Chapter Twelve The Stowaway
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Stowaway
No Sian, though. That was worrying. Where had he disappeared to after our dance?
I righted the shelf and had started to clean up the mess when something sneezed under the cooler. Curious, I bent down to look.
Two wide yellow eyes blinked back.
My tension melted into annoyance. “Lemme guess, this is your mess?”
In reply, the creature hissed.
“Yes, yes, you’re very fierce. Hungry?” I added, pushing myself to my feet, and rifled through the cooler for a bit of bone meat Veebee used for stock. I squatted back down and offered it to her.
Noola sniffed, unsure.
I set the snack down in front of her to let her get to it in her own time. “I won’t space you.”
Noola looked at the meat like it was a trap.
“I won’t poison you, either.”
The creature decided I was telling the truth—or maybe she was just more hungry than suspicious—and eased out, ears forward, to shove the snack into her mouth whole.
I scrubbed behind her head, and she purred. “Now, where’s your owner?”
I checked the pantry, half expecting to see him squeezed between a large sack of topatos and Batuuan clementines, but regrettably no one was there.
Noola chirped, so I asked her, “Where’s he staying?”
Her ears pinwheeled to me before she sat back on her haunches and looked toward the corner of the galley on the other side of the scratch table.
Right, the preserved goods pantry. Veebee didn’t use it often, aside for storing sacks of grain and some freeze-dried jerkies.
I went over and pressed the button to open the door. It creaked open.
Most of the grain and jerky had been pushed to the back of the storage room, and a makeshift hammock that looked like one of the tarps we used to cover our supplies in the hangar was slung across the length of the space.
His gray jacket was hung on a nail protruding from one of the metal shelves, and his boots slouched by the door.
Noola had gathered root vegetable peels Veebee dropped from the cutting board and bits of cloth, making a little nest for herself beneath the hammock.
They’d certainly moved in, hadn’t they.
I fingered the hole in his jacket from the blaster on Coruscant, thinking that I could darn that pretty quickly with some thread, but on closer inspection the entire piece of clothing was worse for wear.
There was another hole in the sleeve and faded blaster marks on the opposite shoulder, which was threadbare and dusty.
“Who is he?” I asked Noola, just as the door to the galley opened.
Sian stepped inside with a towel draped over his shoulders, wearing clean trousers and a linen shirt with the sleeves rolled up to reveal rather indecent forearms. The attire looked very much like his clothes when we’d met.
I guessed he’d worn the seasonal uniform while his own clothes were in the wash.
His hair stuck up at odd angles, darker when damp, and droplets of water still clung to the tips from his shower.
With the grime of Coruscant washed away, he looked like a new man.
Not respectable, but I didn’t think I would like him that way—
Like him? Oh, stars. I was in trouble.
I cut my eyes away from him quickly, remembering myself.
“Well, hello there,” he greeted happily, the door closing behind him. “Did the rest of your party go well?”
“Fine,” I replied, because I didn’t want to think about the master key at all. “How did you disappear so quickly at the party?”
He clicked his tongue in admonishment and grabbed a date from a bowl on the scratch table, then popped it into his mouth. “I told you I’m good at slipping away. Not my fault you didn’t believe me.”
I folded my arms over my chest. “Then why couldn’t you slip away from Coruscant without my help?”
“I said I’m good at it, not great,” he pointed out. “And I was a little frazzled, honestly.”
“Right.”
“Who was the person who brought you a drink?” he asked, his voice curiously neutral. He picked at a thread on his shirt.
My eyebrows jerked up in surprise. Was he—was he jealous? “That was my brother, Val.”
“Your brother,” he repeated, nodding. “And he…”
“Is apparently only here for my birthday. He doesn’t visit often.” I hesitated and then lied, looking down at my feet. “He works on Corellia. I take it you came to an agreement with Veebs?” I asked, changing the subject.
He gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Yeah, I can stay in the pantry if I become her taster until I get off.”
Which was a fate worse than being spaced, but I wasn’t about to tell him that.
It was only until tomorrow. No one would find him in the pantry before then. I just had to make sure of it.
“You two should stay in the galley until you leave tomorrow,” I said. “Which means no more field trips.”
Sian visibly wilted. “You’re kidding!”
“No, I’m not,” I replied as Noola scurried up my body and perched on my shoulder. I scratched her under her chin, and she began purring. “Especially you. You’re cute, but that won’t save you.”
“How dare you. It’s saved her every time so far,” he replied indignantly, bypassing me to go in his makeshift room and hanging his towel on another protruding piece of metal.
“Well, if Kotti catches her, she might end up on a leash.”
He clicked his tongue again, his black eyes gleaming in the low light of his room like far-off solar flares. “Don’t tease us with a good time, Starlight.”
A flush heated my cheeks again. “No,” I said quickly, backing away from him. “No, we’re not doing this.”
He tilted his head. A smile tugged at his mouth. “Doing what?”
“This.” And I motioned to him. And then to me. And then to him again. “This thing.”
Delighted, he leaned against the doorframe of his new room, a hand on his hip. “Flirting isn’t a dirty word, Starlight.”
Flirting—was that what this was? It felt more like a gauntlet.
“My name is Ardent,” I corrected. “Not Starlight. I don’t even know how you got Starlight. You’re the one who looks like you were made from star stuff.”
His eyes widened, and so did his smile. “Is that a compliment, Ardent?”
Come to think of it, I didn’t like how he said my name, either, in that Wild Spacer drawl of his, long on the Aaah, rumbling on the r, the end of it like a soft sigh. No, I would rather not be perceived at all, thank you.
And was I blushing harder? Oh, stars, I was.
I turned on my heel and left the galley then, and I suspected he thought he’d run me off, but I went back a few minutes later with an armful of pillows and a thick comforter.
“Here. It gets cold down here at night. Tomorrow is Alderaan, and I have an excursion to lead, so I don’t think I’ll be seeing you off.
Your lightsaber will be in the top drawer of my dresser.
The door to my room will be unlocked. So—” As I handed him the comforter and pillows, his hands brushed mine.
The callouses on his fingertips were hard, his touch light.
Gooseflesh prickled across my skin. I glanced up into his star-strewn eyes.
They were impossible to look at, beautiful and terrifying, like a night sky cracked open.
This would be the last time I’d see him, wouldn’t it?
The realization curdled in my chest, tight and horrid. What was wrong with me? I was good at saying goodbye. I’d done it a thousand times. And besides, I barely knew this boy. He barely knew me. Though, what if he got to know me better? What if we’d danced a little longer?
What if he stayed?
With a start I dropped the linens.
“Safe travels, Sian,” I forced out. Then I retreated out of the galley again, but not before pausing in the doorway. “I…” I’m glad I met you. No, no, too familiar. Too raw. “Good night.”
“Good night, Ardent,” he said. Did he sound like he wanted to say something else, too? But all he said was “Thank you. I owe you my life.”
I kept my cool right until I locked myself in my room, and then I slid down my door to puddle on the ground and press my face against my knees. My cheeks burned. What was wrong with me? Every time he spoke, he made me feel things I didn’t want to feel, and I didn’t know what to do about any of it.
And right now?
A crush was the last thing I needed.