“All in the past,” Kat said, lashes fluttering as she grinned cheekily back at him. “He and Lee are actually best buddies now.”
Lee’s dubious expression turned into a full eye-roll as she dared him to counter that last claim in front of his mom.
She was coming up with a dozen different ways she could make Lee’s eyes roll when Tonya ordered another Solar Flare, insisting that the resort bring a round for Kat and Lee as well, given they were only months shy of their nineteenth birthdays.
“To commemorate this moment of having all of us here together,” she explained when the broad-rimmed, sunset-orange drinks were set before them.
Like the rose-colored glasses, Kat had never held anything so nice in her hands. But the glass was warm in her fingers as she bumped it, chinking against Tonya’s glass and then Lee’s.
“Cheers.”
The solar-satellite had disappeared from their little slice of paradise, Tonya coiling the twist of lime into her cup before her toast fully sank in. The moment they were commemorating wasn’t just about being here together. But rather being here with Tonya and her family. Her tribe.
Both Leeand Kat.
And maybe it was something in their drinks, but as Kat raised her glass to the stars, she was grateful for her tiny role in this messed-up universe they inhabited.
It had led her here.
CHAPTER 14: LEE
LEE WAS one of few guests awake and taking advantage of the cool track a few mornings later, the resort-planet’s solar satellite not yet orbiting the faux-skies. He wasn’t surprised, given the raucous hooting and laughter he’d heard coming from the deck below theirs last night. But as that first hint of light glazed through the tiled archways, Lee couldn’t decide if he should be amused or annoyed at the attention to such frivolous details. Half of their galaxy lived in fear of a tangible dark radiation threat while the other half enjoyed solar illusions.
His schedule was all sorts of topsy turvy, his body permanently on raider time, even with the zone shift. Kat, however, had taken to resort life nicely. She’d still been fast asleep when he’d left this morning, curled towards the center of the bed where she’d passed out facing him, the curve of a slightly inebriated smile still on her face as she’d closed her eyes. Tonya had allowed them another of those Solar Flare drinks last night.
Seeing his mom so happy and Kat so at ease… It was the first time they’d had a chance to really bond. The two most important people in his life, both isolated with him in the same tempered eco-sphere.
He slowed his pace to a light jog as he let his heart rate ease.
Was it so wrong to feel happy right now? To take the time for them, to just be?
He and Kat had made some hard calls. This last term alone, it felt as if they’d dove through fire then doused it, only to find themselves standing in metal castings before the flames once again. And he knew without a doubt they’d withstand it again. A hundred times if they had to.
They’d done what they’d had to do to save their names with the Academy. They’d zipped up their suits and put their heads down. They’d earned this break and this time away.
So why did it feel like the universe was still tugging at him? Like every idle second was a second lost?
Lee let his thoughts waft through him, more of that synthetic breeze carrying them off the commercialized planet to the rest of the star system outside.
When the solar satellite eventually began its orbit up into the sky, Lee grabbed his water bottle, crossing back up to the mezzanine floor and their painted blue doors.
He was a little surprised to find that Kat wasn’t in bed. But he followed the softly swaying bamboo blinds and gentle sound of Tonya’s laughter out to the patio. Kat sat cuddled up in one of the woven armchairs opposite Tonya with her back to him, her legs tucked beneath her and his hoodie pulled tight around her.
“I thought I’d heard you get up this morning. Here, sit down.” Setting down a glass pitcher of some melon-colored juice, Tonya rose to her feet, slipping back into her room to grab, what Lee presumed, would be another cup.
But instead of sitting down, Lee came up behind Kat, resting his hands on her shoulders to plant a soft kiss to her cheek. “Hey you,” Lee said, unable to keep the smile from his lips. Especially when Kat stretched her head up towards him.
He met her lips this time with a sweeping kiss, the tip of his tongue brushing against her teeth. He kept it brief, light. But that didn’t stop the desire from beckoning as he took in the pertshape of her nose, her brow crinkling as he forced himself to pull away and keep things friendly.
Tonya returned with the extra cup as well as some fruit and cheese. She had on another beach sundress today—and that re-emerging glint in her eyes from a few nights before.
“You take this chair, Mom.” Motioning for Tonya to return to her comfortable spot near Kat, Lee grabbed one of the hard-backed chairs from the dining service, setting it down alongside Tonya and Kat.
Tonya shaved chunks of the wrapped cheese for them while Lee sliced into the skin of a black plum. And again he was struck by the moment. It was all the little things, sitting here with his mom and Kat, sharing breakfast together. When they were with Tonya, he and Kat could pretend they were just a couple of teenagers in love. They could pretend that they weren’t professionally speeding towards a gaping and unforeseeable future, with inscrutable outside pressures and the hard questions he and Kat had yet to bring up to each other.
Kat smiled over at him then, as if prompted by his thoughts. She was a palm-lined path on the warm pavement and twinkle lights on the water, the dreamy reflection of their long walk around the pool the night before.
“I think I’ll go for a dip in the pool later this morning,” Tonya said, leaning back in her chair as she stretched out her berry-painted toes.
