HMS Valediction

Chapter 37.4

The rest of the day blurs by in a haze. I grab at anything to distract me from the shuttle idling in my personal hangar with coordinates to a neighboring star where Dean is hoping for someone to pull him out of trouble.

At dinner, Hux swings his legs back and forth. He rocks in time to the beat of a song in his head that doesn't play for the rest of us. His aim is terrible and food mashes around his mouth. I absently wipe it away while staring out the window into the distant galaxy. Is Dean dying in that direction?

Nuna slips into the spot next to Hux. He pays no attention to her as she gazes at me angrily over the top of his messy head.

"Do not go," she says. "It would be foolish."

"So you're talking to me again?"

She glares. "This is serious, Janika. It feels wrong like a trap."

"I thought about that."

"Why do you continue staring out the window, then? Your mind is ten thousand stars away from me."

"I'm not!" I try to keep my voice down, but even I can detect the defensive whine.

Nuna retrieves Hux's discarded fork. She steals a piece of his meat from his plate and contemplates it. "It is insulting that you still hide these feelings from me."

I cross my arms over my chest and stare off into the stars again. "It's not black and white. It feels like it should be, but it's not."

"You want to go?"

"With all my heart."

Nuna pops the meat into her mouth. She chews and keeps all focus on my eyes. "Speaking for the captain as this ship's first mate, I forbid it."

In my past life, maybe I would have gnashed my teeth in frustration. The fire of defiance would have been lit under my feet and I would have leaped over the sun if it meant doing what I thought was best in the situation.

Instead, I pick up a piece of Hux's dinner between my fingers and plop it into my mouth. He gazes up at me and grins, dried mashed potatoes cracking on the edge of his lips.

"Okay," I say.

Nuna leans back, reaches behind Hux's chair, and rests her hand on my shoulder. That hand slides down my arm, finds my own hand, and intertwines her fingers with mine. "Speaking as your lover and the one who keeps your happiness in her heart, I understand why returning has an alluring pull. I understand why you wish to go."

I squeeze her hand.

"Don't go. Don't abandon the peace we have found here." Her eyes widen, her long, thick lashes stretching to the stars.

More than anything right now, I want to kiss her. The fear radiating through her eyes is clear as sunlight. Why do I do this to people I cherish? Even Hux has learned that particular reaction and it kills me. Squeezing her hand and rubbing my thumb over the smooth expanse of her skin, I pour all my soul into the word. "Okay."

After a nightcap at Uncle Teeno's—or a quiet hour of me and Nuna sharing a glass of smooth liquor, our lips kissing the same spot on the cup the other had touched moments before—and Teeno chasing Hux around, we all return to my cabin.

Nuna and I tuck Hux into bed. We kiss his brow and wish him brilliant, bright, beautiful dreams. After toggling the privacy setting my bedroom, we fall into bed together, our limbs tangled and our lips plump from the force of our merging. We become one rhythm as we pick up where we left off this morning, Nuna panting into my neck as I send her reeling through the stars. When we're spent, she drapes her arm around me and pulls me to her front. We mimic a crescent moon with our bodies, not sure if we're waning or waxing, but content to be luminous for the moment.