_-* Tasks Remaining: 338 *-_
Sweet lordsis the first thing I think on seeing Kodiak.This beauty is wasted on me.
My romantic partners (okay, fine, my “hookups,” haven’t quite managed the relationship thing) have always been ethereal and wispy, lighter-than-air abstractions of boys or girls or third-genders. The cadets I kept favoring were waify and toneless, so I could lap them up like coffee or milk and then get on with my day.
Kodiak, though. He looks like he spends his day crushing warriors under the shield of Aeneas. Muscles band his arms and neck. Thick, lustrous hair falls in blue-black waves along his cheeks, his eyes a speckled tan, nestleddeep. His olive skin is smooth and unmarred, except where thick stubble shades his jawline. Even his stubble looks like it could take me in a fight.
Not my type, but as a purely aesthetic object, he’s marvelous. I’m hurtling through space with what can only be called a stud.
His thick brows knit as he scowls, shoulders bulging his jumpsuit where his body tenses. He clenches finger after finger under his thumb, knuckles popping. It looks like he could break his own fingerbones with that thumb.
I hold out my hand. “I’m Ambrose Cusk.”
He nods at the wall behind me.
I tilt my head as I wait for him to answer.
We stare at each other. Or I stare at him, and he lowers his gaze to the joint where table merges into floor. I really have no idea what’s going through his head. He’s being undeniably weird, and it strikes me that I can’t go ask anyone for their take on it. We’re stuck with each other, and only each other. The danger of that strikes me all over again.
He drags a hand through his hair, fingers disappearing in the thickness of it. My focus returns to our hands. Mine are strummers. His are crushers.
Dimokratía dresses its spacefarers in red acrylic. Kodiak’s uniform is so atrociously ugly that it’s actually pretty cool. An aviation-mechanic-in-space vibe, down to thenylon ribbing inlaid in the fabric. “I like your—” I start.
Kodiak’s tan eyes wander to the lentil splatter where I hurled my dinner, then he’s suddenly in motion. He brushes past me, opens my food cabinet, and examines my pouches. He holds them up to the light, gives one a rough squeeze, and then picks up another. A moment ago I was desperate for him to do anything at all, and now I wish he would be still again. “I take it you’re hungry?”
He juts the lantern of his jaw and nods, like he’s only reluctantly conceding a point. His voice is low and dry. Husky. “Your food looks much better. Of course it would be. You Fédérations and your gourmet foodstuffs.”
“Yes, we do like our... gourmet foodstuffs,” I say. “What did Dimokratía stock you with, cabbage?”
He stares back at me.
“And maybe some potato soup? Only good sustaining food for comrades, right? Anyway, I see you’re checking out the manicotti. I had some earlier.”
He inserts the pouch in the wrong direction, and I know what kind of mess that means we’re in for. I go to fix it, but Kodiak blocks me. I reach around him anyway and pluck the pouch out, reverse it, and put it back in. My arm hair zaps against the fibers of his jumpsuit. “There we go,” I say, giving the bulk of his upper arm a quick pat before I take my seat.
While I retrieve what remains of my lentil curry and sitwith the pouch, Kodiak faces away from me, back tensed, watching his ninety seconds count down. Rover ticks and whirs, cleaning up my mess while I study the V of Kodiak’s back, the glow of his skin at the nape of his neck. He’s not exactly stirring romantic feelings in me, but he does make me wish I knew how to sketch portraits. I’m usually the biggest physical presence in a room, but I feel insignificant around him. He’s a miracle of proportions, writ large.
When his food is ready, he sits across the narrow polycarb table from me, tossing the searing pouch from hand to hand. Once it’s cool enough, he stabs it with a straw.
“You open it by—” I start, before he cuts me off with a slashing gesture. So I watch in silence, chin in my hand and uncomfortable smile spreading over my face, while he pricks the unprickable.
“I assume OS has filled you in on the asteroid harvesting?” I ask.
No answer. My patience frays. Looking like Virgil’s dream warrior boy will only get you so much leeway for rudeness, and Kodiak’s using it up quick.
He jabs harder, so much the straw bends.
“Let me,” I finally say, tugging the pouch toward me. He avoids my eyes, which means I can search his face while I ease open the pouch. There’s equal harshness and gentleness there, somehow. A soft soul with a hard wall. My patience refills. There’s some hope for us.
I place a fork in front of him. Kodiak begins to eat.
He abruptly stops, puts the fork down, and gazes out from behind long lashes. It’s maybe the first time he’s looked at me. Tan doesn’t quite capture the color of his eyes. They’re soft, silky clay.
As we stare at each other, a sort of panic floods my body. I need to say something to break this charge. “Have we met?” I sputter.
“Have wemet?” he repeats, like he’s trying out the words, like this is his first experiment speaking Fédération. Or like he’s teasing me. He rubs his chin.
My cheeks grow warm.Vulnerability, Ambrose. Try it.“OS told me that I passed out at launch. I’m trying, but I can’t remember anything from then on.”
