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And still, somehow, even though Sazahk had crossed the room, Garin had his back to him, as though he had consciously rotated himself with exactly the angular velocity required to ensure they would not catch each other’s eyes. All Sazahk saw was the face of the pretty man chattering at him and standing even closer.
Sazahk yanked his gaze away and fixed it instead on his commanding officer. He stopped short, knowing Patrick would never hurt him in a million years, but still unwilling to be quite within arm’s reach. “Judging by your expression, I assume you have prepared a scolding.”
“You didn’t give Garin my offer.” Patrick crossed his arms.
Sazahk felt a prickle of irritation and pursed his lips. “Between his familial and financial obligations, he is in no position to accept your offer.”
“So says you.” Patrick’s fingers flexed on his biceps. “You didn’t even tell him about it.”
Sazahk didn’t bother to control the purple he felt spreading up his throat. “Because he could not accept it. So says not only me, but all evidence and logic.”
“That is not a decision you get to make for him.” Patrick jutted his chin out, but before he said more, Fal’ran stepped between them.
“That’s rich coming from you, Patrick.” Fal’ran raised his eyebrows, the scarred one lifting higher than the other. “I’m not sure you have a leg to stand on here. Or have you forgotten arranging a position for me without my knowledge and consent?”
Sazahk stepped closer to Fal’ran. “While I appreciate your concern, Patrick, my affairs are my own.”
But then Fal’ran turned the force of his accusing glare onto Sazahk. “Oh, he may not have a leg to stand on, but I do.” His anger morphed into exasperation. “You adore that man, Sazahk. Why would you hurt him like that?”
Fal’ran’s orange eyes echoing with the pain Patrick had put him through made Sazahk feel guilty in a way Bar’in’s poisonous glare hadn’t. He dropped his chin. “I’m trying to respect his values. I don’t want to pressure him to prioritize me above his family.”
Fal’ran gave him an unimpressed look. “By not telling him how you feel?”
“I told him how I feel!” Sazahk’s outburst drew looks, and he flushed and dropped his voice, his jaw twitching. “I told him how I feel with more detail than I have ever expressed any of my emotional state about anything to anyone ever before.”
“But you didn’t give him a chance to reject you.” Fal’ran sighed and shook his head. “And now he feels as though you’ve rejected him.”
“But I didn’t.” Sazahk grasped for words. That wasn’t—he hadn’t—He bit his lip.
Fal’ran grimaced with the pity Sazahk had originally expected. “Didn’t you though?”
Not in so many words, but that made it all the worse. Goddess take him. How did he keep messing this up? He hadn’t researched enough. That was the problem. He hadn’t done enough research into relationships and humans and romance. He was out of his depth, and he’d stumbled along making binding decisions anyway, like an uninformed politician regulating technology.
Sazahk whirled around, looking for Garin again, and caught the flash of movement as he retreated through a side door.
The redhead was nowhere to be found.
“Go!” Fal’ran gave him a push between the shoulder blades. “Our squad has good luck with confessing our feelings at fancy occasions.”
Chapter Twenty
Garin fled down the side hallway.
Pride aside, he was fleeing. No way around it. By habit, he’d marked out the escape routes the moment he’d entered the ballroom, and now he escaped down one.
Where he was escaping to, he hadn’t decided. He’d spent most of the past week in one of three places: his shared recovery room, his family’s apartment, or among Squad M, particularly in Sazahk’s temporary lab.
His recovery quarters were out because the last thing he wanted was to be stuck in too small a room and too uncomfortable a bed while Todd yapped about his goddamn gallbladder. Sazahk’s lab was out of the question for obvious reasons. But as much as Garin loved his family, he didn’t have the fortitude to sit there and be Kev while his heart broke, and he definitely didn’t have the fortitude to withstand all their coy questions about Sazahk, which had grown increasingly pointed every time they saw him.
So Garin found himself on one of the grandest space stations in the sector, with no plan and nowhere to go other than away, just away, somewhere he could be alone, and maybe somewhere that had something to numb the open wound in his chest.
Which all left only one sort of place, and fortunately, it was the sort of place no one would look for him in, because it was the sort of place he never frequented.
His mind made up, Garin moved quickly through the halls, striding down the twisting side corridors that surrounded the gala venue, as though he really were being chased by a hostile enemy. The layout had been designed for the skilled servant class of Qeshian society. The halls twisted and doubled back and opened into weird places and hit dead ends in closets.
Despite Garin’s great pride in his sense of direction, he got turned around more than once. It didn’t help that his primary goal was simply not to be found, and he backtracked and took turns every time he heard footsteps.
Eventually, he made it out, exiting a nondescript door onto a bustling street.
