Page 10 of Adrift!
He gave her hand a reproving squeeze. “This isn’t an airlock, at least not the kind that goes out of the ship.” He leaned forward to palm the control. “Let me show you.”
Despite her dour words, she followed him step for step. For all her avoidance and words of doubt, the unhesitating proof of her trust—or at least her curiosity—turned on some sort of light within him that he suspected no augments would reveal.
When the doorway cleared, soft, fragrant air curled out to surround them, and the set of Remy’s shoulders eased as she took a breath. “A garden in space?”
“An atmo-hall. All the greenery is part of the ship’s filtration and enrichment systems. Also, I think it’s beautiful.” He tugged her again, just another step of momentum, then released her.
She wandered forward, her fuzzy socks making no noise on the decking. Unlike the rest of the ship, full lighting had been maintained for the plants, and the glow around her almost dazzled him. He should adjust his augments accordingly…
But he didn’t.
At one climbing vine, its lush, complex flowers almost as red as her hair, she paused and leaned in for a deeper breath of the spicy fragrance.
He focused on the way her eyes half closed in pleasure. “You know this one?”
“It’s a rose. At least I think it is. It smells like a rose, but I’ve never seen flowers this large and curly—and the thorns are all strange too.”
“Even though the ship has gravity and lights—when energy monsters aren’t rampaging anyway—sometimes things in space don’t respond like they would on their planet of origin.”
The narrow-eyed look she shot him was less pleased. “Is that a metaphor?”
“Maybe. But it’s reality too.”
When she cupped one of the blooms, the riotous crimson petals rimmed in lavender overlapped her fingers. “I suppose that’s why I came all this way: tonotstay the same.”
“You can go so many directions from any point in space.” Calling on his Earther interaction studies, he smiled at her. “Just…not right at this moment.”
Though he expected her to scoff at him downplaying the situation, instead she tilted her head, her green gaze sliding away from him. “When you left your home, was it… How did you decide which way to go?”
In all the lightyears he’d traveled, had anyone ever asked him such a question? Certainly someone must have. But he couldn’t remember it, and if they had, he doubted he’d answered with any genuine insight.
But when her wary glance angled back to him, he knew he couldn’t respond with one of his blithe answers, not even with one of the Earther smiles he’d learned. If he did, somehow he knew she’d isolate herself even more thoroughly than the Love Boat I lost in the Zarnax Zone.
“Maybe it would’ve been different if I’d gone of my own will,” he mused. “Or if I’d known I could always go back. But maybe in some ways it was easier, justgoing.” He touched the augments in his forearm, sweeping higher to his face. “Once these were installed and healed, I invested my relocation stipend and just…left.” He hesitated, the memories at once soft and pointed like the rose. “I’m making that sound easy, and it wasn’t. I was too young to really have a plan, and my transfer guide suggested waiting. But I have a large extended family, and as they spread out through our system, no place seemed like an obvious choicefor me. So I kept looking. Now I’ve been on a dozen ships, past hundreds of stars.”
“And you’re still looking?”
“Because there’s so much to see.”
Her lips pursed, and he knew she’d noted the evasion. But how could he tell her he’d only signed up to work the cruise knowing that the passengers would just come and go, like meteors flashing? There’d be no suffering in watching them leave since they were never going to stay. Meanwhile, he’d continue on, from ship to ship, never going back. Paths that never converged again.
She rubbed a petal between her fingers. “I’m not sure about this purple, but on Earth, red roses are a symbol of romance.”
Pathetically grateful for the deflection this time, he nodded. “That explains why Mr. Evens—that’s the ship’s owner—requested it even though it’s not common in atmo-halls.” He reached out to stroke one of the new buds.
“Watch those thorns.”
What a strange choice to symbolize love. “I can dial down the sensitivity in my skin.”
“That must be…useful sometimes.”
“Every time I accidentally cut myself instead of the garnishes.”
Her mouth quirked. “I’d take that over a feelings button.”
Another joke. She was like a furled rose, beauty tightly contained behind warning thorns.
Earthers were complicated. And Remy McCoy seemed to be deliberately confounding. So why was he letting her get under his skin?
