“Coming from you, that’s a stellar review.”
His lips twitched. Then his wrist comm buzzed. He glanced at it and the skin tightened around his eyes.
“Everything okay?” Holly asked.
Sam studied the display for a moment, then dismissed whatever had come in. “Pressure reading in the water system. Slightly off. Probably nothing. I’ll check it in the morning.”
“You sure?”
“It’s within tolerance. Just logged it.” He stepped back from the bar. “I should get back to the terminal. Two ships departing tonight. One incoming.”
He left with a nod, and Holly watched him go with a faint tug of concern that she pushed aside. Sam had said it was within tolerance. Sam didn’t miss things.
She turned back to the room and saw the most unexpected thing: Alyce wasdancing.
The de facto coordinator of the outpost had accepted a single glass of wine at some point during the evening, and had taken the space that Mish’s children had vacated. She moved to the Ytolian music with a grace that stopped Holly mid-frost. She was good. More than good. Her movements were fluid and precise. Her long, thin braids swayed as she turned, and the expression on her face was one of concentrated pleasure, entirely at odds with the no-nonsense facade she wore the rest of the time.
Several visitors had gathered to watch. Harry noticed and nudged Vittor, who turned and smiled. Even Mish paused behind the bar, a bottle suspended in mid-pour.
Alyce danced as if no one was watching, which was clearly how she preferred it, and which made it impossible not to.
Holly leaned against the counter and let the moment wash over her. The music and the warmth and the smell of baked goods and the sound of people enjoying themselves in a place that had been empty and silent for too long. She thought about Bean, who would have liked the attention of all these guests, but would have also been overwhelmed. He was probably getting on fine with Tyer, who also would have likely been overwhelmed by all the people. She knew Tyer just well enough to interpret hisdetachment not as disinterest, but as introversion. His story, the how and why of him being here, was still a story she hoped to hear one day.
She looked for the one person who was unaccounted for and did not find him. Cody had not returned since being asked to stop playing music. Mish had told her he’d sulked off toward the forest after being asked to stop playing. Holly winced at a twinge that was not quite guilt and not quite sympathy. She would deal with it tomorrow.
She looked around the room again, slowly this time, and let herself feel what she was feeling.
She had built this, but not without help. True, she’d been the one to say,yes, let’s try, and the people around her had said,yes,back, and together they had turned a struggling outpost into a place where strangers paid for cupcakes and danced to alien tavern music and sat on a bench looking out at a gas giant. It was small and imperfect. But it washers, and for the first time since she’d arrived at Moone’s Landing, Holly fully felt like its owner. It boiled down to the simple, earned fact of having poured herself into it and watching it come back to life.
She didn’t know the exact figures, but she knew the station had made goodnitstoday. Better than good, maybe. She would count them tomorrow, when the warmth of this night had settled and the real world replaced this magical one.
The lounge emptied slowly. Visitors drifted to their rooms or back to their ships, full and tired and carrying bags from The Emporium and containers of Harry’s tea and fungal products. Mish wiped down the bar and gathered her children, who filed out in their usual two rows. Harry left last, walking side by side with Vittor, their shoulders nearly touching, talking in low voicesabout something. Harry laughed in a way Holly had never heard before. Soft. Almost shy.
The door closed behind them, and the lounge was quiet.
Holly stood at the counter, surveying the aftermath. Empty trays. Crumbs. Stacked plates and cups. A smear of frosting on the counter that she wiped with a cloth.
Rasker emerged from the back of the lounge, where he had been packing up his NuProd. He carried the last of the serving trays to the counter and set them down.
“You should leave the rest for tomorrow,” he said.
“I will.” But she kept wiping the counter, because stopping meant the day was over, and she wasn’t ready for it to be over.
He leaned against the counter across from her, arms folded, and watched her with that unhurried gaze she had come to know so well. The lounge was dim, lit only by the counter lights and the soft glow from the square outside. The Ytolian music had ended, and the silence was the comfortable kind.
“This is amazing,” he said.
Holly looked up from the counter. His gaze held hers, and the expression on his face was edged with longing. It made her belly tighten and her hands shake, just a little.
“It is,” she said with a loose smile. “Who knew, when I first arrived, that I’d find my family.”
He dropped his gaze. “Is there room in that family for a real estate consultant who’s secretly happy to be proven wrong?”
Her skin prickled with awareness as her chest expanded with feelings she wasn’t used to. Love. Connection. Need. “Yes.” Just the one word. It said everything.
He pushed off the counter and crossed to her side. She set down the cloth. He was close, and the lounge was empty. The day had been long and full of the magic that happens when stubborn people refuse to quit.
He kissed her.
