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Rick suddenly finds the pavement fascinating.

I point at him. “Loose lips sink ships, Richard.”

“My name is Rick.”

“Not today.” I frown at him. I notice the amused expression hasn’t left his face yet. I turn back to the man refusing to let me fly.

Christopher’s mouth twitches again. I catch it, and his expression resets instantly, a door closing on a room I glimpsed but wasn’t allowed into.

“You almost smiled.” I don’t know why it matters to me, but it does. I want to see what his face looks like lit up with laughter. What an odd thing to think about a stranger.

“No, I didn’t.” He argues.

“You absolutely did.”

Rick says, “He doesn’t smile much.”

“Helpful,” Christopher mutters.

“I love intel,” I say.

Rick reaches for my checklist. “We’re scrubbing the flight.”

I clutch it tighter. “Wait.”

“No,” he says with a headshake.

“Can we at least taxi?”

“No.”

“Chair fly?”

“You can chair fly.”

I gasp dramatically, wounded, betrayed, possibly dying. “Fine.”

“Good,” Christopher says.

“Did you just approve of me?”

“I approved of the decision.”

“Same thing.”

“It isn’t.”

I study him. There’s something about his stillness that feels almost aggressive without actually being aggressive, like he takes up exactly the space he needs and not an inch more, which somehow makes him more commanding than a man who takes up all of it. I realize I’m bouncing on the balls of my feet. I stop. His eyes flick down, then back up.

He noticed.

Of course he did. Somewhere deep in my chest, a small, quiet, entirely inconvenient part of Something in me sits up a little straighter, pleased to have been seen. I stomp on that feeling immediately. We are not doing this. We just met.

“Since you’ve ruined my morning, what would you suggest instead?”

“Sleep. Eat. Hydrate.”

I snort.