Page 15 of Adrift!
“Sorry I’m late,” she said.
“Plenty of yarn left. Purple, even.” He gave her a little grin when she rolled her eyes to him.
She snorted. “Yeah, because I need another crafting fail.”
“Is it a fail though when the fit is so fabulous?”
“I could make you a pair of boots.”
“Um…”
She laughed, not loud but the low percussion of it seemed to match his slightly elevated heartbeat, waves of energy stitching together.
He’d been listening to too much Mariah.
“I wouldn’t torture you like that,” she assured him, even as he wondered how purple fuzz would go with his uniform. “Speaking of torture…” She glanced around the room again. “Everyone seems to be enjoying being stranded in space.” After a sip of her drink, she cast a sidelong stare at him. “Maybe something in the water?”
The suggestion hit him like a cold splash. “I would never.”
She winced, reaching out to touch his hand. “No. I didn’t meanyourdrinks. I just meant in general. Even our cruise director, who was giving me serious anxiety by proxy vibes when we boarded, is chilling happily with”—she craned her neck—“well, I don’t know what she’s knitting, but it’s very colorful.”
Still nonplused, he followed her gaze around the circle. She wasn’t wrong. The passengers who’d been huddled fearfully in the lifepod while the ship’s lights flickered not so long ago weren’t just calm now—they were almost blissful. Couples leaned into each other, some passengers swayed gently to Mariah’s rhythmic knitting, and everyone seemed to glow with the same joy that radiated from Felicity’s button.
“Too happy,” Remy repeated quietly, echoing his own growing unease.
“Just because you aren’t—” As soon as the words started to emerge, he cut them off, hearing the inadvertent cruelty. “Remy…”
She stiffened. “I’m gonna go grab some yarn.” Spinning on her purple heel, she stalked off, leaving behind the special drink he’d mixed just for her.
Just as well he hadn’t told her that.
She settled cross-legged beside Mariah, her tunic pooling around her like a spilled rainbow. She must’ve apologized for her tardiness because Mariah waved away her words and slung an arm over her shoulders for a quick hug. Even from across the room, he saw the tension in her spine…and then the release as Mariah took advantage of the confining gesture to tuck a skein of yarn—thick and purple—into her hands, a teasing laugh chiming through the Starlit Salon.
With shameful difficulty, he forced his gaze away, anywhere but her.
Just because he had a job on this Cosmic Connections Cruise didn’t mean everyone had to be on board with its romantic mission.
Even if he was wanting to believe it himself.
When the knitting circle gradually wound down, the passengers drifted away in pairs or small groups, holding hands or cradling their knitwork, Mariah admiring each project as it passed her.
The little Earther woman also thanked him for his help. “I know these are troubling circumstances, but is it wrong to say I enjoyed it? I’ve never had such a magical circle.” She beamed up at him from under a floppy-brimmed knit hat embellished with curlicue stars. “It was almost…transcendent.”
Too happy? Remy’s skeptical observation lingered in his mind like a discordant note.
When only a few stragglers remained and Felicity gave him a nod, Ikaryo began his cleanup, stacking and wiping and straightening. Not as beautiful as Mariah’s art, but the return to order was pleasing in its own way. Since Griiek had been called away to other duties, he exerted his augments to tug the couches back into place.
When only the awkwardly shaped corner unit remained, Remy walked up to the other side. Everyone else had gone, leaving just the two of them, and he wondered why she’d stayed.
She thrust out a purple square. “For you.”
He blinked rapidly through a few filters in his ocular implant. “Is it…the pair of boots you promised me?”
“Threatened you,” she corrected before squinting at the square, as if uncertain herself. “Does it look like boots?”
“Not particularly.” When she started to lower the offering, he reached across the empty cushions to snag it from her fingers.
“It’s a dishrag.”
