“When?”
“When you decoded my message and looked at me like I was a puzzle worth solving instead of a threat to avoid.”
His thumb traced along my jaw. I should have been cataloging this. Recording the data: pressure, temperature, the precise angle of his touch. Instead, my mind went quiet.
“This is a mistake,” I said.
“Probably.”
“We should maintain professional boundaries.”
“We should.”
Neither of us moved.
He leaned down. Gave me three full seconds to pull away, to say no, to retreat behind the walls I'd spent years building. I didn't move.
His lips were unexpectedly gentle against mine, a careful pressure that asked permission with every heartbeat. Heat spread through my chest—not calculation, but pure feeling.
I kissed him back and something in my chest unlocked.
Heat flooded through me. Not just physical, though that was there too. But feeling. Real, sharp, terrifying feeling. My hands found his chest, solid muscle under his shirt. He made a sound low in his throat and pulled me closer.
This was dangerous. This was what I'd been avoiding. This proof that I wasn't just a function but a person who could still want, still need, still break.
I pulled back. Stepped out of his reach. My lips felt swollen. My whole body felt too present, too alive.
“I can't.” The words came out rough. “I thought I could, but I can't.”
He didn't move closer. Just watched me, his chest rising and falling harder than normal. “Because you're scared.”
“Yes.”
“So am I.”
That admission made me look at him properly. I saw it then, beneath the want. The same fear I felt. The same understanding that this was bigger than either of us had calculated for.
“I should go,” I said.
He nodded once. Didn't try to stop me.
I left without looking back. Took the service corridor to my quarters on autopilot. Inside, I locked the door and stood there, back pressed against the metal, touching my lips.
Vonni would have laughed. Would have grabbed my shoulders and shaken me. Told me to take the risk, that life was too short to choose loneliness over the possibility of pain.
Five years dead and I could still hear her voice. Still feel her disappointment that I'd turned myself into a function instead of a person.
I lay down on my narrow bed. Stared at the water-stained ceiling. Replayed every moment of that kiss. The shift-change warning never came. Hours passed. I couldn't sleep.
I gave up late in the third shift and headed for the observation deck on Level 7. Not the lounge where we'd just been. The public deck that stayed open all night. I needed space. Stars. Something bigger than the weight in my chest.
He was already there.
Standing at the far window, silhouetted against the nebula's glow. Of course. In a station of thirty thousand beings, we'd found the same quiet corner at the same sleepless hour.
“Couldn't sleep either?” I said, wrapping my arms around myself as I moved to stand beside him.
“Sleep is complicated when your mind won't stop calculating probabilities.”
