"Yeah?"
"Thank you. For not accepting my deflections. For pushing until I admitted the truth."
"Any time." I grinned at him. "That's what I'm here for, pushing you past your comfort zone into better solutions. Whether that's adding courtyards to your sterile hab designs or getting you to admit you have feelings."
"My hab designs aren't sterile."
"They were before I got involved."
"They were efficient."
"They were depressing. Now they're efficientandbeautiful. You're welcome."
I literally heard the smile in his voice as I left. "See you at 0600 tomorrow, Architect Chauncy."
"Looking forward to it, Operations Director Zor'go."
The door slid shut behind me, and I leaned against the corridor wall for a moment, my heart still racing. My lips were tingling. My hands were shaking. Every cell in my body was singing with adrenaline and triumph and something that felt dangerously like joy.
I'd done it. I'd confronted him, refused to accept his excuses, pushed until he admitted what we'd both been dancing around for weeks.
And he'd kissed me back.
The corridor was empty, but I pressed my hand to my mouth anyway, trying to contain the ridiculous smile threatening to split my face. This was insane. He was eight and a half feet tall and I barely cleared his chest. He thought in mathematical formulas and I sketched in charcoal. He was a visionary city planner from a prestigious Zandovian family and I was a displaced human architect who'd crash-landed on a burning planet six months ago.
And none of that mattered because when we worked together, when we created together, when weweretogether we just fit.
I pushed off the wall and headed toward the human quarters, already composing how I'd tell Bea and Elena. They'd probably seen this coming long before I did. Dana certainly had, based on the knowing looks she'd been giving me for weeks.
The thought of Dana made me smile wider. She'd found her place here, found her person in Er'dox. Build a life instead of just surviving. And now, maybe, I was doing the same thing.
Not the future I'd planned when I joined Liberty all those months ago. Not the architectural career designing colony settlements I'd imagined. But something real and terrifying and precious with a partnership that challenged me, someone who saw my vision and helped make it functional, a man who was learning to let himself want something beyond duty and efficiency.
The corridor lights flickered as I passed, some kind of routine maintenance cycle. The steady hum of Mothership's systems thrummed beneath my feet, the sound of home now, after six months. Not Earth. Not Liberty. But home nonetheless.
I turned the corner toward the human quarters and found Elena in the corridor, datapad in hand, obviously coming back from one of her endless electrical systems checks. Her wild curlyhair was more chaotic than usual, and she had a smudge of something dark on her cheek.
She took one look at my face and grinned. "You did it. You finally told him."
"How did you?—"
"Jalina, you look like you just solved the universe's most complicated design problem while also winning the lottery. There's only one thing that would make you look like that." She tucked her datapad under her arm. "So? What did he say?"
"He said he feels too much. That I distract him. That he doesn't know how to do this." I couldn't stop smiling. "And then he kissed me."
Elena let out a whoop that probably echoed through three decks. "Finally! Bea owes me credits. I bet you'd make the first move before the end of the week."
"You bet on us?"
"Everyone bet on you. Dana said you'd wait until after the project deadline. Bea thought Zor'go would crack first. I knew you'd get impatient and force the issue." She studied my face, her expression softening. "You look happy, Jalina. Really happy."
"I am. I'm also terrified and uncertain and completely unsure how this is going to work, but—" I shrugged helplessly. "I am happy."
"Good. You deserve to be." Elena started walking, and I fell into step beside her. "So what now? Besides solving thermal pocket problems and arguing about aesthetic considerations?"
"I have no idea. We didn't really get past the kissing and mutual admission of feelings part."
"Smart. Details are overrated." She paused outside the quarters we shared. "For what it's worth? I think you're good for him. I've seen him on the bridge during operations meetings. He's brilliant but kind of... rigid, you know? Like everythinghas to fit into precise calculations. But when he talks about the expansion project, about the work you're doing together, there's this light in his eyes that wasn't there before. You make him see differently."
