Page 121 of Thexan

“You are awake earlier than expected,” Thexan said.

“I live behind an infirmary,” I said. “Expectation has very little to do with it.”

His hand settled at my waist as he came to stand behind me, his body warm and solid at my back. He had learned tenderness with the same commitment he brought to everything else, and while he was still Thexan—still precise, still too literal, still capable of turning a simple repair into a defensive lecture—he touched me now with an ease that had taken time to build and was all the more precious because of it.

“You did not sleep well,” he said.

I leaned back against him. “I slept fine.”

“That is inaccurate.”

“It is less inaccurate than it used to be.”

His silence carried disapproval.

I smiled into my tea. “I know. I’m resting more.”

“You are resting marginally more.”

“Progress.”

“Insufficient progress.”

I turned in his arms and looked up at him. The ridged structure of his face was as familiar to me now as the lines of my own hands, and the sight of him still caught me sometimes—not because he was alien, though he was, but because he had stayed. Every day since the one he reached my door had become a day we built together.

“You’re about to recommend another schedule revision,” I said.

“I completed one.”

“Of course you did.”

“It is more efficient.”

“I’m sure it is.”

His gaze held mine, and the bond warmed with the satisfaction he rarely admitted out loud when I smiled at him. I rose onto my toes and kissed him before he could begin explaining the schedule, and his hand tightened slightly at my waist as he answered. There was no urgency in it, no desperation, only the quiet certainty of a man who knew he belonged exactly where he stood.

A knock sounded from the infirmary door before I could tell him that.

Thexan drew back just enough to listen.

“Tanner,” he said.

“Of course.”

“And one unfamiliar vehicle at the outer road.”

That made me still. We didn’t get many vehicles anymore, not unless someone was desperate, lost, or carrying news that rarely arrived clean.

“Threat?” I asked.

“Unknown.”

I set down my tea and reached for my boots.

By the time we stepped into the infirmary, Tanner was already opening the outer door without waiting for permission, which meant whatever waited outside had rattled him more than he wanted to admit.

“We’ve got visitors,” he said.