Page 11

She sighed. She’d just have a quick look at the aft coolant return later.

Voices reached her from down the corridor before she reached the galley, and her jaw tightened.

Of course there were voices. Why would people be loading supplies, checking systems, or doing literally anything useful when they could stand about chatting?

They all knew how important it was that they got away from the station on time.

Yet somehow that reality had not sunk into anybody’s thick skulls. They’d been taking breaks left, right, and center. A smoke break. A coffee break. A break because someone’s feet hurt. Fucking hell. They were trying to launch a colony, not host a bloody picnic.

Picking up her pace, her boots hit the deck harder than necessary.

A woman laughed ahead. Layla, by the sounds of it. She recognized that laugh, especially when it had that breathy little edge to it. Then a deep male voice joined in.

Blythe sighed. The pilot. She should have bloody well known.

Walking into the galley made it worse.

Layla was practically sitting in the guy’s lap on the bench seat against the wall, one hip pressed against his thigh and her blonde head tipped back as she laughed at something he’d said.

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

The galley was barely big enough to swing a cat in, and certainly not big enough for a guy with shoulders that wide. Food storage lockers and prep counters lined one wall. Two bolted-down tables filled the other, benches fixed in place beside them. Everything was sparse, utilitarian, and battered around the edges from years of use.

Gritting her teeth, Blythe went straight for the storage lockers, searching for the soup.

Behind her, Layla laughed again.

“So,” she said, drawing the word out. “Randall. You really don’t have anyone waiting for you back home?”

Blythe rolled her eyes as she shoved a packet of chicken and vegetable soup into the hydrator. It had probably never been anywhere near either a chicken or any vegetables, but it was hot, and at the moment that put it a long way ahead of the nothing she was currently running on.

She half turned as she waited—because her momma had always told her it was rude to turn her back on people—and dragged a datapad out of her pocket. She started to thumb through everything else she had to do today, but her attention wasn’t really on the list.

The pilot sat still, big hands resting on the table in front of him. He didn’t react to Layla despite the fact that she was pushing her ample bust right into his arm.

“No,” he replied, and Layla blinked at him. “What? A guy looking the way you do? How do you not have a wife or girlfriend? Or do you have a boyfriend? I’m totally inclusive that way, just so you know.”

“No.” His voice was low and rough. “There’s no one.”

“Well.” Layla shifted closer. “That sounds very... lonely.”

He shrugged. Layla’s hand drifted over the front of his shirt. “I could help with that.”

He caught her wrist gently before she got any farther, and Blythe’s brows winged up.

He didn’t push Layla away; he just moved her hand back to her own lap and let go.

“I’m good,” he said. “Thank you. I like my own company just fine.”

Layla’s mouth opened and closed. Then she laughed, high and slightly strained. “Wow. Okay. Direct.”

He inclined his head. “Better than pretending otherwise.”

Blythe snorted before she could stop herself.

More fool him, then. Layla was a sweetheart. A menace, sure… one with an alarming willingness to make bad decisions because a man had nice shoulders. But she was still a sweetheart. If he didn’t want to tap that, then he must be an idiot.

Blythe froze with her fingers over the hydrator controls.