“I’m a formal person.”
“I noticed.” Her smile is warm, and she’s close enough that I can see gold flecks in her eyes. “Goodnight, Cetus.”
“Goodnight, Dove.”
She turns toward her quarters. I stand in the hallway longer than necessary, patterns still bright, temperature still elevated, my control fracturing with each hour she’s here.
This is going to be a very long storm.
3
The Morning After
Cetus
Iwakebeforedawn—standardroutine—except this morning I’m aware that she’s twenty meters away, probably sleeping in my borrowed shirt, her hair spreading across my guest quarters pillows.
Stop.
I force myself to the lab, reviewing atmospheric data that shows the storm intensifying. Extended timeline. Uncertain duration.
The terraformer in me knows this is manageable. Work the problem in front of you. Adapt.
Except the problem in front of me is a curvy courier who makes my daughter laugh and my control disintegrate and my carefully ordered life feel less like survival and more like actually living.
When the coffee maker timer activates, I’m already moving toward the kitchen before conscious thought completes.
She’s at the viewport when I arrive.
Wearing my shirt.
I knew she would be—it’s practical, she’s borrowing station clothes while hers cycle through cleaning. This is not new information.
Except somehow between last night and this morning, my brain has decided that seeing her in my clothes is significant. The shirt is too large, sliding off one shoulder to reveal the curve of her neck and collarbone. Her hair is damp from the shower, curling slightly as it dries.
She’s not beautiful. She’s... mathematically pleasing. Aesthetically optimal for human parameters.
This is worse. I’ve made it worse.
Heat floods my shoulders before I can control it.
“You’re up early,” I manage.
She turns, and her eyes widen slightly when she sees me. Her gaze tracks down my chest—I’m in sleep clothes still, havingcome straight from quarters to lab to kitchen—before snapping back up with visible effort.
“Couldn’t sleep.” Her voice is slightly breathless. “I’m not used to staying still this long.”
And suddenly last night’s domestic warmth transforms into something else entirely. Something charged and dangerous and absolutely inappropriate.
The kitchen feels smaller than its actual dimensions.
“The constant motion serves a purpose?” I move to the coffee preparation station, grateful for a task that doesn’t involve staring at how she looks in my clothes.
“Keeps me ahead of my problems.” She wraps her arms around herself, and the gesture makes the oversized shirt pull tighter. “Plus I’m used to ship berths. Your guest quarters are too comfortable. Confusing.”
“I can adjust the environmental settings to be less comfortable if that would help.”
She laughs, warm and genuine. “You’d actually do that, wouldn’t you?”
