CHAPTER 15

“G emma.” Mitchell’s eyes widen in surprise.

Mine do, too, because even though I was pretty sure I’d find the captain in here, I was not expecting him to look like… this .

He’s wearing nothing but baggy pyjama pants that rest far too low on his hips, displaying a tantalizing amount of tanned skin and gorgeously sculpted muscle. Too much for me to have any hope of banishing the thoughts I was already struggling to push away.

His body’s not what has me surprised, though. Nor is it the knee-weakening whiff of evergreen that wafts over me a second after the door opens. It’s that I never imagined the stiff-as-a-soldier captain could look so utterly at ease.

Mitchell’s lounging at the helm in his captain’s chair. And I mean lounging. He’s got the seat tipped back in a deep recline and swivelled to the side so he can rest his bare feet on the lefthand dash, where Sam usually works. One hand cups the back of his head. His other arm drapes over the armrest, holding a squat glass of clear, honey-coloured liquid .

Captain Goody-Goody is actually consuming an alcoholic beverage. And he’s luxuriating in the music that fills the cockpit as if the sound is a bath of warm water surrounding him.

I want to jump in and swim, but terror that I might drown glues me to the spot. Ivanov melts into Dvo?ák as I stand in the doorway, staring.

Mitchell’s lips curve into a smile and he waves his free hand, beckoning me in.

I should definitely back away.

Retreat to the dormitory.

Blow off some steam with Vince.

But, God help me, I step across the threshold with my heart pounding like a twelve-year-old girl in the presence of her first crush. The automatic door slides shut behind me.

Mitchell’s smile ticks up a notch when I step in, and I’m struck once more by how honestly welcoming his expression is—and yet how much sadness seems to linger at the corners of his eyes. I’m caught in the green-brown warmth as he regards me. Then his gaze travels down from my face to sweep over my body, and I remember I’m wearing nothing but my grandfather’s old, threadbare T-shirt.

I seriously need to invest in sexier pyjamas.

My fingers worry the ratty hem that grazes my upper thigh, and Mitchell’s eyes seem to catch on the motion. They linger on my pale, bare legs for longer than necessary .

Is he… checking me out?

Maybe I can work the T-shirt angle after all.

Instead of bolstering my confidence, the thought agitates a whole host of butterflies in my stomach. I cross my arms and rub the bare toes of my right foot over the top of my left, squirming.

Captain Perfect snaps out of his momentary lapse into mortality and drags his gaze back to my face, pausing on the T-shirt along the way.

He clears his throat. “Federation Point Martial Academy? Thought you went to Skyside.”

“Huh?”

He gestures with the hand holding his drink. “Your T-shirt. That’s the old Federation Point logo, isn’t it?”

I unfold my arms and look down at the ultra-faded gold-on-navy symbol of crossed swords encircled by a wreath of laurel leaves, the crest of the most elite military prep school in the quadrant. “Oh, yeah. It…” I don’t want to be stupid and reveal too much of myself, like Vince warned me. But I don’t see how a little bit of truth could hurt. “It belonged to my grandfather. I kept it after he died. He was into all that military bullshit—” I wince, realizing I probably just majorly stuck my foot in my mouth. My eyes flash to Mitchell’s. “I’m sorry. You—I assume you’ve served. I didn’t mean it like that.”

The captain searches my face. “No, it’s okay.” He balances his glass on the dash and swings his legs down, bare feet landing softly on the stainless steel flooring. He pulls a lever at the base of the chair next to his. Loose pyjama bottoms slide a centimetre or two lower as he moves, and I’m glad he’s focused on adjusting the chair and not on me because I can’t tear my eyes from his crunched abs and the intriguing line of hair below his navel. I think I might be drooling.

If I could slap myself right now without Mitchell thinking he’d invited a crazy person to this party, I would. Instead, I give my arm a good hard pinch.

“Here, come sit,” Mitchell says, patting the worn pleather seat. He’s turned the chair so it’s angled toward his own, and tilted it so it leans back a little, like a lounge chair.

He might as well have asked me to dive over the edge of a cliff without a parachute the way my stomach is knotting up and my heart’s racing.

I’m going to make an utter fool of myself if I don’t get a grip.

I take a deep breath and throw on an armour of false confidence. Fake it ’til you make it.

If any other gorgeous, half-naked guy asked me to come closer, I’d give him a devious look and take the invitation.

I manage a shy smile.

Not quite what I was going for .

When I take the step down from the passenger area into the helm, I twist a finger in the fabric at the hem of my shirt, so it rides up a little extra.

My heart gives a stupid little leap when Mitchell’s eyes flit to my legs. I settle in the chair he’s offered, letting my body relax into it even though every nerve in my system is riding high on adrenaline.

“You’re right,” Mitchell says as he leans back into his own chair. He leaves one foot on the floor this time and crosses the other over his knee. “I did serve. And it is bullshit.”

My eyes shoot to his in surprise. I don’t know how to react, so I bulldoze ahead with the false confidence act. “Whoa. Captain Perfect drinks, ogles bare legs, and says the word ‘bullshit.’ Who would’ve guessed?”

Mitchell raises his drink to his lips and his eyebrow in question. “Captain Perfect?”

I manage a real grin this time. “I have secret nicknames for everyone on this ship. You should feel honoured.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Ballga, for example, is Granny Cat. Most of the time. But when she’s doing something exceptionally badass, she’s the Lioness.”

Mitchell tries so hard not to laugh he almost spits out his drink. Instead, he snorts, and it must burn his nose because his eyes start to water. “You’ve got her pegged.” He blinks as he shakes his head, grinning. “Granny Cat… But I thought I was Captain Commando?”

“Shit. I forgot I said that one out loud.”

This time, both of Mitchell’s brows shoot upward. “There are more?”

“You’ve got three. You’re Captain Commando, Captain Perfect, and also… Captain Goody-Goody.” I wince when I say the last one, sure he’s going to hate it. After a moment of silence, I peek at him through one eye and see he’s staring at me with a curious expression. I un-scrunch my face. “What?”

“If you knew me at all, I doubt you’d be calling me ‘good.’ And you definitely wouldn’t be calling me ‘perfect.’”

“Oh, come on.” I lean toward him. “When you’re not busy shuttling refugees out of hell practically for free, you spend your spare time homeschooling orphans and rescuing undeserving runaways from carnivorous trees.”

Captain Apparently-Not-So-Perfect responds by giving me another long look, then downing the rest of his drink in one swig. He shakes his head like he thinks I’m crazy.

“There’s something I don’t get, though,” I say after a long silence tells me he’s not going to elaborate on why I should consider him anything less than a god. “What’s a guy like you doing awake in the middle of the night listening to Dvo?ák? Don’t you sleep like a baby on a fluffy cushion of good deeds? ”

Mitchell blinks. “Dvo?ák. You are familiar with Pre-Contact composers?”

“Yeah.” I lean back in my chair, resting my feet on the dash and crossing them at the ankles like he did earlier. I give him a smug look. “I’m, like, a musical prodigy.”

“I don’t know why I’m surprised.” The captain eyes me. “So, you know what’s playing now?”

“ New World Symphony ,” I say without pausing to listen. “That one’s not even hard. They think it’s clever to play it like every Colonization Day. And before that was Ivanov. I’m surprised you have a recording of the alternate ending version. It’s almost never played.”

Mitchell hits a button on his armrest. The music changes from Dvo?ák’s flutes to a couple of sharp bursts from a string section followed by a deep melody carried by cellos. “This one?”

I snort. “Beethoven. Symphony No. 3 . Eroica .” He’s into martial stuff.

Mitchell changes to a seldom-played Pre-Contact piece, obviously trying to stump me. I name it instantly. My false confidence is starting to become real as I relax into a game I know I can win.

Next, he selects a truly obscure song. It has the feel of something from the time of the Post-Contact Wars. He almost has me—until a shrill keyboard comes in, accompanying the midrange melody at a frequency high out of the scope of human hearing. I give him a triumphant smile. “ The Sevvian Treaty Symphony . The first piece composed by a human for a dual-species audience.”

“You have aural mods.”

I point an accusatory finger at him. “ You were trying to cheat. It wouldn’t really have been fair to pull that piece on me if I wasn’t modded.” And he hadn’t known.

“I suspected.”

“How?”

“The cockpit’s soundproofed. How else would you have heard me holed up in here?” He leans back in his seat, places his hands behind his head, and closes his eyes, letting the sound wash over him. “I like this one.”

It truly is a beautiful piece of music. So hopeful and full of the promise of peace. Too bad the treaty didn’t last.

Mitchell lounges, looking as peaceful as the melody. His lips are relaxed and soft, and when the high notes come in again, they part slightly, like he’s breathing in the sound. The usual tension around his eyes has melted away, his upper lids kissing the lower ones whisper soft.

I’d forgotten how young he looked when I first saw him. I hadn’t believed him old enough to captain a ship. He looks young again now, vulnerable even. As if he might be as breakable as I am .

The trust evident in the captain’s body language makes my heart ache. I wish I was worthy of it.

I feel a sudden urge to crawl into Mitchell’s chair with him, snuggle up against his warm, hard chest, and nestle my head under his scratchy chin. As if covering his prostrate body with mine might protect him from being harmed in this uncharacteristically vulnerable state. Protect him from anything that could make him as broken I am. Which is stupid, because closeness to me could only ever bring Mitchell crashing down.

It’s too intimate, watching him like this. Like watching someone sleep. I force myself to lie back in my chair and close my eyes, to listen to the melody dance and dive.

Stillness is not my strong suit, though. Soon I’m tapping both hands on the pleather seat. I like how the material clings to my fingers for a moment each time I lift them, making for an interesting, sticky sound. One of my bare toes clicks a dead dial back and forth on the dashboard, adding a tick to the rhythm. I like my addition to the symphony; it fits somehow.

“You’re a restless little thing, aren’t you?”

I open one eye. Mitchell’s staring at my ticking toe, but he doesn’t look annoyed. There’s a half-grin on his lips. I open my other eye and curl my legs beneath me.

“I was born with an aptitude for multitasking, so they enhanced it with mods,” I explain.

Maybe I shouldn’t tell him this, but I feel like I owe it to the captain to be open with him after he seemed so vulnerable just a moment ago. “I can accomplish a lot. In school, I could listen to three or four different textbooks at the same time, and I’d understand them all.” I rub my palms over my thighs. “But when there’s not a lot going on to stimulate me, I get antsy. Sometimes my mind drifts to… unpleasant memories. Music helps. Especially music like this piece—a lot of layers, a lot going on at different frequencies. It gives me something to think about. To latch on to.”

The shyness wells up again, but my curiosity is stronger. “I kind of thought you might have similar mods, the way you handle your ship. But you’re not twitchy like me.”

“I do,” he says, smiling. “Same story. When I was a kid, my mind was always a spiderweb of thought instead of a train. As with you, it was seen as an aptitude, so my parents had the ability enhanced. And I was twitchy. Very. ” He snorts like he’s reliving some memory of his own childhood antics. “But my father was… strict. Militaristic, you might say. He drilled it out of me. I controlled myself, or I paid the price.”

“Sounds intense.”

“I wouldn’t wish my upbringing on anyone. With Sam, I try so hard not be like my dad.” He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “But the truth is, I have no idea how to be a parent. I shouldn’t have let Sam play out there alone today. If I’d watched him more closely, he wouldn’t have been taken.”

God, the weight of responsibility, raising a kid. No wonder Mitchell seems older than he is. I wish there was something I could do to help ease that weight.

I lean forward and lay my hand on his before I realize what I’m doing. “I don’t think anyone knows how to be a parent. How much to expose their kids to; how much to protect them,” I say, surprising myself because I’ve never thought about parenting from my dad’s perspective before. “Mine sheltered and coddled me until I thought the world was made of sunshine and roses, and that only made it harder when I learned the truth.” I look Mitchell in the eye. “Sam, he’s lived through so much, seen so much. And yet he’s happy and capable and strong. He has a future. And that’s because of you.”

He searches my face, opens his mouth like he wants to say something, shakes his head. His lips close around the unspoken words.

I draw my hand away.

The silence lasts long enough that I fidget in my chair. Then I start tapping again. The sound seems to bring Mitchell out of his momentary grim reverie. He glances at my restless fingers, then grins. “I think I have something you’ll like. It’s not high quality or anything, just a pirated recording from a concert in the Underground. But this guy? He’s more than just a DJ, he’s a composer in his own right.”

Oh God.

Is Mitchell a fan of RetroX?

I guess I can handle it. I mean, I wouldn’t have expected Captain Goody-Goody to be into electronic music at all, so that’s kind of cool. And RetroX is good. Really good. It just irks me that he’s always headlining when I’m better.

I brace myself as Mitchell uses the touchpad on his armrest to flick through a selection of recordings.

“You’ll appreciate how he hints at classical influences, even samples them sometimes,” Mitchell says, radiating enthusiasm. He’s got practically the same look on his face as Sam had when he was telling me about Star Rovers. “And the way he layers frequencies so one piece of music works for such a diverse audience? This guy’s a true artist. You’ll see.”

He hits a button, and a familiar beat comes alive. A familiar ultra-low bass line hums through my body, vibrating in my chest.

My jaw drops.

Mitchell’s not a fan of RetroX. He’s a fan of DJ Rollercoaster.