They ate in silence. The pasta was as good as it smelled, simple but perfectly executed.
Tula took another bite, then another, letting the flavors distract her from the conversation she knew she needed to have with Tony.
But she couldn't avoid it forever.
"About our living arrangements," she said finally, setting her fork down.
Tony tensed immediately, his shoulders going rigid. "Yeah?"
"What I said on the plane still stands." Tula tried to keep her voice gentle but firm. "I just didn't want to make a scene in front of everyone. It wouldn't have been fair to you."
Tony was quiet for a long moment, staring at his pasta. "So, what do we do now? Everyone thinks we're together."
"We don't need to rush anything," Tula said. "We can just sleep in separate rooms. When things quiet down and we are yesterday's news, I'll move out. Maybe to Raviki and Rolenna's house. They have that extra bedroom."
"That's ridiculous." He turned to face her. "We've been lovers for a very long time. Why separate bedrooms? We didn't get into a fight, and neither of us has cheated. Why punish ourselves?"
There was logic in what he was saying, but if they kept sleeping together, they would just stay together, and she'd already made up her mind that it wasn't a good idea.
"We need to draw the line somewhere. Think of it as getting slowly accustomed to not being lovers. We will just be roommates who happen to be having a baby together." Tula placed her hand over his. "We can make this work, Tony. We can be good parents without being a couple."
Tony's jaw worked, and she could see him struggling with emotions he knew she wouldn't want him to express.
"Is it about Esag?" he asked.
Tula jerked her hand back as if burned. "What?"
"Esag." Tony looked up, meeting her eyes. "Are you leaving me because of him?"
"There's nothing between me and Esag," Tula said. "And there never will be. I hate him for what he did to my sister."
But even as the words left her mouth, she knew they were lies. There was no heat in her voice, no real conviction behind the claim.
She was lying to Tony. Lying to herself.
"I'm not blind, Tula. I see how you look at him, and how he looks at you. Like..." He trailed off, shaking his head. "Like you are the only person in the world who matters."
"That's not—" Tula started, then stopped. What could she say? That Tony was imagining things? That the connection she felt with Esag did not exist?
She wanted to deny it. Wanted to insist that her hatred for Esag, for what he'd done to Wonder, for the pain he'd caused her sister, was stronger than whatever complicated feelings had emerged from their psychic connection.
But she couldn't.
"I don't want anything to do with him," she said instead. "He broke my sister's heart. He's everything I've always hated—selfish, cowardly, and clueless. He was never willing to face a challenge head-on, and by trying to please everyone, he hurt the people he claimed to care about."
"But?" Tony prompted.
"But nothing. We're connected somehow, and I don't understand it."
He pushed his plate away. "I fell in love with Kaia when she was much too young for a guy my age to even notice her," he said. "She was a prodigy, a kid outsmarting all the adults in the department. I pretended that we were just friends, but I think she always knew and pretended not to notice because she wasn't interested."
"Why are you telling me that?"
"Because Kaia was a Dormant. And then I was lured to the island and placed in a harem with immortal ladies with the explicit purpose of getting one or more pregnant."
"So?" She wasn't following his logic.
"So, there is a connection here. The universe is trying to tell me something."
