World Turned Upside Down Read online

  Table of Contents

  Blurb

  Author’s Note

  May

  June

  Midwinter

  July

  August

  Winfly

  Mainbody

  Glossary of Antarctic Slang

  About the Author

  By Elyse Springer

  Visit Dreamspinner Press

  Copyright

  World Turned Upside Down

  By Elyse Springer

  After three winters in Antarctica, Simon Bancroft is an old hand on the ice. The harsh weather and extreme isolation aren’t for everyone, but he enjoys the tight-knit community at McMurdo Station… and lately he’s enjoyed watching the hot new researcher, Asher Delaney, who’s recently arrived to study the aurora. But Simon’s just a janitor. Asher doesn’t even know he exists.

  When Simon’s friends propose a wager, he gets a chance to introduce himself to Asher at last. But Asher defies all of Simon’s assumptions, and suddenly he finds himself reevaluating everything he thought he knew about Asher, himself, and falling in love at the bottom of the world.

  World of Love: Stories of romance that span every corner of the globe.

  Author’s Note

  I LIVED and worked in Antarctica on and off for three years, and it was by far one of the most incredible and difficult things I have ever done in my life. My first season on the Ice was a summer at the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station, but I followed that immediately with a winter at McMurdo Station. Much like Simon and Asher, I fell in love with the landscape, the community, and, yes, the stunning auroras. Everything I’ve written about in World Turned Upside Down is based on my own experiences, my own love for Antarctica and the people who live there.

  But I do need to include a small disclaimer: It’s been almost six years since I was last in Antarctica, and things have changed. For example, winterovers in McMurdo now receive flights with supplies throughout the season—making apples and other fruit much less precious. I’m sure there are other things that are different as well, so I apologize if any current Ice folks read this and spot inaccuracies!

  It takes a village to survive a winter in Antarctica, and it takes a village to write a book about winter in Antarctica. Thank you to Booni Doc and Pablo for always being there to reminisce about our time on the Ice, and to Cheeseburger and E. for being the best janitors-slash-dishwashers on the entire continent. Thanks to Anna and Annie for always being available in DMs to chat, to encourage, and to listen. And thank you to my dad, who still brags about his daughter who lived at the South Pole, and to my mom, who cried the day I first left for Antarctica but has always supported me in everything I wanted to do.

  If you’d like to learn more about Antarctica, you can check my website for more information, or reach out and say ‘hi’ on social media!

  May

  THERE WAS a running joke in Antarctica about sex—

  First he took off her jacket. Then he took off her sweater. And then he seductively slid her coveralls off her shoulders and down her legs. And then he stripped off her thermal shirt, and her jeans. And then she lay before him on the bed, wearing nothing but her base layers, wool socks, and hat.

  Simon huffed out a laugh, thinking about it, and propped his elbow on the table so he could rest his chin in the palm of his hand.

  “You’re staring again,” Miranda said. “And you’re drooling into your spaghetti.”

  “I just….” Simon gazed across the dining room toward a boisterous, overcrowded table in the corner. “I just want to take his jacket off, if you know what I mean.”

  Miranda threw a roll at him. “You’ve got it bad, Si.”

  “Yeah, I know.” He sighed longingly. The group at table he’d been observing stood up all at once, everyone collecting their trays. Simon held his breath as they walked by—as he walked by.

  Asher Delaney was the epitome of rugged. At six foot six, he was one of the tallest men on the base. He was so muscular that rumor said the US Antarctic Program had needed to special-order him one of the big red jackets that everyone on station wore, before he deployed down to McMurdo Station—the largest of the three United States bases on the continent—for the winter season. He had dirty-blond hair that darkened along his jaw when he went a few days without shaving, and green eyes that lit up whenever he was talking to one of his friends.

  He looked like a lumberjack or a linebacker, not a scientist. And he looked like he could absolutely wreck Simon in the best way imaginable.

  “You need a boyfriend. Bad.”

  Simon rolled his eyes. “Not interested,” he sang. “But I wouldn’t say no to a good, hard fuck.”

  Miranda rolled her eyes back at him. “You should talk to him.” When Simon leveled an incredulous look at her, Miranda held her hands up defensively. “Look, we’re stuck here for four more months. We’re in the middle of nowhere, and it’s pitch black outside even if you wanted to go do something in the vast, frozen wilderness. I’m just saying, you should see if he’s interested.”

  Simon grabbed the projectile bread missile from where it had landed on the table and began to tear it apart. “Sure, until he rejects me. And then it’s four months of awkwardness and misery.”

  Miranda shrugged. “Or he doesn’t reject you, and it’s four months of crazy hot sex while putting to use some of the twenty-thousand condoms lying around station.”

  And wasn’t that a nice mental image? Normally McMurdo Station housed about 1,200 residents during the summer, a combination of researchers and support staff. But winter in Antarctica brought a much smaller winterover crew. The reduced staff meant that everyone had their own dorm room, and there were a lot of interesting ways he could pass the time if he had someone like Asher to pass it with. Plus, the US Antarctic Program didn’t joke around when it came to condoms; there were enough for Asher to pound Simon’s brains out every night for the rest of the winter, and twice on Sundays.

  Damn, Asher probably fucked like an animal too. All that muscle….

  Of course, then reality had to crash back down. “He doesn’t know that I exist. And even if he’s queer—which he probably isn’t!—he could do way better than me.”

  It was like a jock-and-geek high school story: Asher, the handsome scientist who spent his days studying the aurora and being brilliant… and Simon, who washed dishes and kept the buildings on station clean.

  “Simon.” Miranda pulled him out of his thoughts, leaning forward to yank the mangled roll out of his hands. “He’s never going to know you exist if you don’t talk to him. And if you repeat this, I’ll deny it to my dying breath, but… you’re hot.”

  Simon made a face at her. They’d had this argument half a dozen times already in the month that they’d been at McMurdo.

  And logically he knew she was right. But the chance of rejection was too high. Asher was big, strong, and sexy. He looked like he could roll off the set of an action movie and then calculate some rocket science in his spare time. Simon… was Simon. He’d probably just embarrass himself. And Miranda had no idea how hard it could be to avoid someone on base if things didn’t work out.

  It was Miranda’s first winterover, but Simon’s third. He felt like an old hand at this point, and he understood the social and political landscape of a winterover in Antarctica and how it differed from life back in the States.

  The two had quickly gotten close. They’d been on the same flight down from New Zealand, and Simon had offered to help out when Miranda got lost among the identical brown buildings trying to find her assigned dorm. But after four weeks, Simon had to admit that she felt more like a sister than a friend.

  People bonded fast on the Ice. There wasn’t exactly a whole
lot else to do in the middle of nowhere.

  “Just talk to him,” Miranda implored. “Once. I beg you.”

  Simon sighed and poked at his spaghetti. “I’ll think about it.”

  SIMON DID think about it. He thought about approaching Asher after breakfast two days later, when the other man was finishing his coffee alone at a table while reading something on his tablet. He daydreamed about finding Asher all alone in the Coffee House one evening. He imagined smiling flirtatiously at Asher as their paths crossed on a lazy Sunday, and then inviting him back to Simon’s room.

  But every time he took a step toward Asher’s preferred table or thought about saying “hello” in one of the common lounge spaces, Simon found himself hesitating.

  What if.

  McMurdo in the summer was bustling and crowded, but in winter the station was essentially a small town. There were just under one hundred and fifty residents: a combination of tradesmen, scientists, and hospitality personnel employed by the US Antarctic Program to keep everything running and in good working condition until the summer season arrived and a thousand new people flooded the station to support dozens of research projects. The sun had set in April, and it wouldn’t rise again until August. It was cold, dark, and isolated, but for Simon and the rest of the people living there, it was home.

  But with such a small population, everyone knew everyone. There was no escaping any of the drama that sprung up periodically. Feuds between rival coworkers, one-night stands that got complicated… it was like living with over a hundred nosy grandmothers.

  Alone in the privacy of his dorm room, it was easy enough to think about talking to Asher… and to picture all of the ways it could go wrong and make his life on base miserable for the rest of the season.

  “Hell, he’s probably straight,” he told himself. Not that he’d ever seen Asher talk to any of the women on station other than his fellow scientists. “At best, he’s not interested. At worst, he laughs in my face and the entire station knows about my failure within the hour. So it’s safest if I just don’t say anything at all.”

  Of course, that resolution didn’t stop him from fantasizing. Asher was huge, and Simon had always been weak for someone who could push him around. He’d once witnessed Asher lift a fifty-pound box of equipment like it was made of air and set it on a shelf above his head. The sight of all that muscle flexing beneath his long-sleeve shirt had made Simon’s mouth go dry.

  Asher would be a beast in bed, he figured: powerful and energetic, using that strength to arrange Simon exactly the way he wanted him. He’d push Simon down on the bed and tower over him, fuck him hard enough that the cheap wooden frame would creak and everyone in the surrounding rooms would know exactly what they were doing.

  “Are you really going to go six months without having sex?” Miranda asked him a few days later.

  “Are you?” Simon shot back.

  Miranda blushed bright red. “Not that it’s any of your business, but no.”

  Ugh.

  Still, he managed to avoid talking to or interacting with Asher for another two weeks. More importantly, he managed to duck the conversation any time Miranda brought it up. She still sighed at him when he got caught watching Asher, but eventually she dropped the topic.

  Six weeks into the winter season, though, fantasy and reality came crashing together for the first time.

  Simon was working the lunch shift, refilling a tray of chicken strips, when he heard someone walk up behind him and clear their throat. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Asher standing there with a plate in hand.

  “Excuse me,” Asher said, voice low and smooth.

  He was dressed casually, jeans and a dark-green Henley that made his eyes brighter and clung to every perfectly sculpted muscle in his arms and chest. Simon wanted to push the shirt up and lick his abs.

  Instead, he squeaked and turned around all the way. “Uh, hi?”

  Asher smiled, flashing teeth as white as the Antarctic ice sheet. “Hi.”

  “You’re Asher, right?” Simon asked. He mentally winced and berated himself. Stupid, you couldn’t come up with a better line than that?

  Asher nodded hesitantly. “Um, have we met?”

  Simon bit his lip. “No. I’ve just seen you around, you know?”

  They stood for a moment, staring, silence hanging between them. This is it, Simon thought. He’s finally noticed me.

  Then Asher cleared his throat again. “Okay. Can I, uh, get by to the french fries?”

  Oh. Disappointment balled up in his chest as the fantasy evaporated. Simon dredged up a weak smile of his own. “Sure. Of course. Sorry.” He grabbed the empty chicken tender tray and retreated as quickly as he could back to the dish pit.

  The kitchen was the domain of the chefs and bakers, and the dining hall itself was where everyone on station gathered at meal times to eat. But the dish pit was his area, his little sanctuary. Simon tried to focus on his tasks, rinsing plates and loading them into the dishwasher, scrubbing down pans and baking sheets.

  Hot tears pricked his eyes, blurring his vision.

  Of course. Of fucking course. He doesn’t know who I am. I’m just the guy who cleans and restocks the food lines during breakfast and lunch. Simon rubbed the back of his hand over his eyes angrily. I don’t know why I’m even getting upset about this. It’s just a stupid crush. Not even a crush—just a fantasy. There are plenty of other guys on station that I could daydream about.

  He fled back to his room as soon as his shift was over. Miranda had a not-date with whatever fuckbuddy she’d found, and Simon wasn’t feeling up to seeing if any of his other friends wanted to hang out. Instead, he flopped back on his bed and stared up at the ceiling.

  “You have to stop this,” he told himself firmly.

  It was easier said than done, but he created a mental box and stuffed away every fantasy he’d had of Asher. Then he shoved the box away into the corner of his mind and resolved not to think about it. Winter in McMurdo could be brutal and so, so lonely. Simon didn’t need any more embarrassment or rejection to make the season even harder to endure.

  He needed to move on from lusting after someone he was never going to get.

  SIMON TOOK one more look at himself in the mirror, then dabbed a tiny bit of gel on his hair and pushed his bangs to the side.

  “Perfect,” he told his reflection.

  McMurdo Station ran on a six-day, fifty-four-hour work week, which meant Saturday nights were the only chance to go out and have a few drinks. “Go out” was limited, of course; there was a single bar—Gallagher’s—and the Coffee House, which doubled as a movie room with plush couches. Simon and Miranda usually hung out at the coffee hut with some of their other friends, but tonight they were changing things up. And that meant Simon got to pull out his one going-out-on-the-town outfit: tight jeans that clung to his thighs, a leather cord around his neck, and a black T-shirt that dipped down below his collarbones.

  He gave a little shimmy in front of the mirror, turning to the side to study the way his clothes clung to his flat stomach and round ass. This was the outfit he’d worn back in the Real World when he wanted to pick up at a club; maybe it was overkill for a night out in Antarctica, but at least Simon knew that he looked good.

  Once he was satisfied with his appearance, Simon grabbed his jacket, zipped it up tight, and made his way down the hallway from his dorm room. He hovered at the door leading outside, enjoying one last moment of warmth. Then, with a deep breath, he opened the door and darted outside.

  Holy shit it’s cold. Negative twenty wasn’t really that bad by Antarctica standards, but wearing just jeans and a T-shirt beneath his jacket meant he could feel every bitter cold sub-zero degree. His breath pooled in front of him as he darted between buildings, careful where ice had formed, and rushed to the old wooden shack that housed the bar.

  “Hey, you made it!” Miranda’s voice carried across the room as soon as Simon closed the door behind him. He hung his coat up on the rack beside a
dozen other identical red jackets and picked his way around the tables to the one Miranda had claimed.

  “Sorry I’m late.” Simon stomped his feet, rubbing his bare arms to warm himself back up.

  Miranda gave him an exaggerated head-to-toe look and laughed. “It’s pretty obvious why. Damn, boy, lookin’ good tonight.”

  Erica, who worked with Miranda in the admin office, nodded in agreement. “You trying to impress someone tonight, Bancroft?”

  Simon pointedly avoided looking at Miranda, but he could feel her staring at him. “Nope, not at all. Just wanted a chance to get dressed up and go out tonight.”

  “Well, you look super hot.” Erica motioned for him to sit. “We ordered you a beer since they were running low on Corona and we know that’s your favorite.”

  He took the bottle gratefully. “Running low? Already? It’s not even June yet.”

  Miranda rolled her eyes. “There was an issue with the ordering. They got twice as much Budweiser, but only a few cases of everything else.”

  “Great.” Simon made a face. “I’ll run to the store tomorrow and grab a few six-packs to hold on to, just in case. Thanks for the heads-up.” The biggest downside to being in Antarctica was the lack of inventory. The base had a small corner store that sold basic essentials, snacks, and beer, but they were at the mercy of whatever was ordered during the summer season when planes and cargo ships could bring it in from the US or New Zealand.

  Erica clinked her bottle against his. “Anytime.”

  Conversation flowed easily after that, especially once they were joined by the rest of their group. They cycled through the usual conversations—the weather, their jobs, the issues with people back in the States who had no idea what being in Antarctica actually entailed.

  Simon was just finishing his second beer and had started to relax when the door to the bar opened again, and stayed open long enough to send a wave of bitter cold air across his back. He shivered and twisted around to see a large group entering.