CHAPTER 5 KAT #2
His lips were electric—magnetic and tantalizing.
Each touch a jolt of static as Lee took her weight from her and slowly lowered her down on top of him, until it was just she and him and that strange, kinetic pull that had always drawn them together.
She was prepared to spend the rest of the afternoon hiding away down here and testing this new static.
They both flinched as the door split open on the opposite end of the room.
Kat jumped off of Lee, heart pattering in her chest as she turned, scrubbing her hands down her face. When she peered back around, she saw Lee had also risen to his feet. He stood there, adjusting the fabric of his pants before rolling his shoulders back.
Kat’s eyes widened before she burst out laughing.
His eyes were twinkling when he motioned with his head for her to follow him over to the far end of the room. They collected their things, leaving the matted room and one very confused cadet behind them.
They were rounding the hallway again, Lee claiming they’d scarred the poor cadet and Kat insisting it was for the betterment of the cadet’s personal education, when Kiara and Kamata dipped their way.
The twins stopped mid-stride.
“Hey.” Kamata’s hands slid coolly to her hips.
“Hey yourself.” Kat nodded, all of her giddy energy evaporating. In its place, only chilly tension lingered, fused much too heavily with memories from the last time they’d been together on the raid.
“Kiara,” Lee said, interjecting himself into their staring contest, but Kat kept her eyes on the twins.
“Seen any space alligators slinking around?” Kiara dragged her eyes casually across to Lee, before letting them jump back over to Kat, the black zircon piercing in her nose glinting.
What the actual void?
Kat glanced between Lee and Kiara. She was clearly missing something, but the ridiculousness and arcane nature of the notion had cracked some of the strain between them.
While still very much in the dark, Kat let a grin taper her lips. “I heard you guys saw Whistler?” They’d always been close. The four of them had a bit of a thing going between them for a while, there.
“He snuck us some food from the Canteen a couple times,” Kamata confided.
“He’s been seeing people,” Kiara added.
People. Plural.
“Glad he’s keeping busy,” Lee said.
“He’s had his hands full,” Kiara agreed, brows waggling.
But Kat got it. The random dates were his way of coping. For the twins, perhaps they had each other. And for her, what was her way of dealing?
But the answer was right in front of her.
Lee.
She leaned into Lee for all the heavy lifting and wading. She’d always leaned on Lee. Even before she was fully cognizant of it.
She watched him in awe as he joked with the twins about the Canteen needing to stock some better snacks behind closed doors, a white peace flag waving between them.
“We were just heading down to the anti-gravity chamber for a little… crash course.” Care to join?” Kamata asked. And the way she said crash…
Oh, would she, ever. The mayhem they could cause there… But to spare Lee from whatever was left of his moral high-ground after all of these years, she politely declined on their behalf.
“We’ll see you around, then,” Kiara winked, the look in her eyes already going mischievous as the twins disappeared around the corner.
They’d made it to the lower skywalk before Lee voiced his concern. “What could they even get up to with the grav-chamber?”
Kat spared him the answer to his question, still watching him as she nudged his arm. “And I didn’t think you liked the twins.”
“They grow on you.” Lee nudged her right back.
They stopped walking when they reached the far side of the skywalk, the smells and chatter from the Canteen launching a full frontal attack after their sanctuary in the training levels these past couple of hours.
At least half a dozen of the younger cadets paused on their way in to compliment Lee on his Laser Rounds performance—each of which Lee was quick to shrug off.
But Kat couldn’t do more than blink. Even standing here outside those doors, her fear rooted her to the spot.
How was she ever supposed to face the Academy again?
The Laser Rounds were one thing. But to make small talk and pretend that they hadn’t learned what they’d learned, or seen what they’d seen.
That she wasn’t still rocked to her core over seeing that side of their General or what the AMG was capable—an outcome they’d very much played a part in bringing about.
That is assuming the other cadets hadn’t paid any heed to all of the political developments onboard the ship since they’d returned…
“They’re not talking about us,” Lee assured her, wrapping an arm loosely about her shoulders, guessing correctly where her thoughts had gone.
She met his eyes but couldn’t return the confidence. “We don’t know that. It’s been four days. Anyone could have seen the General’s ships in the hangar, or seen us heading back and forth to meet with the Commander. We don’t know what they’re saying right now.”
“Oh, we might.”
Letting his arm fall away from her, she eyed him suspiciously, her full attention now focused entirely on him. But Lee instead faced the Canteen doors. “I was in here the other morning.”
“You went without me?” She smacked his shoulder.
Lee held up his hands, fending off against further attacks. “It was biscuits and gravy day. The grease practically dragged me in here. I promise I told my stomach to wait.”
“Single-minded.”