Page 25 of Collision!
He wasn’t so short-sighted and surly that he couldn’t see that.
When she patted the couch next to her, he felt the pull like the same forces holding together that icy wreckage outside the fragile plasteel skin of their ship.
But at least he might keep a little distance between them, so as not to snag her nightwear.“Turn up the lights if you wish,” he said.“But I’m afraid not even a supernova could scorch away the idiosyncratic organizational accumulation of your stash.”
She leaned toward him, as if she were suddenly having trouble seeing too.“Chief, was that…a joke?”
He held her wide, incredulous gaze.“It was not.”
She laughed anyway.“So what’s in the box?”
For a moment, he’d forgotten about the gift.He was too mesmerized by the sparkle in her eyes, brighter than the illusion she’d added to the viewport.
He wanted to ask her about their night in the engine module.She’d seemed to sleep peacefully with Lub at her feet, but when he’d heard her breath change, he’d gone to check on her.
And she’d whispered something that sounded like his name.
Earther dreams were abstract and ambiguous, she’d told him.So likely it meant nothing, if she even remembered it.
He looked down at the box still in his hands.“This seems silly now.”
She reached out, her fingers hovering close enough to his knee that he swore he felt the heat of her through the tough, tight weave of his uniform.“Isn’t it obvious I like silly?”
His gaze tracked up her bare arm.Despite the looser drape of her preferred clothing, he’d been able to extrapolate the general shape of her.But the soft curves of her were revealed now—the padded muscles in her forearm from her craft and in her shoulder from carrying her craft, the dimpled point of her elbow.
Through the thin tunic, her breasts were a heavier curve, half hidden.
She’d plaited all her hair into one thick braid that rested over her shoulder.The bristle at the end was tied with the ribbon entwining the dark locks, the pale silkiness matching her nightwear.When she breathed, the little bow knot swung above her veiled nipple.
His quill-scales prickled with painful awareness of all those delicate materials—and that tender flesh, so close.
He thrust the box at her and sat back, crossing his arms over his chest.If he held tight enough to drive the bristling spikes into his palms, pinning himself in a solitary embrace…
Better that than reaching for her.
Instead of opening the box, she merely looked at him, her brown eyes gone dark in the ambient glow of the viewport.For an aching heartbeat, he wondered if she saw through his illusions, the protective filters he projected over himself that had none of her whimsy, only warning.
If she said anything…
Finally, she dropped her piercing focus to the box.Worse than silly, he agonized; providing her with more yarn that would be lost in her stash was like pouring energy into a raging quantum anomaly.
Not a black hole, because a black hole would compress the mess into essential nothingness which would at least be efficiently tidy.
And he should’ve tied a ribbon around the box.That she could use.
Too late.She was already lifting the lid.
“Oh!Yarn!”She reached for the ball of filament.
The moment she touched it, the threads ignited with shimmering light.
“Oh oh!Glowing yarn!”With a delighted giggle, she lifted the ball.“It’s amazing, Suvan.This is the best yarn ever.Thank you.”
She leaned in…and hugged him.
Just as quickly, she sat back, admiring the yarn again, as if nothing had happened, chattering about fiber optics and photonic cabling, and more obscure references like stockinettes and bobbles.
It happened so fast.Maybe nothinghadhappened?Was it his imagination?A wish…
