Page 85 of Starfighter’s Salvation

“But you still did it?”

“That is my job.”

The answer satisfied her.

“Can I sit in the pilot’s chair?” Brin asked.

“No,” Tavar said.

“Yes,” Gina said at the same time.

The child looked between them.

“Starfighter Reyes outranks me,” Tavar admitted.

“Correct. Come on, honey.” Gina carried Brin up the ramp.

Sella followed, pulling her father by the hand. I showed them the cockpit, the medbay, and the rack where Tavar had spent the flight home. The girls asked questions without pause.

“What does this button do?”

“Emergency atmosphere. Do not touch it.”

“What about this one?”

“Also do not touch.”

“Are there any we can touch?”

I activated the landing lights. Both girls cheered. Gina stood in the cockpit doorway and the running glow caught the edges of her hair and the curve of the smile she was aiming at me. She looked at me across my own cockpit like she already knew every version of the man who had ever sat in that chair — the one who flew angry, the one who flew afraid, the one who had finally stopped flying alone — and had decided to keep every single fucked up version of me. Not that I was going to argue. I wanted every tomorrow she could give me. I was feeling greedy.

“You’re good with them.” Gina came close and slipped her hand into mine. Her smile was softer than I'd ever seen it, at least when it was directed at me.

“I turned on a light.”

Her quiet laughter made my heart ache in my chest. “Trust me. That’s ninety percent of the battle when dealing with small children.”

Tavar lowered himself into the copilot chair. His daughters climbed onto his knees. For several minutes, they pretended to fly the ship that had brought him home. I watched his mate wipe her eyes. Then I looked at Gina, because I always looked at Gina — five weeks, and my eyes still went to her first in any room, involuntary as breathing.

I looked at the ship. Gina’s hand stayed in mine automatically, like her body had memorized where mine would be.

We ate the cake in the rescue bay. Tavar’s mate had made enough for the deck crew, the medics, and anyone else who claimed to have participated in the extraction. Captain Wroxxon appeared for exactly four minutes, accepted one piece, and left after informing Tavar that his recovery was seven percent behind projected schedule.

“He likes you,” Gina told Tavar.

“I was afraid of that.”

The apprentices arrived in engineering uniforms. Cassia and Brennix came from a training rotation. Within an hour, the bay was full. The Salvation had once been an unnamed ship I kept empty unless regulations required otherwise.

Gina filled my ship, and my life, with people and cake.

That night, Gina pushed me onto the bed.

“You are supposed to be careful of my ribs,” I complained, but we both knew she was going to be naked beneath me in a matter of minutes.

“Your ribs are healed. I checked them this morning.” She stood beside the bed in a thin sleeping shirt that covered almost nothing, and her eyes moved over me the way they had in the medbay that first day — thorough, unhurried, missing nothing. The bond at my nape warmed as her attention settled, low and sure, with a heat that had become my entire reason for living.

“Gina.” One word. A question beneath it.