10. CHAPTER TEN #2
“It should be,” Yuki said. “Most randoms who wander onto this tour don’t get the ‘tell me before you disappear’ speech. They get a security escort back to the lobby.”
“I just don’t want to be the reason everything gets harder,” I said. “For her. For you. For the press.”
“You are not the reason things are hard,” Lyn said. “Things are hard because this whole industry is built on a scaffolding of expectations and nonsense. You’re just the first person in a long time who is actually worth navigating the nonsense for.”
“That sounded very sincere,” I said.
“Don’t get used to it,” she said, then jabbed the air with her chopsticks. “Eat the egg. Dune made that for you specifically.”
“That is incorrect,” Dune said over the speaker. “I made it for the table.”
“Should have cooked them a tad less, Dune,” Yuki said.
“I’d like to see you cook eggs, Yuki,” Dune said.
Lyn and I laughed while Yuki rolled his eyes.
By the time the bowl was empty, the edges of Sira’s words had dulled from knife-sharp to something closer to a warning label. Still there. Still important. Less likely to slice me open on contact.
“Go to bed,” Lyn said, kicking my calf lightly beneath the table. “She’s going to be pacing a groove in the floor by now.”
“Do not let her pace,” Dune added. “Her boots scuff the panels, and I have to look at them.”
“Message received.”
I got up and walked over to the recycler chute. I dropped my empty bowl inside and pushed out of the mess hall. The door slid shut behind me, muting the last scraps of conversation and clatter.
The main corridor felt different at night. Most of the overhead strips were dimmed, leaving pockets of shadow between pools of soft light. A tech padded past in socks, eyes half-closed, cradling a mug as if it were life support.
Somewhere toward the front, someone laughed. The sound was brief and tired before a door hissed shut on it.
I moved on autopilot—past the viewing-bubble ladder and past the row of bunks with their curtains half-drawn and nameplates glowing low. A pair of trainers sat abandoned in the middle of the walkway, so I nudged them to the side with my foot so no one would trip over them later.
The ship’s systems buzzed beneath my boots, a steady background vibration.
By the time I turned down the short, quieter hall leading to the larger cabins, the sounds had thinned to almost nothing. Just the faint spill of someone’s music from a distant bunk, more of a muffled thump than an actual melody, and the soft hiss of air through the vents.
The corridor outside our room was quiet, washed in the low blue of too late to be awake unless you’re on shift.
Our door panel glowed when I stopped in front of it, the nameplates washing my hand in soft light as I reached out. I pressed my palm to the sensor, and the lock released. The door slid open on a quiet breath of cooler air.
Zhari was lying on her stomach across the bed, propped up on her elbows with a tablet in front of her. Her legs were bent, her feet kicking lazily in the air.
The lavender hoodie from that morning lay draped over the chair. She’d changed into a soft tank top and loose shorts, her hair twisted into a high, messy bun with a few loose strands slipping across her eyes.
She looked up the second I came in.
“There you are,” she said. “I was about to start composing a very tragic ballad about Sira stealing you.”
I closed the door and leaned back against it for a second.
“Pretty sure she just wanted to add me to a chart,” I said with a sigh. “No alien abduction involved.”
I shrugged.
Her eyes narrowed slightly.
“She upset you,” she said. It was more a statement than a question.
“Not… on purpose.” I crossed to the bed. “She showed me some things. Posts. Screenshots. Apparently, I have a supporting role in the fan forums now.”
I sat on the edge of the mattress as she rolled over to face me, folding her legs beneath her.
“Supporting role?” she repeated. “Do you have any lines?”
“Mostly, I stand near crates and look overwhelmed,” I said. “It’s a very nuanced performance.”
Her mouth twitched, but she didn’t laugh. One of her hands found mine instead.
“What did she say?” she asked.
“That I’m not a mistake,” I said. “That I’m a ‘stabilizing force,’ which is honestly the nicest thing anyone has ever called me. And that I’m also a risk. That the label is paying attention. That I need to stop standing where cameras can see us and giving the internet puzzle pieces.”
“She is not wrong,” Zhari said quietly. “About the cameras.”
“I know,” I said. “Hearing it out loud just… made something in my chest do this.”
I made a tight fist over my sternum.
“I keep expecting someone to tap me on the shoulder and tell me there’s been a mix-up. ‘Sorry, ma’am. It turns out you were meant to stay on Earth and process invoices. Please step off the tour bus.’”
Her fingers tightened around mine.
“No one is going to say that,” she said. “Not while I am here.”
“You can’t control what the label does,” I said.
“That is true,” she said. “But I can control who is allowed in my bed, in my space, and in my life. You are here because I want you here. Not because Sira approved. Not because some algorithm circled your face.”
“Sira sees you as variables and trend lines,” she went on. “She looks at you and sees a pattern. I look at you and see the girl who drew my hands for forty minutes straight in the mess and thought I did not notice.”
Heat rushed to my cheeks.
“That was a hand study,” I protested weakly.
“Well, you draw me beautifully.”
I dropped my gaze, blinking away the sting in my eyes.
“I don’t want to break anything,” I said. “Not the tour. Not your career. Not this.”
“You are not going to break me,” she said. “Many things have tried. Drivian Rain Storms. Bad contracts. Men who thought they owned my time. I am still here. You sleeping in my bed is not going to be the thing that finally takes me out.”
A startled laugh slipped out of me.
“When you put it like that…”
“I am not saying it will be easy,” she said. “There will be ugly comments. People who decide they do not like you on principle. People who feel entitled to me and think you have taken something from them.”
“Can’t wait,” I said dryly.
“But there will also be people who see you and think, ‘Oh. Someone like me can be loved by someone like her.’ That matters more than the first group.”
I looked up. Her gaze was steady, not trying to sweet-talk me out of my fear. Just holding it with me.
“Sira told me that if it gets too much, I have to tell her before I ghost,” I said. “That you’d figure something out.”
“Then you will tell her,” she said. “And we will figure it out together. You do not get to disappear without saying goodbye. That is not allowed.”
“Is that a tour rule?”
“That is a me rule,” she said.
She tugged lightly on my hand.
“Come lie down,” she murmured. “Let today be done. Tomorrow, we can think about labels and planets and which side of the stage has the fewest cameras. We take off for Minia tonight. Tomorrow is a brand new day.”
I let her pull me up onto the bed. She flicked off the main light, and the fiber-optic stars overhead brightened, scattering soft points of light across the ceiling and duvet.
She curled in beside me as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. One leg hooked over mine. One arm looped around my waist, her hand settling flat on my stomach. She leaned in and pressed soft kisses against my shoulder blade.
I needed someone to pinch me because, despite being the girl everyone was gossiping about, this was the greatest dream I’d ever had.