Page 49 of Alien Warrior Chef… With Benefits
“You are when you’re not trying to be.”
That lands like a stone in my gut.
She thinks I’m elegant.
She thinks I’m anything but a relic of destruction and orders barked in war zones.
I want to tell her. I want to explain that what she sees is only the surface. Beneath the humor, the occasional smirk, and the quiet way I hand her piping bags before she asks—there’s still the man who tore flesh from bone to survive. Who watched comrades bleed out in his arms. Who killed because he was told to. And worse—because sometimes he wanted to.
But I say nothing.
Because her smile dims when I talk like that. Because the shadows on her face are fewer now, and I don’t want to be the one who brings them back.
Still, the thought gnaws at me: what happens when she no longer finds charm in my scars? When her life becomes press releases and product lines and charming on-air banter—and I’m the silent ghost at her elbow, too dark, too haunted to fit?
What happens when she shines too brightly... and I become the shadow that dims her?
We finish the tray in silence.
Later, as the last prep cycle winds down and the kitchen hums with sugar fatigue and citrus steam, she finds me by the back sink, rinsing the scorch marks off the flame-torch nozzle.
“You okay?” she asks, softly this time.
I nod. It’s a lie.
“Rekk,” she says, stepping closer. “I know that face. You’re spiraling. You get real quiet, and then you start cleaning things that don’t need cleaning. Like that thing. You already scrubbed it twice.”
“I like it clean.”
“I like you honest.”
I stiffen.
She doesn’t flinch.
“Talk to me,” she says.
“I’m not good at this.”
“At cleaning?”
“At... being seen.”
Her expression gentles, eyes searching mine. “You think I don’t know who you are? I know what you’ve done. What you’ve survived. I don’t need a holostream smile or witty banter for the fans. I just wantyou.”
I shake my head, jaw tight. “I’m not made for cameras. Or contests. Or?—”
“Or love?”
The word strikes me like a pulse grenade—concise, detonating everything in its radius.
I stare at her.
She doesn’t blink.
“You don’t have to say it,” she continues, voice quieter now. “But you feel it. I know you do. I see it every time you look at me like I’m something you don’t believe you deserve.”
“You’re not something,” I growl. “You’re everything.”
