Then, she softly replies, "It does help."
I look at her. She's still watching me, but her expression has shifted. A look in her eyes that I am unable to name.
She reaches out and touches my arm. A brief brush of fingers along my sleeve, but it sends electricity sparking through my nervous system.
"You are a good man, Cody." She says it plainly, like she's stating a plain fact. "I have not known many. But I know enough to recognize one when he is standing in front of me." She pauses, and for just a second, I see vulnerability crack through again. "Thank you. For waiting."
Before I can respond, before I can say something stupid, she pulls back. The softness vanishes from her expression like a door closing, and she turns her attention back to the book with a decisive flip of pages.
"Now. Tell me about this structure. The one with the pointed top."
I look where she's pointing. "That's the Eiffel Tower. It's in Paris. That's a city in France, which is a country on Earth."
"It is made entirely of metal?"
"I believe so. I wanna say it's made of iron. When it was first erected, people hated it. Thought it was ugly."
A'Vanti makes a small sound of disbelief. "Ugly? I think it is elegant."
"I know, right? But people came around eventually. Now it's one of the most famous landmarks on the planet."
My comm unit buzzes in my pocket. Pulling it out, I glance down at the message scrolling across the small screen.Squadron meeting. Hangar bay. 10 minutes.
"Duty calls?" A'Vanti asks, a hint of amusement in her voice.
"Apparently." I pocket the comm with a sigh. "Squadron meeting."
"Then you must go." She clutches the book to her chest. "Thank you again, Cody. For the book. And for…" She gestures vaguely between us. "This."
"Anytime." I shove my hands in my pockets, fighting the urge to say more. To tell her how her smile makes my stupid human heart do backflips. About how I'd wait outside a thousand therapy sessions if it meant I could make her day better.
But I don't. Because A'Vanti is still healing. Still putting herself back together piece by piece. And the last thing she needs is me complicating her recovery with my inconvenient feelings.
"I'll see you around?" I say instead.
"Yes." She inclines her head – that imperial gesture that should feel distant but somehow feels like her. "I believe you will."
If I didn't know better, I'd think she is flirting with me. But that might be only wishful thinking. I can feel myself grinning at her like a dope, so I force myself to turn and walk away before I do something idiotic. The corridor stretches ahead of me, and I'm already thinking about what else I can find to give her. What other pieces of Earth I can share with this golden-scaled woman who lost everything but refuses to be destroyed by it.
I'm in so much trouble.
And I can't bring myself to care.
Right before I round the corner, I glance back. I can't help it.
A'Vanti is still standing in her doorway, her gaze on the book in her hands. But as I watch, her attention shifts to someone approaching from the opposite end of the corridor.
A Cerastean male I don't recognize. Tall, even for his species, with bronze scales and an intensity to his stride that puts me immediately on edge.
A cold feeling settles in my gut. I don't know every Cerastean on this ship, but I know a lot of them. And this one… this one I've never seen before.
As if sensing my gaze, A'Vanti looks up. Our eyes lock across the corridor. For a moment, something passes between us, a charge I don't have time to examine.
Then the male reaches her and says a few words in Cerastean. A'Vanti's attention snaps to him, her expression going guarded and unreadable.
I slip around the corner, hating that I have to leave her behind.
My feet carry me toward the hangar bay, but my mind isn't on squadron business anymore. I keep seeing that male's face. And the way A'Vanti's expression shuttered the moment he spoke.
