Page 32 of Defiant

“Oh!” Jorgen said, stopping in place. “Spensa. I didn’t hear you…er…teleport…”

“Sorry,” I said, blushing. “Should have jumped to the corridor. Wouldn’t want to surprise you in a towel or something. Um. Again…”

“I thought maybe we could have a meal,” he said, gesturing to the table. “During our meeting. Since we’re both so busy these days. It would be more efficient.”

“That makes sense,” I said. “And the candles…to save on energy?”

He shrugged in an adorably awkward way, and even smiled—a bashful, boyish grin. Scud. I’d been prepared to deal with the loss of friends and home, prepared to deliver myself up as the weapon my society demanded. I’d been prepared for everything but him. This.

I clutched Doomslug for support, but she fluted at me and immediately teleported away. How hadsheknown? She was a slug! The little traitor.

“We never get to spend time together,” Jorgen said. “To figure out what it is we are, what we want. So I thought maybe…I’d just take the initiative. Do the Spensa thing, you know? Jump right in.”

“I think I know what we are, together,” I whispered. “WhatI want it to be, at least. But I don’t know if this is the right time. With everything that’s happening…”

“Maybe for a little while, pretend it can be right?” He gestured at the table. “Look, it’s not even a proper dinner.”

“Not proper?” I stared at the immaculate place settings, the candles. He even had a white tablecloth.

“Sure,” he said. “See, there’s only three courses, and we don’t even have separate dessert spoons.”

“Oh, Jorgen,” I said, my facade melting. “Please don’t tell me you read theruleson serving a meal.”

“Of course not,” he said. “It was part of my tutoring. I’ve known the proper setup for a formal meal since I was seven.”

He was so earnest, so…well, wonderful. I couldn’t keep my cynicism properly in place. It fled before him like a rat from light.All right,I told myself.I’ll pretend. For this meal only…I’ll pretend that it can all work out.

Suddenly I felt…rightagain. It was probably an illusion, but in that moment I was certain this was where I belonged. Though a lot of things were off, possibly broken beyond repair—he was right, andwewere right.

I sat in the chair he’d provided for me. Then I grabbed the knife in a fist and rammed the handle down on the table and said, “I approve of this offering.”

He rolled his eyes, getting out the first course—which was an honest-to-goodness salad withnoseaweed or algae.

“Look,” I said to him, “you get your way to do things from your books. I get my way from mine.”

“I’ve tried to find those books,” he said. “Read a good chunk of a Conan novel while you were gone.”

“You did?” I asked, melting a little further. “Aww…”

“I didn’t find many of your quotes in there.”

“Gran-Gran liked to embellish,” I explained. “And I learned how to do a little—a lot—on my own.” I put aside the knife and attacked the salad. I’d always loved how a crunchy salad respondedto the stabby-stabby motions of a good forking. I’ll admit that I also exaggerated because I knew Jorgen found it amusing. He liked to joke about how I did everything—from piloting to eating a salad—with enthusiasm.

“You ever wonder what life would be like without this?” he asked. “The war—the military. What our lives would be if we’d been born during some other time?”

“I used to think it would be boring,” I said, spinning my fork, and finishing off the salad with a good coup de grâce. It tasted wonderful—so much better than seaweed, which had to be dried to imitate this crispness. There was even somebeat,which I’d last eaten in the nowhere.

I liked it here, though I could remember responding differently there. Those days, now only two weeks past, were starting to take on a dreamlike air. Had that really been me having those adventures, in a land where time barely mattered?

“Used to?” Jorgen asked, drawing my attention back to the meal. “You think differently now? You wouldn’t find a life without fighting boring? What changed?”

“Starsight,” I said. “I saw people living real lives, Jorgen. Our enemies, but they were just people. Building families. Living. I realizedIwas the broken one, not them. Now it soundswonderfulto live a life without the war. I could still fly; that wouldn’t change. I could do it all day, to keep my skills up, then come home at night—and you’d have spent your day doing something Jorgenesque. Finding misspelled words in operations manuals maybe.”

“Please,” he said. “It’s not the misspelled words that are a problem. I barely even mark those when I find them. It’s the regulations being out of order or having the wrong numbers that’s a problem—that might cause a breakdown of command.”

He leaned on his elbow, smiling at me, then suddenly he blushed and glanced down at his plate.

I implied that we’d be living together,I realized. Our relationship was so weird. Probably because it was always being interruptedwhen I went galivanting off. At times it was like we’d always been together. At others, the mere mention of our status made us blush like schoolkids.

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