You need a break.
What do you do when you’re not at work?
I see you.
That can’t be theonlytime he isn’t working.
Or I go to the bowls.
So, he gets naked one way or another.
I literally didn’t know about those until this the other day.
I scowl at the emoji as soon as I press send. I shouldn’t have used it.
Sometimes, it feels like I got here yesterday. There are so many things I don’t know about so many different kinds of people.
There are certainly more than enough of us to keep a scholar busy. What incited your education on the bowls?
A friend’s brother went to the new one they opened today.
I don’t know how much more I want to say about it. I definitely don’t want to talk about Agan with him. So, I quickly say,
My best friend is Opodean, but she doesn’t like the bowls, so we’d never talked about them before.
But she said there are several. Do you have a favorite?
I immediately question if I should have asked that.
You don’t need to tell me which one it is.
I do have a favorite.
And I don’t mind telling you.
There’s a long pause and for a moment, I wonder if the app has stopped him from breaking his own rules again.
There’s a small set of bowls and baths run by a Trulavian family in the lowest public level of the station. It’s quiet and private and most people chase the new and popular places, but they sacrifice the point of the place.
What’s the point?
To be the person you actually are when everything else is cleaned away.
CHAPTER 4
Chirping echoes from directly beneath my face and I groan as the alarm tries to coax me awake.
My confused mind asks what time it is and why everything’s so loud and…
And why my comm is directly underneath me, instead of on my nightstand where it normally lives through the night.
Because you fell asleep texting him.
I reopen the messages and sure enough… I fell asleep mid conversation.
After three unanswered texts, he finally said,
Sleep well, Cherry. I hope the morning is kind to you.
