I shoot him a look that could melt steel. He shuts up.
Lucy tries again. “Very… responsible.”
The entire crew groans.
“Boring!” someone shouts.
“Say heroic!” another calls.
“Say sexy!” Ramirez yells.
Lucy turns bright red again. “No!”
“Then say nothing,” I snap, giving the crew a look that promises future pain.
They scatter. Not fast enough.
Lucy straightens slowly, smoothing her hat like she’s trying to gather herself. She looks like a woman walking a tightrope between mortified and furious.
Her gaze finds mine again. And the room falls away.
“What,” she whispers, “was that?”
“A kid being a kid.”
“A kid who apparently thinks we’re?—”
“She’s six.”
“Ash.”
She says my name the way a woman curses fate.
I walk toward her without thinking. Without hesitation. Without stopping to consider how it looks to everyone in the bay who is now pretending to measure hose length while absolutely listening to every word.
When I reach her, I stop just close enough that the air shifts.
“You okay?” I ask quietly.
Her eyes spark. “Am I okay? Your entire station just heard your niece proclaim our hypothetical marriage!”
“They hear worse,” I say, deadpan.
“That’s not comforting!”
I glance down at Holly, who is now humming loudly while drawing “wedding invitations” on scrap paper.
“Look,” Lucy whispers urgently, “you don’t have to— I’m not— it’s just a misunderstanding?—”
“I know,” I say.
“So tell them!”
I raise a brow. “Why?”
Her mouth drops open. “Why? Because it’s not true!”
I say nothing. Her breath catches. She searches my face, waiting for a smirk, a joke, anything. But I’m not joking. This is the first time she realizes it. And it knocks her breath out of her chest.
