Page 72 of Meteor Storm

“Right.”

When it came time to sleep, I had walked all the way to my quarters before I started having reservations about sleeping alone. The overflow wing was so deathly silent and lonely and while it was a nice change after having slept in a prison cell surrounded by other prison cells, it still wasn’t ideal. I tended to wake up every night, startled multiple times by a feeling of danger, like someone was going to grab me and tear me out of bed for some nefarious purpose. It took a while for me to forget the phantom pain from the bullets in my torso. Of course, it was going to take a while for me to get over the sense of unrest when I was supposed to be sleeping, too.

I recalled one particularly peaceful night on Mekah though. The night Pek-Tol allowed me to sleep in Thilar’s cell. It was freezing, his bed was hard, but feeling his heated body against me was better than any blanket I could have curled up beneath.

I sat on my bed for a while, back against the wall, with my knees raised to my chest, thinking. I thought about my past. The unfinished business I had on Earth. Whether or not I would ever return. Then I thought about my future. Where it would lead and whether I would be satisfied with it. Eventually, nothing was cutting it. I was tired, but restless and Sunhai’s words kept popping back up in my head.

Yuros put Thilar in charge of you, so go be with him.

I stood off the bed, dressed only in a knee length night dress of some kind that appeared in my room after the first day. It suited me. On Earth, I would just be wearing an oversized T-shirt. I opened the door to my quarters and peered out into the empty hall as if I would find someone waiting, but I was alone.

Although, aside from my room, the rest of the ship was a damn ice box. I turned back, retrieving the thermal blanket from my bed, and wrapping it around myself as I trekked out into the ship. I knew my way to the main wing by then, even without Sunhai’s help, so I headed that way, praying no one would see me or ask questions.

When I passed the small mess hall, a figure stepped around the corner, startling me out of my skin. I gasped, choking on my own spit, and nearly fell on my ass as Sunhai walked calmly past, a nutrient bar in her hand.

“Pass training room and go around the bend,” she said as she walked away. “His room is at end of the hall, left door.”

I was too busy trying to keep my heart in my chest as she disappeared to say anything. Even when she was gone, I had to take a moment to shake off the burst of adrenaline, but eventually, I kept walking.

I came to the main wing and first looked across the giant galactic map room to see if anyone was around. A few crew members were focused on various screens or control panels so I padded across the room toward the big hallway where I knew the training room was. It felt as if it was taking forever for me to get there, but I was certain it was just my nerves.

When I came to the bend Sunhai mentioned, I just kept pushing onward, swallowing my doubt as I approached the last door on the left. I was not looking forward to the awkward knock, but luckily it was unneeded. Thilar’s door was open and as I stepped into the doorframe, I got a clear view of his quarters.

Simple. Clean. Generic. Faint blue lanterns stretched vertically down two corners of the room, illuminating the space in faint, cerulean light. Half of the room was a window that peered into the endless diamond-speckled black. And standing before the expanse, his back turned to me, was Thilar. No longer was he wearing his ship uniform, but he instead wore a deep gray-blue, loose, silk-like shirt and equally light-weight pants.

I was not surprised that he felt my presence there. He probably heard me coming from across the map room. Still, when he slowly turned to face me, I felt my cheeks flush. He looked me up and down, noting the blanket wrapped tightly around me, and uncrossed his arms, revealing a bare chest where his shirt was untied and open down the middle.

Neither of us spoke. Neither of us had to. I exhaled a breath of steam into the cold air around me and Thilar followed the vapor with his gaze before slowly stretching out his hand in invitation. I stepped forward, my bare feet freezing on the icy metal. Thilar carefully stepped around me, tapping his hand on the door panel to close it. The moment it shut, my heart skipped.

I’d done it. I’d gone to him and he did not tell me to leave. He invited me in.

“You are cold, Penny,” he spoke. “Is your room not heated?”

I stared up at him, my lungs flooding with his scent. That alone warmed me.

“It is,” I admitted. “But I was having trouble sleeping. For other reasons.”

He tilted his head slightly as if in thought and then nodded once, solemn.

“You are thinking about Mekah.”

“Not just Mekah. A lot of things. My mind won’t shut up. This is where those human meds would come in handy.”

When he didn’t respond to that, I took a look around his room as if I would find anything in there that was personalized, but it was just a room for him to use just like mine was. There were no belongings. No items that were specific to him.

“Were you not going to sleep?” I said.

“I would have eventually.” He walked to his bed and sat himself down, perching his elbows on his knees. “Like you, my mind is crowded.”

I really didn’t want to ask my next question for fear of what his answer would be, but I also hated feeling unwanted, so I just decided to rip the bandaid off.

“Do you want me to go?”

He looked up, a deep groove forming between his brows, and just stared at me for a moment before saying, “No. I do not.”

His answer was firm. Certain. But the look on his face didn’t match. I stepped toward him, unsure how much longer my bare soles could take the freezing metal floor.

“Thilar, can I sleep with you?” I asked.