CHAPTER 27 KAT
A FEW afternoons later Kat perched on Lee’s bed with her holoblock balanced on her knees, and her feet in his lap.
Some of the Placement chatter had thankfully died down, giving her and Lee more time to process everything.
She’d known things were changing, she wasn’t oblivious.
Even if some days she wished she could just curl up and go back to oblivion. Back to when things were easier.
She hadn’t taken any further steps into submitting her application—not since her conversation with Lee. Instead, she’d funneled her nervous energies into an upcoming pre-raid crash course she’d volunteered to help host for their third years.
She wondered if anyone in the history of the Academy had ever taken this long to submit their applications, and if Commander Blanche had simply extended the deadlines as a courtesy to them.
“You still working on lesson plans?” Lee asked, glancing her way.
“Nah. Crash course. I figured I’d get ahead while we had some time. I want to make it interesting for my IRs, it’s such a critical year. And speaking of my IRs—what were we into during our third year? Was it just spaceships and raids?”
“I mean, I think that was also the year we figured out how to break into the kitchens,” Lee said, one hand resting on her boot as he tracked something on his holoblock.
“Adrenaline and food,” Kat snorted, “so basic.”
“Are you going to offer to bring snacks?” Lee teased.
But it was all coming back to her now. “I feel like you had a crush on that girl, Kinzie.”
“She was the red-head, right?” Lee asked, actually taking his eyes off the glowing files as he pretended to think.
Kat nudged his hand with her boot.
“She had a weird laugh.” Lee shrugged.
“Nice,” Kat said, going back to her lesson strategy.
“You really remember Kinzie?” Lee asked
“It’s like you said, she had a weird laugh,” Kat said, fascinated that she could still recall the irksome, four-year-old prickles, a feeling she hadn’t even grasped the meaning of at the time.
She looked up as he squeezed the bridge of her foot.
“Kinzie was never you. And your IRs? They’ll be fine with whatever you can throw at them— they’ve got you for an instructor. Just trust your instincts.”
“That’s the problem right now. My instincts are shot,” Kat said, slicing through the hologram open before her. “What are you working on over there? Didn’t you already finish all your lesson plans?”
“I’m just flailing,” he said, waving his hand over his holoblock. “Waiting for clear answers that don’t exist to magically materialize before me.”
She understood the feeling.
But Lee didn’t go back to his holoblock as he flicked his eyes back to her. “Hey, I’m really sorry about ditching the other day. It was careless. I didn’t think about what it would mean for us.”
“I know,” Kat said, unable to resist curling her toe a little into his leg at the anguish in his green eyes.
“I think it threw me a little. This is what we’ve always talked about.
We’re so close.” She shook her head. The closer they seemed to get, the more the idea of it repelled her; like she was the wrong side of a magnet.
She had no idea what the solution was here.
“Hey, we’ll figure it out, yeah?” Lee asked. And she couldn’t help the little smile that tugged at her lips as she traced over that undiluted hope and determination in his boyish face.
“Yeah. We’ll figure it out.” She sighed, sinking back down into his bed. “What time was your mom calling?”
Lee checked his hyperband. “We have about five minutes. We probably ought to—”
“Yeah,” Kat agreed, dragging her feet from his lap as she sat up.
While Lee fussed with the pillow arrangement, she curled her legs under her as she smoothed down the square of comforter on either side of her.
She’d known Tonya almost as long as she’d known Lee; Tonya had always treated her with warmth.
But now more than ever, with her and Lee’s new relationship status being where it was, she felt like she was actually a part of something. Like they were hers.
And while it wasn’t exactly new anymore—flashes from a heated moment the night before crinkled in her mind—she’d never had this before, with anyone.
Lee was tinkering with the holoblock on his desk when Tonya’s virtual call connected with the token blips.
“Hello honey—and is that Kat with you?” Tonya’s brilliant white smile grew noticeably wider when she noticed Kat also sitting there.
“I told you she’d be with me,” Lee muttered.
But when he glanced over towards Kat, there was no embarrassment on his face.
Instead a quiet smile greeted her. A boy who still couldn’t believe this sweep of fate, as he moved with absolutely zero shyness and at ease to perch beside her.
He leaned casually back on an arm, his hand falling over her knee.
“They’ve had you guys back in that drab black a lot lately, haven’t they?”
It took Kat a full minute to realize to what Tonya was referring. Lee had gone down some tangent about “supply and demand,” before she recalled the other “suit” for which Tonya would be referring.
Those strange synthetics he’d worn back onboard Segura.
She bit her lips down in a tight smile before her face could betray anything. She still couldn’t believe the timing with everything that had happened. Such a coincidence. And within that same hour, everything about that mission had gone to shit.
“I had so much fun with you two this last break,” Tonya was saying, strolling over any heavy implications, as blissful and at ease as ever.
“I was thinking maybe we should plan something for after you two graduate. There will be a couple weeks there where you are free, won’t there?
It’s such a big deal. Bri was so thrilled we took her up on her suggestion with Bala, she’s got a whole list of resort-planets and destination vacations she wants us to visit next. ”
“We’ll check our schedules, it’s still a few months out,” Kat said politely. She honestly wasn’t sure what kind of break cadets usually got between graduation and training. Not to mention who knew what position she and Lee would be in given their application situation…
“It will be here before you know it,” Tonya beamed.
And Kat knew she meant it to be encouraging, but Kat’s stomach sank even further into her gut as Tonya went on.
“Let me know too, as soon as you know anything about end-of-program ceremonies. Your dad always has something, but I made Thea clear his schedule for those last couple of weeks just in case. I told him this is one occasion he won’t want to miss. ”
A faint blush colored Lee’s cheeks at the mention of his dad attending.
She melted a little to see this sort of shy pride shining there.
Mr. Waters would be pleased for his son, who wouldn’t be?
And with the commendation of graduating with the rankings and honors that they both held.
But there was also something in his face she placed closer to sorrow…
“And Kat, honey, Thea and I would be more than happy to assist with accommodating your family relations in any means that may be needed.”
“Oh, that won’t be necessary,” she said much too quickly. She could feel her cheeks burning as she turned away, massaging the skin with her palm.
She felt the solid weight of Lee’s arm stretch across her shoulders, his fingers gently squeezing her forearm. “It’s still a ways out, let’s wait to solidify plans until it’s a little closer.”
“Of course,” Tonya said quickly, realizing her misstep with more grace than Kat would ever expect given the disparity of their situations.
But Kat also hadn’t expected the sudden emotion that welled up in Tonya’s eyes.
“I just can’t believe you guys are almost done,” she said, dabbing softly with a tissue before any water could fall on her perfect makeup.
“It feels like yesterday that I was dropping Leland off. And then word of this blonde cadet with a ponytail kept cropping into all of his weekly phone calls…”
Kat’s hand stilled where she’d been toying with Lee’s hand. Always.
“Not all of them,” Lee said, feigning annoyance. But he shot her a grin when he thought Tonya wasn’t watching.
You, Kat mouthed, keeping his little secret smile for herself as they moved on to less trivial updates about recent Solar Cosmetic product lines and Tonya’s expanded territory coverage.
“We really appreciate you,” Kat said as they were ending their call. And she meant every word. Tonya was everything—and more than she could ever hope for as a mother-like figure in her life. She was a dream she’d never dared to let herself yearn.
“We’ll call you soon, mom,” Lee said, rising to his feet once more to disconnect the call from his holoblock.
But he didn’t immediately sit down. He adjusted the holoblock’s position on his desk, neatly aligning it parallel with the rim before resting both hands flat against the desk’s surface.
“I really love your mom. She sounds excited,” Kat commented, watching his careful feng shui.
“Yeah. Yeah, I think she is. What she understands about the program, anyway. You know as well as I that she only knows a small fraction of what we do,” he said, pointedly. “But I think she’s proud of us.”
Us. There it was again, a whisper from that gnawing cavity inside her.
Lee had gone back to staring down at his desk. She studied him, the tension in his back. In his hands.
And are you? Are you proud of us, she wanted to ask.
But she let those thoughts fall; she let those thoughts wisp away on the overhead draft.
The questions felt as heavy as the gravity simulated onboard their ship.
She smoothed a hand down a slight wrinkle in Lee’s grey and green plaid comforter.
His room was just as clean, just as neat as ever.
Tonya really should be proud of her son.
Everything he was. All of the values he now tested and navigated ran through a filter system Tonya had helped instill in him.
“I like that she gets you these things,” she said, patting the soft down of Lee’s duvet once more. “The blankets. The matching sheet sets. The care packages.”
“She’d get them for you too, if you’d let her,” Lee said, carefully, looking up once more, this time straightening as he pushed himself away from the desk.
On deliberate steps, he came to crouch down so that his eyes rested level with hers.
“Kat. She’s there for you, too. You’re family.
You know that, right?” He paused, and she flicked her eyes up to meet his.
“Your aunt, as well. I know that was an offhand remark for her to make. But we would never let anything happen to you.” Lee sighed, his turn to stare down at the floor.
“Regardless of what happens with Placement,” he said quietly.
And there was that sentiment again. We.
Kat swallowed. She knew that he was aware of the utility payments. The temporary income afforded to them by Kat’s scholarship compensation fund with the Raider Program. The extra toll she carried to support the two of them. She wasn’t proud of the situation.
She’d heard things had been different for Vyna—before her aunt had lost her sister.
Before she’d gotten saddled with Kat. But this was all Kat had ever known, and wasted or not, Kat was all her aunt had; it was all either of them had.
Before this. Before Lee and Tonya. Her eyes were brimming and about to overflow as Tonya’s had as they met Lee’s again.
“I’m surprised she didn’t bring up your great grandfather today,” Kat said on sniffly breaths to lighten the mood.
“Great great—there are two greats,” Lee corrected her. “Ah, but we’ve heard enough of the space farmer to last us a lifetime haven’t we?” Lee asked, rising to his feet once more, only to collapse over top of her.
She was laughing as she squirmed under him, angling herself upward so that he could nestle beside her, with just his head resting in her lap.
“He was a space farmer like you,” Kat mused, resisting the urge to touch his freckles as she traced the beautiful places of his face.
“I wonder if that was really his occupation, for all Tonya loves to embellish her histories,” Lee mused.
She watched the pigment of his eyes shift from the sharp edges of an emerald to more of a thoughtful spring.
They’d returned to a billowing tree-green, before she contracted the muscles in her stomach, arching up onto her elbows.
“So how many phonecalls were we talking?” Kat winked.
“Come here, you.”