Unravel (41 page)

She blinked back the stinging in her eyes. “You're always saying it. You act like there's no future for us. Like you can't count on it lasting. You tell me it's serious for you and then you won't let me tell you it's the same for me.” She blinked again, furiously. “And
okay
, maybe I should have said it anyway, but it's— This is hard for me, Cadan. I'm not
used
to doing this—I'm not used to having to tell people what I feel.”

He put his hands out, palms up, a gesture that was too gentle to—quite—convey
I told you so
. “That's why,” he said.

“That's why
what
?”

“That's why I don't want to assume anything. This is a first for you, Lis. I mean, I know you dated when you were younger—God knows you made sure to let me know whenever some guy asked you out!—but then the symptoms took over everything, and all those normal bits of your life, once you were at high school, they didn't happen for you.” He spread his hands again. “I mean, tell me if I'm wrong, but that's the impression I got?”

“You're not wrong.” Her face burned. It was humiliating
to have to admit it to him. She'd known he knew, really, but to have to spell out how abnormal her life had been . . .

“So this, it's your first . . . real? serious? grown-up? . . . relationship. And”—he rubbed the side of his face, a sudden out-of-character, self-conscious gesture—“it's with me, the only guy anywhere near your own age you met since the symptoms stopped. The guy you were stuck on a spaceship with.”

“
That's
what you mean?” Suddenly what he was saying came clear to her. “You mean you think it might not even be just because of the situation, but just because you were
there
?”

“I'm not trying to insult you, Lis. I just . . . if that turns out to be all it is for you, it's not like I can blame you, it's not your fault. But I don't want to . . . take advantage. I don't want to be
that
guy, you know? The one who goes for younger girlfriends so he can keep some kind of upper hand? I—” He broke off. “Since we got back to Sekoia, since you've been making friends, meeting guys that much closer to your own age—I don't
want
to let you go, but I've been wondering if it's only the decent thing to do.”

“Let me go?”

His eyes met hers. “Like I said, Lis, I don't
want
to. I mean, God, I really don't want to, but maybe I have to let you choose for yourself. Maybe I—”

“Oh my God,
Cadan
.”

The exclamation came out with so much force that he stopped dead, looking completely taken aback.

“How can you be so stupid?” she asked him. “Okay, I'm seventeen—that doesn't mean I'm an
idiot
. This isn't some kind of—of”—she waved her hands, trying to find the right words—“
starter
relationship before I go on to something better. I
did
choose for myself. I chose you!”

“Yeah, I know. I know you're not an idiot. But, look, it's so early on, and like you said, you're only seventeen. You can't be sure—”

“Yeah, well,
you
can't be sure either! You might have had a million more relationships than me, but this is a first for you, too. You
said
so, you said you'd never wanted to take any of them home before.”

“Yeah.” He flushed a little. “Okay, maybe I am being stupid.”

“
Yeah
, you are.”

Laughter crept into his eyes. “
Okay
, Lissa. I get the message. Except—hang on, a million, really? What are you trying to say about me?”

She didn't bother to reply. She had too much to say to be distracted by him teasing her. “I'm not stupid,” she said. “I know it might not last forever. But right now it's real, and”—she put her chin up, determined not to blush—“I love
you
. Not because you're the only guy around, and not because you're some hotshot spaceship captain, and not because we were, like, thrown together when everything was going crazy around us. It's not
convenient
to be in love with you. You're always about to get killed, and we might end up being separated for ages, and your mother thinks it's a silly crush and I should back off and stop interfering in your life.” She glared at him, still determined not to blush—or cry. “Trust me, if I
could
fall in love with someone else, it would probably be a whole lot less painful. So there you are—it's my bad luck: There isn't anyone else who'll do. It's you or nobody.”

She stopped, out of breath, hot all over, part with anger, part with the embarrassment of having to say all that stuff out loud.

“Say that again,” said Cadan.

She stared at him. The laughter had spread from his eyes over the rest of his face. “What?” she said.

His mouth curved into a smile that was full of amusement—and of something else, something that made her heart jerk to a stop, then pick up faster, stealing her breath. “Well, I could stand to hear all of it again. But just that last bit will do.”

Her face was flaming now. She met the blue blaze of his eyes, dragging in enough of a ragged breath so she could speak. “I said I love you. I said it's you or nobody.”

And then it was just as well she'd taken that breath, because Cadan had swung around the end of the rail and was kissing her, his arms so tight around her that she could hardly breathe at all.

Not that she cared.

Just like always, with them, they didn't have long enough. Even with his arms around her, his mouth on hers, the smell of his skin so close she could breathe him in, she was aware time was moving on without them, a feeling like seconds sifting away, the slow glitter of pixels sliding through an egg timer. He was in sole charge of the
Phoenix
—he didn't exactly have hours to spare. And she . . . things still weren't right with Lin, and she should tell Ady she'd seen Zee do that weird fugue thing again, and if Cadan's mother knew she was here,
interfering
with him when he was supposed to be flying the ship, she'd be all kinds of unimpressed.

Push me into something I'm not ready for, ha. We don't ever get enough time for him to push me into stuff I
am
ready for.

But when she dropped her hands to his chest, made as if to
move away from him, when his eyes met hers, it wasn't all his waiting duties that had come back to his mind.

“Wait a minute,” he said. “What was that about my mother?”

Oh God, please no.
She couldn't cope with being flung,
again
, from golden, glowing happiness into yet another fight. “Oh, Cadan . . . I completely didn't mean to be rude about her. I just—”

“No, no, it's okay.” His hand was resting lightly on the small of her back, just close enough to the waistband of her pants to make a shiver run up and down her spine. Now his fingers flattened against her skin, pulling her a fraction closer. “We're not going to fight about it, Lis. I just want to know what you mean. You said she thinks you should back off? Is that—do you mean that's just the impression you got?”

Elissa bit her lip. “No, she said it. She said I should stop interfering with what you were doing. She said we didn't have anything in common, and I should . . . I don't think it was back off, exactly. . . . Ease off. That's what she said.”

“She said that to
you
?”

“Yeah.” Suddenly scared she was misleading him, that she was going to cause all sorts of problems, she started to qualify it. “She wasn't nasty or anything. I—she said she wasn't opposing me, and she wasn't against us dating, and she didn't normally interfere with your relationships. . . .”

“But she said that? To you? That you should stop ‘interfering'?”

Elissa nodded.

“When? When did she say that?” His face changed. “It was when you came to see me at the spaceport, wasn't it? You met her on your way there?”

“Yes.”

Cadan pushed a hand through his hair. “So that's why you were so edgy. And—” He checked a moment. “No wonder you felt weird about telling me everything that was going on, if my mother had just told you to back off.”

“Ease off.”

“Whatever.” There was a snap to his voice. “God, Lis, seeing you was the one good thing in a whole long crappy afternoon. If I'm ever too busy, if it's an interference—jeez, you must know me well enough by now to know I wouldn't hesitate about telling you!”

She couldn't help laughing at that. “Yeah, I guess.”

“And my mother—both my parents . . .” His eyes crinkled in discomfort, and Elissa felt a twinge of pity for him. She'd had to cut the strings tying herself to her parents pretty catastrophically not so long ago, and for her there wasn't ever going to be a going back, a wishing for their approval. But Cadan, despite all his grown-upness, hadn't cut those strings.

He cleared his throat. “She probably meant well—at least she meant well for me. They both do. But . . .” His eyes crinkled again. “They don't
know
. They're judging it—our relationship—from the outside. Okay, my parents aren't stupid—I respect their opinions, I do. But they don't know what it's like for us, how we feel, how it happened without either of us wanting it, without us knowing it was going to. They don't
know
.”

It was what she'd told herself, earlier that day, almost an echo of her own thoughts. She looked up at him, the warmth from where he was still touching her spreading over her whole body.

“I love you,” she said, not blushing, the words coming out for the first time without any effort.

He bent his head as she reached up, and their lips met in a brief, light touch that nevertheless left her dizzy all over again. He smiled into her eyes. “Right there with you. And this time I'm not apologizing for being intense.”

She lifted her eyebrows.
“Finally.”

He laughed. “Brat.” Then, “Lis, I'm sorry, I'm not dismissing you—”

She laughed a little. “Jeez, I do know you're flying the ship.
Not
a brat anymore, remember?”

His fingers brushed down her arm, lingering a tiny bit, as he moved away to lean over the controls, then all at once his attention switched away from her, focusing entirely on the communications screen. “What the hell . . . ?”

His hand fell away from her as if he'd forgotten she was there, and he was around the other side of the safety rail almost before she'd blinked, sliding into his seat, hands flying over the controls.

She'd seen him move like that before, seen the focus of his attention narrow so swiftly it shut out everything else that was happening. Although her heart was suddenly thumping, she knew she mustn't distract him by asking what it was, asking what was going on, what new threat they were facing.

But after a moment, although he didn't turn around, he told her.

“There's an incoming message. It's not getting through. I've got our receivers set to their widest, and I can't pick it up.”

“Where's it coming from?” Elissa asked, then, catching herself as she realized it was a silly question, “Sorry. I forgot. Of course, the location codes won't be coming through either.”

Cadan threw her a mostly preoccupied smile. “Yeah, they're
not. It's coming from the direction of Philomel, though—I can tell that much. So it's a fair bet to say it's coming from their flight control. Or from something in their orbital field.” His lips quirked wryly. “I can
also
tell it's got an emergency marker tagged to it. Which of course makes me feel really leisurely and relaxed about picking up the whole of the damn thing.”

He pushed a hand through his hair. “You said Lin was in the lounge?”

“Yes.”

“Thanks. Okay.” He flicked the com-unit open, and the sharp note flattened out of his voice. Anyone listening wouldn't have known there was anything out of the ordinary going on. “Bridge, calling Lin. Lin, are you there?”

Lin's voice came through clearly, sounding surprised. “Yes?”

“Can you get up to the bridge right away, please?”

“Lissa? Is Lissa there? Is she all right?”

“She's fine.” Cadan's voice remained calm.
I wish I knew how he does that.
“I could just do with a hand from you, that's all.”

“Okay. I'm coming.”

A few minutes later Lin arrived on the flight deck and hurried up the steps to the bridge. She looked flushed and bright eyed, obviously riding a sugar-and-chocolate high.

“What is it?” she said as Cadan let her through the barrier.