“I know what you mean. Once the repairs are finished, things are going to change.”
“They are. And I don’t want that to happen. She belongs with us.”
Xaber put his hand on Mace’s shoulder, the contact somewhere between a slap and a squeeze.“She does. Any ideason how we keep our sexy mechanic on the ship and in our lives?”
Mace relaxed a little. They hadn’t talked about this before. Which, now he thought about it, seemed to be a habit they would need to break. Avoiding hard conversations wasn’t working.
“I think we need to make it official,” Mace said.
Xaber’s head snapped around to stare at him, and he stopped walking so fast Mace left him a pace behind. He was so stunned by the statement that he spoke the next bit out loud.
“Huh? Make what official? We’ve only known her for twofraxxingweeks. I mean, I care about Tix a lot. Hells, I probably love her, and I know you do, you big sop. But marriage?”
“Of course I love her. We wouldn’t be having this conversation if I didn’t. But I wasn’t sure if you felt the same way. And, no, I didn’t mean marriage.”
He had to admit the idea was appealing. He could see that happening at some point in the future, but they needed to take other steps first.
“I meant we should make her role official. You called herourmechanic. Why don’t we ask her if she wants the title permanently? We’ve learned a lot over the last while, but there’s no way we can keep theTrueflying on our own. We need an engineer, or a mechanic, or whatever title she wants, on board.”
Xaber nodded. “You’re right.”
“We need her. I think she needs us, too. Now, we have to figure out how to make this happen.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Tish tackledthe last of the calibrations with mixed feelings. She was proud of the work she’d done and pleased that everything was coming together. She was also aware that the end of this job meant things would have to change.
“Livy, can you review that last report and let me know if you see anything I’ve missed?” she asked the ship’s AI.
“Reviewing it now.” After a few seconds, the AI responded. “Green across the board. No issues detected.”
“Thanks.”
She almost hoped she had missed something. It would mean she had more time left before Xaber and Mace went back to work…back to bounty hunting.
It had been easier to glide past their career choice when they weren’t actively doing that job. They’d been helping her around the ship, doing the heavy lifting and learning more about the vessel and how it worked. Once she was done, the hiatus from reality would end.
Some decisions were easy. Mace and Xaber didn’t simply say they were decent and honorable. They had proven it to her with every act and choice they’d made since she’d known them. Herissues with their job had nothing to do with them and everything to do with her circumstances.
She continued to work while she considered everything, her hands sure and deft as she inspected connections and made small adjustments.
The next issue was the logistics of continuing their relationship. Her lovers would have to leave the station for work. That was inevitable. That meant she would need to find another hotel. Preferably one with better security than the last. She’d managed to put away a decent amount of scrip over the last while. Part of it came from what she’d earned repairing theTrue, and the rest came from not having to pay rent. She’d chipped in for food, but that still left her with enough that she wouldn’t have to worry about having enough money to eat.
It wasn’t until she’d been on board for a few days that she realized how badly her body craved real food and a decent amount of uninterrupted sleep. She’d been operating in low-energy mode for weeks and hadn’t even noticed. She would not do that again if she could help it. She could make it on her own.
Would they want to keep seeing her once things had changed? Probably. She wouldn’t know for sure until they had that conversation, and she figured they’d already done enough serious talking for the day. She already knew her answer, though. It was a resounding yes.
Seeing them was not the only reason she didn’t want to leave Defiance. This place felt more familiar now than it had before. She knew her way around parts of it, and she’d formed connections with some of the residents. She considered Grotta and even Flek to be friends of a sort. Rain welcomed her with a smile and a wave every time she visited the Forge. Slowly but surely, she was making a life for herself here.
That left her with one final question. The big one. If they all agreed to keep seeing each other, would she do it as Tix, or asTishna? She hated lying to them. Every time they used the wrong name, guilt needled her. She was falling for them, no doubt about it. If she didn’t have to guard her heart, she’d be in love with them already. If she wanted to keep them, she needed to tell them the truth.
It had been more than two months since she’d fled Amadox Station. If a bounty had been posted, she’d have heard about it by now. Right? Her fathers would have warned her.
They’d set up a way to communicate with her before she’d left. It wasn’t simple, and it would take time, but they could get a message to her through Thrash, the cyborg pilot who had brought her here.
He’d helped her set up her comm device so it had access to a sort of digital mailbox. When a message eventually arrived for her, that was how she could safely retrieve it. The only way she could send messages to her fathers would be to pay for an encrypted message to be carried by a ship headed back home. She hadn’t done it yet because it was too risky—not just for her but for her fathers. If Hamish found even a shred of proof they’d helped her get away, he’d make their lives impossible.
Two months with no warnings. That had to be a good sign. Once she’d heard from her fathers and was certain she’d made a clean break, she’d tell Mace and Xaber the truth. Would they forgive her? That was the hardest question to answer… and she couldn’t know until the moment came.
