Page 247 of Red Scale Daddy
Roma’s throat works. “Dad.”
He waves one hand like he can swat away tenderness after delivering it. “Don’t make a thing of it. I’m going to introduceLyra to the concept of breakfast pastries before one of you says something vulnerable.”
“She is too young for pastries,” Roma says automatically.
“Educational pastries.”
“Dad.”
He disappears down the hall with our daughter, already whispering conspiratorially. “Your mother fears joy. We’ll work on her.”
Roma lets out a long breath after he is gone, and I turn her gently to face me. The morning light has shifted higher, laying gold across her cheekbones and the faint scar near her jaw. I know that scar. I know most of them now. I know the ones she lets people see and the ones hidden under skin, under old habits, under the sharp little silences that still surface when memory bites.
“You okay?” I ask.
She studies my face. “Yes.”
I wait, because with Roma the second answer is often the real one.
Her mouth softens. “Actually yes.”
That one gets me.
I cup her face in both hands, careful of nothing because she doesn’t need careful right now. She needs certain. Her hands settle at my wrists, thumbs moving over my pulse points, and I know she feels how my heart changes when she looks at me like that.
“I love you,” I say.
Her eyes flicker, not with surprise anymore, but with the strange wonder that still comes when she hears it and believes it will remain true after the sentence ends.
“I love you,” she says, and it still sounds like courage every single time.
I kiss her slowly, with morning all around us and no alarm screaming, no hull tearing apart, no enemy voice crawling through the comm. She tastes like coffee she forgot to drink and the mint she chews when concentrating. Her hands slide to my chest, fingers curling into my shirt, and when she steps closer, it is not desperation that brings her there. It is choice. Ordinary, extraordinary choice.
Eventually she pulls back just enough to breathe. “You have training at ten.”
“I do.”
“You are going to be late.”
“Probably.”
“I am not writing you an excuse.”
“I’m a grown man. I can be late without documentation.”
“You told the cadets punctuality is respect.”
I groan. “Low blow.”
“Accurate blow.”
I rest my forehead against hers. “Come with me later? To the academy. They keep asking about the new rescue engine project, and I like watching you terrify young pilots into better decision-making.”
“I do not terrify them.”
“You made one cry.”
“He was already emotionally unstable.”
