“Was loose?” Tess’s brows flew up, her eyes screaming like twin meteors ready to crash down in a pit of fury and destruction. “What’s the matter with you, Jax? If you’re so concerned about what Fiona is doing with her hair and clothes and body, maybe you should make it so that you actually have the right to express an opinion about any of that.”
He stared at her, seeming more stunned than angry. He looked completely blindsided, like he’d just gone through a really rough reentry. Jax’s usual pallor doubled in seconds.
Pressing her mouth into a thin line, Tess shook her head at him again. She ate quickly, scraping the brown uni-glob off her plate with efficiency and ignoring the bread that was the only part of this anyone really wanted. When she was done, she put her dishes in the sink and turned to kiss me. Our lips met briefly. “You can have my toast,” she whispered before pulling away again.
I smiled. “I like toast.”
“I know.” She squeezed my shoulder.
She left the kitchen, still pissed off enough at Jax to not even look at him. Bonk followed her out like Tess was the comet and he was the tail that trailed behind her.
“What the fuck just happened?” Jax asked no one in particular. He hadn’t touched his food and didn’t look hungry.
“You were a Neanderthal,” Mwende said dryly. “So much for human evolution.”
Jax shot her a look that said she wasn’t particularly welcome here, especially for her commentary.
The only woman left in the room shrugged and ate her breakfast. As she chewed, she studied Merrick with zero pretense.
As Merrick ate, he studied her back. Neither of them blinked much. Maybe that was another super-soldier power. Eyes open. Always alert and ready. They sat on opposite sides of the table, and I had to wonder if what I saw in their narrowed, burning gazes was animosity, or something else entirely.
Chapter 13
TESS
I found Fiona in her room on the lower level of the ship, gathering a few things for her morning outing.
“Hey,” I called from the open doorway of her sleeping quarters. Her room was the mirror image of mine, which was across the hallway.
Fiona looked up from the pile of stuff on her bed and smiled a little too brightly. “I’m just leaving.”
I crossed my legs at the ankles, relaxing against the doorframe. “Have fun. And don’t worry about Jax. He forgot to evolve along with the rest of mankind. I’ll send him a memo.”
A smile cracked her face, disappearing quickly. “That’s the thing. He didn’t. I don’t get it.”
I pushed off the door and moved into her room. Bonk bumped against my ankles. I crouched to pat him, amused by his whiskery insistence. “Did you catch the look on Jax’s face when he saw you walk into the kitchen? He was stunned speechless and couldn’t take his eyes off you. That’s the only thing you need to take out of this.”
A little color came back into her cheeks, two red flags under eyes that seemed to waver between forlorn and furious. Personally, I’d veer toward spitting mad, and I doubted Fiona would choose differently.
She finally huffed loudly. “I guess it took nearly dying for him to notice me. Maybe if I get shottwicenext time, I’ll get a kiss out of him.”
“Okay, first of all, please don’t get shot again. That was awful for everyone.” I stood back up when Bonk left me to go curl up on a lab coat Fiona had dropped in a corner. He poked and prodded at it, circled, and then settled down right where he wanted. Cats couldn’t just plop down, apparently. They had to pick just the right spot and then soften it up or something. Either felines were weird, or they were smarter than most humans and actually thought about what they were going to do before they went ahead and did it. “Second, Jax is all messed up. Give him time to figure things out.”
Fiona snorted. “What? Like five years? I’ve already done that.”
“Two weeks ago, if you’d shown up in that outfit, he would’ve stared at the wall and kept his mouth shut. Today, you got a reaction.” Practically an explosion, coming from Jax. “That’s progress.”
Fiona caught her bottom lip between her teeth and shoved random things into her bag without even looking. “He was mean,” she finally said.
“Your ass is adorable, and he knows it.”
Her eyes flicked my way, humor sparking in them. “I’m glad you think so.”
“That new outfit is amazing. If I wasn’t a giant compared to you, I’d totally borrow it. And that slap was epic.”
She smiled even as she ruefully shook her head. “I shouldn’t have done it.”
“Maybe. Probably. But Jax is a tank. One slap in five years isn’t going to break him.”
