On my way back to the docks, I started to get the prickly sensation of someone watching me. I couldn’t look around too much without being obvious, so I took the most winding, convoluted path I could manage without getting myself lost, trying to shake the feeling—and whoever it was, if there really was someone. I didn’t underestimate the strength of paranoia. It was entirely possible my twitchiness was all coming from my own head. As Shade and I had said earlier, the imagination could be a powerful thing.
Just before I reached the docking towers, my anxiety finally faded. Maybe that chafing feeling on my nerves had just been because of the multiple Dark Watch patrols I’d seen around the city, some on foot and some in armor-plated hover cruisers. I’d kept my head down, Shade’s hat on, and stuck almost uncomfortably close to groups of other pedestrians, pretending to be a part of them. Guards were more likely to overlook harmless-seeming civilian groups than anyone walking alone.
When I finally strode onto our platform on the three-hundred-and-fourteenth level of the Squirrel Tree, Shade Ganavan was just packing up for the day. A welding mask and various other pieces of equipment now occupied the hover crate where the two metal tiles had previously been.
“Hello, SRP,” I called out as I looked over the progress Shade had made, presumably with Jax’s help to fit the heavy tiles into place. It was impressive, and I was beginning to think he might deserve his nickname. He’d patched up my bedroom entirely in one day and gotten a good start on another hole.
“Sugar.” Shade acknowledged me back with a slight smirk.
I let that go. He’d done good work.
“Thanks for the bookstore recommendation. Flipping Pages was perfect.”
Shade nodded and then took a long drink of water, draining half a bottle in one go. More stubble had grown on his jaw since this morning, giving his already attractive features a rougher look I liked even more.
The rest of him looked grubbier, too. There was a black streak of oil down one corded forearm, and he was covered in the sticky evidence of a hard day’s work. His short, dark hair looked damp and crushed, probably from being under his welding helmet. Sweat slicked his neck. I watched a bead roll down the thick tendon that began just behind his ear and angled toward the base of his throat. The drip caught on his collarbone and stopped.
My mouth went suddenly dry. I wanted to lick the drop off.
“What’s the matter, starshine? Never seen hot and dirty before?” he asked.
My eyes jumped to his. He hadn’t put even a hint of innuendo into his voice. I couldn’t tell if he was flirting or not, but desire still surged inside me like an electrical pulse. Warmth simmered between my legs, and hot and dirty played on repeat through my every thought.
“Seen all kinds of things,” I eventually said.
His expression seemed to harden somehow. “I’ll bet you have,” he muttered under his breath.
I felt that little crease form between my eyebrows, the one that was quickly etching itself into my first permanent wrinkle. The heat swirling through my abdomen dissipated, leaving only confusion instead. The weirdest things seemed to tick Shade off.
Bonk broke the tension by poking his delicate head out of my bag and letting out a croaky little meow. The still-sleepy, wake-up sound was immeasurably cute.
Shade frowned at my bag. “What the hell is that?”
“A cat,” I said. “They’re all over the place.”
“Yeah, but you don’t just pick up any old one. It could have vermin. Or be totally wild.”
“He’s not any old one,” I said, leaping to Bonk’s defense. “He’s Bonk, and Susan gave him to me.”
“She gave you a fucking cat?” He looked so stunned it was almost comical.
“Jealous?” I asked. “She’s never given you a cat?”
His hands landed on his hips. Machine oil and scarred knuckles flashed at me.
Damn. I liked those hands.
“I don’t want a cat,” he said.
“Sure you don’t.” My tone conveyed just how much I believed that.
Unzipping my bag all the way, I took Bonk out and lifted him up onto the Endeavor. He started sniffing around immediately. I hoped he wasn’t about to pee. I still needed to set up that box.
I turned back to Shade. “You can pat mine if you’d like.”
His eyes took on a sudden glint, and a blush exploded across my face, burning up my pale cheeks.
I waited for Shade to follow up with something, anything, hoping he would, even if it was a lewd joke. He just turned back to my cat instead. He’d apparently lost all interest in flirting with me.
Internally dealing with my disappointment, I produced the metal tray and sand from my bag. “Any idea what to do with these?” I asked.
Shade took both, setting the tray in the ship’s open door near Bonk—who immediately looked interested. He tore open the top corner of the bag and dumped a thick layer of sand into the bottom of the tray before nudging the whole thing toward Bonk.
Bonk climbed in, squatted, and peed.
“Well, that was easy,” I said, impressed.
Shade folded the top of the bag over to close it and then put it down next to Bonk’s tray. “Susan gave you the good stuff. You don’t even have to clean it. It cleans itself.”
A nearly maintenance-free pet sounded good to me. I had my hands full enough as it was.
“How do you know Susan?” I asked.
“She want your books?” he asked in lieu of answering.
I nodded. “I’m bringing her the rest in two days.” I immediately wondered why I’d said that. Anything beyond the fact that there was going to be a transaction wasn’t information Shade Ganavan needed to know.
He stared. I stared back.
Great Sky Mother, we have to stop doing that.
Shade finally reached a hand out to Bonk. After a few careful sniffs, Bonk leaned in, looking ready for a scratch. Shade obliged, muscles he’d probably overused today standing out firmly under the thin layer of his cotton shirt. The dark material stuck to his upper body in places, revealing contours and revving up my apparently uncontrollable imagination. I couldn’t recall ever having had such a strong urge to reach out and touch.
“I’ll see about getting you that new door, then,” he said, letting his big, grease-stained hand drop.
I nodded again, but that didn’t seem like enough. “Thank you, Shade. Really. I’m glad I found you. I mean…your shop.”
I nearly bit my tongue. I’m glad I found you? Who said something like that?
Clearly, two years in a maximum-security prison and then reclusive living with the same four people in a confined space severely eroded a person’s social skills. I appeared to have none left.
I stood there, my chin up despite my embarrassment, which seemed to be a permanent state around Shade Ganavan. Who the hell could still fluster a woman who’d been used as a science experiment, abandoned, imprisoned, hunted, and chased through a freaking black hole, for fuck’s sake? It must have been Shade’s superpower. Great.
He didn’t respond to my thanks, and the awkward silence grew so heavy that I could have sworn gravity doubled right then and there on Albion 5.
“Here’s your hat.” I took it off and handed it to him, trying not to wonder how crushed my hair was and in which directions my bangs were sticking out.
He took it from me only to flop it back down on my head. “See you soon, Tess Bailey. When I’ve got the rest of your stuff.”
Shade turned, and I watched him walk toward the elevator tubes, Bonk already bumping my shoulder and jaw with his little head, hitting whatever he could reach from his new perch on board the Endeavor.
The transparent tube Shade had entered whooshed down, taking him out of sight, and I felt on edge and unsatisfied, as though he’d just left in the middle of something I hadn’t finished yet.
Maybe there was nothing left to say. I’d get his money. He’d get my door and the other panels. Transaction complete.
Shade had definitely flirted with me in his shop. It had been exciting and nice, but maybe I wasn’t the type of woman a man stayed interested in. Except for Bently. He’d had staying power. The slimy jerk had offered every morning for two years to keep me out of the mines for the day in exchange for hard and fast and rough against the prison cell wall.