As they moved, Fly watched her explain the pieces to donors, calm and articulate, grounded in her purpose. This was as important to Mei as the Academy and her future, this space where passion met responsibility.
Than drifted toward the buffet table, already elsewhere. The space he left behind felt deliberate. Maintained.
Fly stayed where he was, watching the gap widen, irritation threading through the unease. This wasn’t going to happen, not if he had anything to say about it. It wasn’t in his nature to stand by and allow things to fester.
They weren’t strangers circling each other in polite silence. They were four years deep. Study sessions, deployments of trust, inside jokes, long nights, and harder days. You didn’t build something like that and then stay silent when there was heavy stuff to deal with.
If that was all they were doing now, pretending, then what the hell had those years even meant?
He loved Than, deeply. They were blood brothers, soon to be brothers in arms. Than was a rock against Fly’s restless energy, the steady center that made Annapolis feel survivable instead of suffocating. Fly wanted the best for him.
And Mei…goddamn, she was the best.
Fly had never allowed things to implode from a distance. If something was wrong, you faced it. You named it. You dealt with the consequences.
Mei wasn’t fragile, Than wasn’t blind, and Fly wasn’t willing to stand there and let silence do more damage than the truth ever could.
When she passed him, Fly caught her arm. “Mei?”
“Yes?”
“We’ve been friends for a long time, and I need to ask you something important. I expect you to be honest with me because our friendships are on the line.”
Her eyes widened. “What? What is it? Of course, you have my word.”
He hesitated just long enough to make sure she knew this wasn’t casual. “Do you have feelings for Than?”
Color rushed up her cheeks, fast and honest, all the way to the roots of her hair. She didn’t deflect. “Yes,” she said quietly. “I do.”
Fly closed his eyes. The relief was almost knee-buckling in its intensity. He nodded once. “Geezus. That’s a fucking relief.” He let her go. Then, because Than was hurting like hell, he added in the crux of the problem. The very thing that had threatened to tear them apart. “He thinks you’re in love with me.”
Her reaction was immediate and visceral. She stepped back, eyes wide. “God, no. Absolutely not.”
The sting landed anyway, quick and sharp, and Fly didn’t pretend it hadn’t.
“Fair,” he said lightly. “Still hurts a little.”
She winced. “Not because you’re not attractive or kind or…God, you’re impossible.”
“I’m impossible?” he asked.
She narrowed her eyes at him.
He laughed. “Okay. I’ll allow it.”
She exhaled, tension easing. “You’re kinetic. You light up every room you walk into. You’re always moving, always pulled in ten directions.” She tipped her head, studying him with quiet clarity. “You don’t do halfway. You don’t choose things that would ask you to stop and reorganize your whole life.”
Fly stilled. Just a fraction. “That’s not wrong,” he said.
“You would exhaust me,” she added gently. “Not because you’d hurt me, but because you’d hold back trying not to.”
That one landed deeper.
He smiled, rueful. “I don’t like to enter things I can’t do cleanly.”
“I know,” she said softly. “That’s why I never wondered about you.”
She paused, then continued, voice dropping without her meaning it to. “Than is different. Grounded. Quiet. He stays. Those eyes. That face.” She swallowed. “That body.”
