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I’ve missed him so, so much. This all feels so tenuous.
“Hey,” I say. “I actually got you something a while ago and I was wondering if you would mind coming to my quarters?”
His lips curl in a lazy smirk that I recognize as being the precursor to somethingmuchdirtier than what I have in mind—but he seems to stop himself mid-smile, his hand gripping mine tightly.
“Yeah,” he says. “Of course.”
I lead him down the halls of the Wrath, a way he might not even know. I guess hemustknow where I sleep given his intimate knowledge of the ships he pilots, but he’s never actually been to my room since the Naiad was destroyed. He looks a little uncomfortable when I lead him into the room, looking around like a boy I’ve just hauled into my dorm.
“It’s uh…bigger than your last room,” he says.
“Yeah,” I say. “Is it wrong that I hate it?”
His lips quirk. “No, I hate it too.”
I want to kiss him so badly it’s making my face twitch. So I turn away from him and stride toward the little climate-controlled chamber at the back of my quarters, kneeling to open it and reach inside. I can feel Kye’s mismatched eyes on me the whole time, as hot as if he was trailing kisses down my throat and shoulders.
I know he’s trying not to solve all his problems with sex. And I don’t want to get in the way of that, and he may be willing to do the Elixir thing, but he doesn’t have to fuck me…
“I got these in a market on Alamancia before we left,” I say, spinning around with the precious, freezing package held in my shaking hands. “I’ve been saving them for a special occasion.”
Kye’s eyes go wide as he looks down at the crinkly red packaging. “No fucking way…french fries?”
I can’t help the anxious laugh that creeps out of my throat, a little too loud and awkward. “Yeah,” I say. “I just—I was going to use them as a peace offering after we had our last talk that night, and then you got angry at me again and I just…well, it didn’t feel right to eat them by myself.”
He shifts forwards and backwards on his feet. The way he moves has changed with his new prosthetics. “You got some way to heat them up?” he asks.
“Of course I did,” I say. “I’m not a monster.”
He laughs, and I think it’s the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard.
I busy myself throwing them into a dish and then tossing them into the Merati portable warmer I picked up months ago. I think it was originally designed for some kind of essential oil—and I can onlyhopeit will work for food, since I’ve never actually used it—so I breathe a sigh of relief when I see the fries begin to crisp up in the glass chamber. I gasp when a little puff of smoke erupts from it, pressing a button to open the lid and waving the smoke away.
Kye is at my elbow in an instant, checking out the goods.
“Shit,” he says. “Why don’t you burn the whole damn place down while you’re at it?”
I gesture at the fries. “Um…worth it?”
We laugh together as I take the dish carefully out of the warmer and take a seat on my bed. I tuck my feet underneath me and sit with my legs criss-crossed, facing Kye. “I’m guessing there’s not any chance you acquired ketchup, huh?” he asks.
“Hell no,” I say. “Do you know how much these cost me?”
“You’re a princess,” he says. “You could afford ketchup.”
I roll my eyes. “Princesson a budget.”
Kye laughs and pulls a fry out of the bowl and pops it in his mouth, his brow crinkling above his nose as he squeezes his eyes shut. “Damn; I didn’t realize how much I missed this,” he says. “Not as great as the onesIprepared, but—”
I shove his shoulder, colliding with hard steel and shaking out my knuckles with a hiss. “Hey,” I say. “You’ve had a lot more practice.”
“You could’ve dug into that bag a long time ago,” he says. “You didn’t have to wait for me.”
I meet his eyes, biting my lip. “No,” I say. “I really did.”
He draws one of his legs up under him, and my heart starts to pound in my chest when our knees touch, sparks crackling across my skin. We eat the rest of the fries in silence, though, just savoring the salt and the crunch of it all. It’s one of the few things that we still have from Earth—when we’ve already lost so much of our humanity, it feels like a warm hug.
Justbeing here with himfeels like an embrace.
