The weed didn’t matter. My hands needed something to do.
“I guess you don’t know what Earth is like.” She brushed her fingers over the bark. “It’s all corporate farms or places made to look pretty for tourists. I’ve never been to an orchard before.” Sap clung to her fingertips. She licked it off.
My body went tight.
I looked at the weed in my hand as if it had personally offended me.
“Was it hard to leave?” I asked.
I didn’t know why I asked. Maybe because I wanted to know what had hurt her. Maybe because I wanted to know if she missed it.
Maybe because some selfish part of me needed to know what might call her back.
Maisie sighed, and the sound turned into a groan. “There was this guy.”
Every muscle in my body went still.
I did not speak.
A frightened creature gave more if you did not reach too quickly. I knew that much. I had been one once.
“James,” she said. “My ex. It had been going bad for a long time. You think you know controlling? This guy was an expert.” She made a face and looked down the row of trees. “I signed up for all of this to get away from him. I mean, they say the best way to get over one guy is to get under?—”
She stopped, and her cheeks turned pink.
I had never wanted an explanation for an Earth saying more in my life.
She cleared her throat. “Anyway. What about you? How did you end up here? This isn’t your home planet, is it? Everything looks kind of new.”
I let her change the subject.
For now.
“I was a gladiator on Protos,” I said. “We rebelled. We won. They gave us this land so we would stop destroying things.”
Maisie stared at me. Then she said, “I take back what I said about controlling exes.”
I laughed.
The sound surprised me. Hers came a second later, bright and unguarded, and that was worse.
It went through me.
For one breath, she didn’t look like a woman waiting for the next blow. She looked young. Amused. Almost happy.
Then what she had said settled in.
James.
A male had hurt her badly enough that she had crossed the galaxy to escape him. Badly enough that even now, standing in a quiet orchard with the sun trying to burn through the mist, she watched for traps in every kindness.
The old part of me lifted its head.
I wanted to find him.
I wanted to put one hand around his throat and teach him exactly how fragile a controlling male could be.
I knew the lesson well. I had taught it in sand, in blood, in front of roaring crowds.
