Page 8 of Jarran

He eyed it. “On my head?”

“On your temple. Right here.” She touched the side of her own head, just above the ear. “I’ll attach it, run a few exercises, and take it off. It won’t hurt. I promise.”

He studied the device. There was a lot of interest in his brain, from a lot of people on this ship. The Baylan researchers ran their scans and studied their data and spoke about him while he sat right there. Evie was different. She explained things. She asked before she touched him. She treated the inside of his head like it belonged to him, not to the research program.

“Will it tell you something new?” he asked.

“I hope so. The scanner reads broad patterns, but this reads specific neural pathways. It might help me understand which connections are damaged and which ones are just…dormant. Sleeping.”

“Sleeping,” he repeated. He understood sleeping things. Seeds slept in the soil before they grew. Maybe his memories were like seeds.

“Exactly.” She held up the sensor. “May I?”

He angled toward her.

She shifted up to her knees to get closer. Close enough that he could smell her. Clean skin and something faintly sweet that he’d started associating specifically with her. She raised the sensor and reached for his temple.

Her fingertips were cool against the side of his head, just above his ear, and the contact sent a jolt through his body that had nothing to do with the device. Heat flooded through him, sudden and disorienting, starting at the point of contact and spreading down his neck, across his shoulders, into his chest. His hands, which had been resting on his thighs, closed into fists. His breathing locked. His tail, which had been lying still on the planting bed behind him, twitched hard, the barbed tip snapping sideways.

He didn’t understand what was happening. His body was reacting to something his mind couldn’t identify. The heat was intense, pooling low in his abdomen, tightening muscles he didn’t have names for. His heart hammered against his ribs. He sat perfectly still because moving felt dangerous, because his body wanted to do something and he didn’t know what.

“Sorry,” Evie said. She pressed the sensor into place and pulled her hand back. “Cold hands. I should have warned you.”

He said nothing. He couldn’t. His teeth ground and his pulse thundered, and if he opened his mouth, he wasn’t sure what would come out. He stared straight ahead at the row of plants in front of him and focused on breathing.

She settled back down, tablet in hand, and stopped. Her eyes went to the screen, then to him, then back to the screen. Her brows drew together.

“That’s…huh.” She tapped something on the tablet. Tapped again. A flush crept up her neck and into her cheeks, pink against her freckles. She cleared her throat. “Your readings are, um. Elevated.”

“Sorry.” The word came out before he knew why he was saying it. He just saw the color in her face and the tension in her posture and wanted to fix it. He reached out and touched her hand. Gently. Just his fingertips against the back of her wrist, the way he’d touch a seedling he didn’t want to damage.

She went still. Her eyes came up to his and held. The flush deepened. Her lips parted, just barely, and he heard her breath catch. For a long, stretched moment, they looked at each other, and Jarran was aware of her with a completeness that was new and overwhelming. The freckles on her nose. The pulse beating in her throat. The warmth of her skin under his fingertips. The tightness in his groin that felt familiar and urgent and entirely beyond his comprehension.

She pulled her hand back. “Let’s, um.” She looked at her tablet. “Let’s run the exercises.”

The rest of the session was different. She kept her distance. Her voice was steady but her movements were stiff, and she didn’t meet his eyes the way she usually did. When she showed him images on the screen, she held the device at arm’s length instead of sitting beside him. When she asked him questions, she wrote his answers without the follow-up comments she usually made. No “that’s interesting” or “good, tell me more.” Just the question, the note, and the next image.

He berated himself for…whatever he did to cause her upset. Was it the touch? His reaction to her touch? He didn’t know. He had not harmed her. Had not touched her in a place that females found inappropriate, and yes, he somehow knew what those places were.

He wanted to say something to bring back the ease between them, the quiet warmth of their routine. But the words were too complicated and too far down, and by the time he’d assembled even the beginning of a sentence, she was efficiently peeling the sensor off his temple and packing up her equipment.

“Same time tomorrow,” she said. It wasn’t a question this time.

He reached for the fruit he’d set aside for her. The best of today’s harvest, deep purple and heavy in his palm. He held it out.

She looked at it and a line formed between her eyebrows. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said, and left without taking it.

He stood in the bay holding the fruit and watching the lift doors close behind her. The ache in his chest, which her smile usually eased, pressed harder. He set the fruit back on the planting bed and returned to his rows.

The rest of the shift passed slowly. He planted. He watered. He checked root systems and adjusted stakes and did all the things his hands knew how to do. But his mind kept returning to the moment her fingers touched his temple. The heat. The tightness. The look on her face when their eyes locked.

Left and Right came for him at the usual time. He finished his row, stood, wiped his hands, and nodded. They walked. The corridor was quiet. The lights were bright, and he squinted as his eyes adjusted.

“Good shift?” Right asked.

“Good shift,” Jarran said. The words were easy. The lie was small.

Left glanced at him. “You’re quiet today.”