7. CHAPTER SEVEN #3
An extra-long pink throw blanket spilled over the edge. Its color was almost jarringly warm against the sterile metal and pale composite surfaces, like a defiant little piece of softness smuggled aboard.
The sitting area curved gently along one side, a bench molded to the wall with just enough give to suggest comfort rather than necessity. A narrow desk extended beside it, its surface clean except for a faint sheen where hands had rested, worked, or maybe lingered.
Storage compartments were seamlessly built into the walls, their outlines barely visible unless you knew where to look. Everything was designed to disappear and keep the illusion of space intact.
And then there was the viewport.
It dominated the far wall, a vast pane of reinforced glass that made the room feel as if it were floating rather than contained. Stars drifted past in a slow, endless slide—silent, distant, untouchable.
No planets. No stations. Nothing to anchor the view.
Just the quiet, dizzying reminder of how much nothing there was out there.
“The bunks are unfortunately full,” she announced with a slight smirk.
She walked in ahead of me, tossing her bag onto the bench as if she had already decided how this was going to go.
“Sira did not account for a guest when she booked the bus for the tour. Every pod is taken. This was the only space with room for a second person, and it just so happens to be my room, which I figured you probably didn’t mind anyway…”
“Sira could not find anything else?”
“She suggested the cargo bay.” Zhari glanced back at me over her shoulder. “I told her that was rude.”
“The cargo bay,” I repeated.
“She was not serious, Vada. Well, mostly.” She let out a laugh.
I stepped inside and let the door close behind me. Above the bed, a panel of fiber-optic stars glittered in slow patterns across the ceiling, casting tiny points of light across the pillows.
I dropped my bag by the door and let my eyes move around the room, taking it in. The bench. The desk. The boots-worth of floor space between the bed and the wall.
Two weeks of this.
Two weeks of falling asleep next to her.
I would have been lying if I’d said I wasn’t frigging excited.
I was still cataloguing the room when she moved around me and came to stand behind me. I suddenly felt her warm breath on my neck.
Her fingers found the strand of hair that had fallen loose against my cheek. She tucked it behind my ear slowly, her fingertips tracing its curve and lingering against the skin just below.
My breath caught somewhere between my lungs and my throat and stayed there.
She leaned in, and her lips brushed the shell of my ear, soft and warm and absolutely on purpose.
“Do you know what this means?” she whispered.
I slowly shook my head.
“We get to snuggle,” she giggled. “Every… single… night.”
Her lips dragged against my skin as she pulled back, just barely. The shiver that went through me started at my ear and didn’t stop until it reached the backs of my knees.
My nipples tightened against my shirt, a slow ache spreading beneath them. That familiar clench between my thighs pulled so deeply that I had to lock my legs to stay still.
And beneath all of that, beneath the pulse hammering in my throat and the flush crawling up my neck, a completely different feeling bloomed.
I wanted to snuggle her so badly.
“Yeah,” I breathed. “I can’t wait.”
Something shifted in Zhari’s face. The playful confidence was still there, but now there was a flicker of confusion, as if she hadn’t expected me to say that.
Which, I wasn’t sure why she hadn’t, considering I’d let her finger me in the shower.
The panel beside the door flickered. My name appeared next to hers in English and Velan:
ZHARI LUMIS / VADA LAMOTH
Side by side, like we were a matched set.
“Dune likes labels,” Zhari said.
“Well, at least I’ll be able to find it easily. I can’t read Velan, so this helps.”
Her mouth twitched, and she bit her lip as if she were trying not to laugh.
“So,” I said. “This is real. I feel like I’m dreaming.”
“Yes,” she said simply. “It’s real, and no, you’re not dreaming.”
For a second, we just stood there in the room, looking at each other quietly. Afternoon light filtered in through the narrow side windows.
The crew moved in the distance, loading cases and checking cables. Somewhere, an engine spun up and down, more purr than roar.
Zhari leaned back against the wall, still watching me as she smiled. My brain short-circuited like an overloaded circuit.
She broke eye contact first, her fingers lifting to toy with a loose light thread near her temple. The gesture was almost shy, which really wasn’t helping.
“So,” she said. “Come to rehearsal later? We’re trying a new transition into ‘Stellar Static.’ It sounds wrong in my head. Maybe you can listen and tell me your thoughts.”
“I’ll have to check my schedule,” I joked.
She let out a short laugh.
“Of course I’ll come,” I added quickly, heat rushing to my face. “You do realize you’re asking your most unqualified but extremely enthusiastic critic.”
“That is precisely what I want,” she said. “Someone who’s totally obsessed with me.”
She winked.
“As if.” I rolled my eyes and smiled.
She lingered in the doorway as if she didn’t actually want to go to her very important pop star things, which was ridiculous considering we were both going to end up back in this room, in this bed, later that night.
Then her wristband buzzed, and a faint line of light flashed across it.
“Okay, I should get to soundcheck,” she said, sounding as if she regretted it. “We roll out to the shuttle runway after supper. Once we launch, we can watch Vela shrink from the viewing bubble.”
Excitement punched through my ribs.
“I get a concert, a space launch, and more concerts? That’s, like… three teenage dreams for the price of one ticket.”
Her smile widened.
“You’re cute. I will come find you before we depart, and we can walk to the viewing bubble together.”
“I just can’t believe I’m here,” I gushed. “This is totally out of orbit.”
She nodded, then stepped back into the corridor.
“Do not wander too far and miss calls,” she added, pointing at me in mock warning. “Or Sira will come for you.”
She laughed as she closed her eyes and touched her belly.
“Oh, I won’t be,” I muttered under my breath.
She gave me one last quick smile, her teeth white and perfectly straight, then turned away. Her footsteps faded toward the front of the bus.
I sat on the bed. For a moment, I just stayed there, my hands resting against the sheets as the mattress dipped beneath me.
I looked out the window near the bed and watched the afternoon colors swallow Lumara, the light shifting slowly across the city as the day began to lean toward evening.
Crystal towers caught the sun and held it, sharp edges flashing as the angle changed. Traffic streamed along the sky lanes in steady, unbroken lines. Farther out, near the docks, cargo was being loaded piece by piece, crews moving with practiced efficiency.
It all carried on as it always did, as if nothing were about to change.
Later that night, our ship would roll out to the shuttle runway and lift clear of the city, leaving all of it beneath us.
I kept watching, trying to take it in while it was still right there in front of me.
“This would be pretty to draw.”
I leaned over and pulled my sketchbook out of my bag, flipping to a blank page.
My hand started moving before I knew what I was drawing: the curve of the bunk frame, the little slice of city visible through the glass, and the faint reflection of my face with the translator chip blinking beneath my ear.
Around the edges, I added details I didn’t want to forget—the holographic stickers peeling at the corner of someone’s bunk curtain, the lava lamp in the common room, a pair of Zhari’s earrings abandoned on the tiny nightstand, and our two names glowing side by side on the door panel outside.
At the bottom, I wrote:
First day aboard.
Then, after a moment:
The first day that feels like mine.