Page 61 of Seer Prophet

I checked the timepiece in the headset’s VR. It had only been about forty minutes since he’d gotten back, maybe fifty, depending on when he took off in the boat.

He couldn’t go anywhere for at least another hour.

“Sorry,” I said.

“Come down here!” he snapped. “Goddamn it, Allie!”

“Revik?”

“Please.” He subdued his voice marginally.“Please,come down here. If you want to yell at me, then yell at me. Christ, I’d prefer that to this.”

“I don’t want toyellat you.”

“Bullshit. You’re obviously pissed off.”

I thought about that for a minute, too. Was I pissed off? Somehow, that didn’t feel like a good description for the coil of emotions running through my light. Or it didn’t feel like very much of it, anyway, not anymore. I’d come out here to sit, yes, but since I’d left the dock, I felt different. Still wound up, still upset, but different.

It took me a few more seconds to identify what Iwasfeeling.

Once I had, my frown deepened.

“I’m not pissed off,” I said.

“Then what, Allie?” When I didn’t answer right away, he exhaled, sounding overtly frustrated. For a long moment, I could almost feel him dialing back his own reactions. The next time he spoke, his voice was carefully neutral.

“I’m still wearing the suit,” he said.

It took a few seconds for his words to penetrate.

Then I laughed.

“You are?”

“Yes.”

“And why is that, husband?”

I felt a smile in his words, even as he clicked at me.“Gaos,wife. Why the hell do you think? I was hoping you would take it off me. I promised you a thorough, detail-oriented fuck… cookies, maybe some light punishment thrown in. I’ve got a hard-on even thinking about you in that goddamned dress. Why do youthinkI’m sitting down here, pissed off that you’re avoiding me?”

I laughed again. “You are impossible.”

“You’re really not mad at me?”

I shook my head, clicking softer. “Not really, no.”

“Then what? Why are you avoiding me?”

Behind his words, I could almost hear him thinking. Or maybe I just knew him well enough to know hewouldbe thinking, trying to decide what was going on with me.

“I'thir li’dare.Are you fuckingjealous?”

He sounded openly surprised.

Shocked, really.

He sounded so surprised, I couldn’t help laughing.

“This is news to you?” I gripped the guardrail tighter.

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