a gift card to a comic book shop."
Amanda walked over and put a hand on his shoulder, though her expression was more worried than comforting. "Owen, honey... are you sure this isn't a prank? I mean, Amy is... well, she's a lot. Her world is very different from yours."
Owen flinched. The "prank" comment hit the exact bruise he'd been nursing since he left the school parking lot. "I thought that too. But she looked... I don't know, different. She wasn't 'on' like she usually is. She seemed nervous. She said she liked that I wasn't like everyone else."
Thomas let out a low whistle. "Well, if it's real, you're playing in the major leagues now, little bro. But maybe lead with the 'cool bass player' thing and keep the 'I can name all eighty-plus moons of Saturn' thing under wraps for, like... a month?"
"Too late," Owen groaned, face-planting onto his bed. "The stars are the only thing I'm actually good at talking about." He flopped on his bed.
Owen didn't just face-plant; he let out a muffled groan into his pillow that sounded like a dying star. His room, which usually felt like a sanctuary of celestial peace, now felt like a pressurized cabin. Posters of the Pillars of Creation and a glow-in-the-dark map of the Northern Hemisphere seemed to be mocking him.
"I'm dead. I'm a dead man," Owen's voice came out strangled from the duvet. "I'm going to go to lunch tomorrow, sit at the 'Cool Table,' and within five minutes they're going to realize I'm just a guy who knows too much about the chemical composition of Jupiter's atmosphere."
Thomas stepped further into the room, kicking aside a stray sneaker. He picked up a signed bass pick from Owen's nightstand, flipping it between his knuckles. "Look, man, Amy Vickers doesn't date 'normal' guys. She dates guys like Tyler Vance—guys who own jet skis and think 'reading' is something you only do to a GPS. If she's into you, maybe she's looking for... depth? Or whatever it is you have."
"Depth?" Owen flipped over, his hair standing up at wild angles. "Thomas, she's the sun. People don't look at the sun for depth; they just get blinded by it. And I'm just... Pluto. I'm small, I'm cold, and most people aren't even sure I'm supposed to be in the group."
Amanda sighed, her protective instincts warring with her common sense. She walked over to his bookshelf, running a finger over a row of well-worn physics textbooks. "That's the thing, Owen. Why now? She's been the 'it' girl since freshman year. You've been the guy in the back of the room with a telescope since, like, birth. Did something happen? Did you save her from a falling meteor and forget to tell us?"
"She said she's been watching me," Owen said, his voice gaining a tiny bit of defensive strength. "She said she liked that I don't try to be like everyone else. Is it so hard to believe that maybe she's tired of the Tyler Vances of the world? Maybe she wants someone who actually has a soul?"
Thomas and Amanda shared a look. It was a look Owen knew well—the "we love him, but he's delusional" look.
"OWEN! DINNER! NOW!" Their mom's voice boomed again, followed by the unmistakable sound of a wooden spoon hitting a pot. "AND BRING YOUR SIBLINGS WITH YOU!"
"Go," Amanda urged, pulling Owen up by his arm. "And for the love of the galaxy, wipe that 'I just saw a UFO' look off your face before Mom starts asking questions. She'll have the wedding planned by dessert if she thinks you have a girlfriend."
They tumbled out of the room and headed downstairs. The smell of spaghetti carbonara filled the hallway, but Owen's stomach felt like it was full of dark matter—heavy and impossible to digest.
As they reached the dining table, their mom was already dishing out plates. She took one look at Owen's pale, sweaty face and narrowed her eyes. "Owen? You look like you're about to faint. Did you spend too much time looking through that telescope lens again? I told you, it strains the eyes."
"I'm fine, Mom," Owen mumbled, sliding into his chair.
"He's more than fine," Thomas piped up, reaching for the garlic bread with a smirk. "Our little astronaut just got recruited for a high-altitude mission. By a very pretty flight commander."
Owen kicked Thomas under the table. Hard.
"A girl?" His mom's eyebrows shot up so high they practically merged with her hairline. She set the salad bowl down with a loud thud. "An actual girl? Who is she? Do I know her mother? Is she from the neighborhood? Does she like pasta?"
"Mom, please," Owen pleaded, staring intently at his plate. "It's not a big deal. It's just... Amy. From school."
"Amy Vickers," Amanda clarified, watching Owen's reaction. "The girl whose father owns the local dealership chain. The one who was on the cover of the regional magazine last month for 'Teen Leaders of Tomorrow'."
His mom froze, a meatball suspended halfway to her plate. "The girl with the hair? The very shiny hair?"
"That's the one," Thomas muttered through a mouthful of bread.
"Well," his mom breathed, a look of pure, unadulterated pride washing over her. "I always knew my Owen was special. You have that quiet, mysterious energy. Like a young Keanu Reeves, but with more facts about Black Holes."
"See?" Owen looked at his siblings, a small, desperate spark of hope returning to his eyes. "Mom thinks it makes sense."
"Mom thinks you're a movie star," Amanda retorted gently. "But Owen... just be careful, okay? People like Amy... they play a different game than we do. Just make sure she actually likes you, and not just the idea of 'dating the quiet guy' for a week."
Owen nodded, but he wasn't really listening anymore. He was thinking about the way the light had hit her blonde hair behind the equipment shed. To him, the universe was built on laws—gravity, thermodynamics, light speed. And right now, the most powerful law in his world was the fact that Amy Vickers had smiled at him.
He picked up his fork, his heart still doing that frantic, cosmic rhythm. He had 90 days, though he didn't know it yet. To him, 90 days was just a fraction of an orbital cycle. To Amy, it was a countdown to a trophy.