Page 126 of Veiled Vixen

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE - VALOR

Airlocks don’t generally lock, per se. They do if there’s no atmosphere on the other side. That’s a safety issue. But when a ship is docked, like Veila’s is, and the atmosphere has been equilibrated, then you just push the OPEN or CLOSE buttons to make the doors work between station and ship.

So I don’t think about the airlock much as I pass through it.

But after I wind my way through the park and the forest to her door, I stop and wonder about something.

All this time we’ve been working together she has never come to my quarters. To be fair, I’ve never gone to hers, either. But that’s not my point.

My point is… what if she did come to my quarters? And what if she found my door locked?

Because it has been. Up until this very night I have locked that stupid door.

How would it make her feel to find my door locked?

Who was I specifically locking out?

My heart hurts for a moment when I picture her coming to my quarters while we were supposed to be resting. How she might place her palm on the mechanism to open my door. How she would feel when the panel lit up with big capital letters in red that said LOCKED.

She would know that the only person I was locking out was her.

And that same gut-wrenching fear sits at the bottom of my stomach as I reach my hand towards her door mechanism and pause.

It lights up green. UNLOCKED.

Then I feel worse.

The door opens and I peek my head in. “Veila?” I call softly.

She lifts her body up from the couch. Her hair is a tangled mess of long, blonde curls. Her too-big sleep shirt is crooked, so I can see one bare shoulder. “What’s wrong? Did something happen?”

“No.” I shake my head as I cross the room and stand in front of her.

Her eyes catch on my chest, then slowly lift up to meet mine.

I’m shirtless, I realize. Probably should’ve thought that through a little better. Because it looks like I’m here on a booty call. And I pretty much am here on a booty call, but that’s not the only reason.

“I just… wanted to make sure you’re OK.”

She smiles a little. “I’m OK. Why? Are you not OK?”

“No. I’m OK. Everything’s OK.”

“OK.”

We both laugh.

God, this is awkward.

“Sit down,” she says.

“If I’m disturbing you, I can go.”

“You’re not. I was just…” She sighs. It’s one of those long tired sighs. “Just thinking about things.”

I spy an e-reader on her coffee table. Not open to the title page, but there are diagrams and charts that give the title away. And when I look back at her, she’s looking at that periodical screen too. Then her eyes dart up to mine. “I… it…”

The book is the same one she was reading the first time I was in here. The one on motherhood.