And then he kissed me, and I kissed him back. When I fell asleep again, nestled against him, surrounded by his safe embrace, I didn’t wake up for another fifteen hours.
EPILOGUE
“Cheers.”I held my glass out to Chan, and he clinked it with his. But there, in the bar above the main deck atrium, in the amber light of sunset sim, he wore the same distant expression he’d worn since I’d returned to the ship two weeks ago. “Darling, what’s wrong?” I asked, resting my hand over his.
“I don’t know, Sunny.” He stared down into his drink. “I thought… I let myself think that maybe, this time, it was real. It was really happening. And maybe I wouldn’t be alone anymore.”
“Makenna?” I guessed, and he gave me a nod.
Makenna had disembarked with the senator and her family last week, taking a piece of my heart with them in the shape of a ten-year-old boy. Maybe they’d taken a piece of Chan’s as well.
“I’m sorry, Chan.”
His shoulders rose and fell, his hoverchair humming softly. “I should have known it was all a trick. She seemedwaytoo into me. She didn’t even flinch when I accidentally asked her if her eyelashes were real.”
Deciding it would be best not to comment, I only gave his hand a squeeze.
“I got carried away,” he said, straightening with a sudden and fierce determination. “It won’t happen again.”
Chan cared about Makenna, and he’d thought she’d cared about him too. It was just like the conversations I’d had with Tig since I’d returned to the ship. They both felt betrayed by someone they’d thought they could trust, someone they thought they could love. Maybe every one of us—Chan, Tig, Rax, Morgath, Freddie, me…maybe even Elanie—spent far too much time on this ship, seeing the best and worst of love played out in real time in our every waking moment. When we finally risked the hope that we might have a love of our own, it was devastating when it all fell apart.
“I understand,” I said, but inwardly I promised him,I will make sure it happens again for you, if it’s the last thing I do.
After we shared another silent, pensive glass of Venusian whiskey, Chan turned to me with a solemn expression. “Sunny, would you ever consider telling me what happened to you? Not what happened on Kravax, but before. I know something happened, something awful, something you never talk about. But I’m your friend.” He squeezed my hand now. “I’m here for you. Always. You can talk to me, if you ever need to.”
This caught me so off guard I couldn’t think of what to say, how to say it.
“I’m sorry.” He turned away, his cheeks flushing red with embarrassment. “I shouldn’t have asked. That was rude of me.”
But as the sun set over the treetops, casting long pink and purple shadows across our table, I realized he was right.Chan was my friend. One of my best friends. He loved me. I could tell him about Jonathan.
And so I did.
He didn’t say a word, no stranger to loss, but his hand continued to hold mine as pools of silver lined his eyes. We sat together in silence until the first twinkling of simulated starlight pierced the darkening dome suspended over the atrium.
“Chan?” I said after taking another sip of whiskey. “Will we be okay?”
“I suppose,” he replied. “We carry on, don’t we? What else can we do?”
“What else can we do?” I repeated softly, distantly, feeling the truth of it in my bones. Tilting my glass his way, I said, “If it’s any consolation, even with the eyelash comment, I think your game is improving.”
“You do?” His eyebrows climbed toward his hairline. “I’ve really been working on it. I’ve been reading romance novels.”
Smiling at him, I said, “Absolutely.”
We’d been sobusy over the last few weeks that Freddie and I had barely spent a single moment alone. After the press interviews, the sentencing trials for the FFKs, and the fallout and restructuring of LunaCorp after Proposition 2126 passed the KU Senate by a wide margin, life aboard the ship, I hoped, was returning to normal.
Freddie commed while I walked back from the airlock to the staff pods.
I grinned.
My smile grew while I stepped into the elevator. Sai and I had a standing video chat every week, something I hoped would continue so I could watch him grow—with the ultimate end goal of becoming his campaign manager when he ran for KU President, of course.
