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“Nice to meet you, too,” I ground out stiffly. “I’m X.”
“X? Just... X?” Sophie asked, tossing a stray lock of dark hair over her shoulder. My eyes tracked the swish of the wavy strands behind her slim neck.
“It’s the closest translation for the first digit in my identification code.”
“Ah,” she said, nodding slowly. Members of the Chimera Guard didn’t have given names, not in the way the humans and some of the other cultures I knew of did. And my ID code was far too long for anyone to remember. So X it was.
“Well, I’m sorry for creeping on you. I was just trying to check out my new workplace. Obviously, I wasn’t very subtle.”
I snorted, and a look of surprise, followed by a shy smile, passed over Sophie’s face.
“Obviously not,” I replied.
“Yeah, and, well... I just wasn’t expecting... you.”
“I get it,” I said after a pause. Most members of the Chimera Guard chose to remain at their posts after their mandatory service to the Empire ended. Either that, or they hired themselves out as mercenaries to other government bodies. My chosen path to a quiet life had been an unusual one. I knew that. And I had to commend how quickly she was recovering from her obvious shock and fear at the sight of me. At this point in the short conversation, she was smiling more broadly and less nervously, showing straight, small, white human teeth.
Those little flat teeth were worrying at her pink lower lip, now, and I found it difficult to tear my eyes away.
“Well, I guess I should go, then. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I could have let her go. Let her get back to her room and her life for the night. But instead, I heard words coming out of my mouth before I’d even registered I’d said them.
“Do you want to see inside the shop?”
And she could have said no. But her dark brows rose, and she smiled again, nodding.
“Yes, please.”
