Starfall (Starflight #2)(40)

Cassia turned her gaze to the floor. Hearing the truth only made her feel worse because she hadn’t meant a word of what she’d said. She had never wanted Kane to come after her. She’d only told him that to cut him as deeply as he’d wounded her.

“The day of shore leave,” he said, softer now, “we had a fight, remember? You said you didn’t need me anymore. That really messed with my head. I was in a bad place when I met Shanna. She was nice to me, and that felt good. And yeah, maybe I let things go too far, but I shut it down right away because she wasn’t the girl I wanted. She wasn’t you.”

Cassia heard everything he said, but what stuck in her mind and replayed on an endless loop was his admission that Shanna had made him feel good and he’d gone too far with her. What did that mean? How far was too far? Did he like kissing Shanna more than he liked kissing her?

He drew her back to the conversation by touching her arm. “I kept my promise. I told Gage to hold on to his money for now.”

For now.

There it was: two words that reminded her of something she’d been fighting to ignore. Sooner or later, he would take the job Gage had offered him. And when that happened, their lives would follow different paths. He would move on with a new group of friends that didn’t include her. Eventually, he would give his heart to another girl—if not Shanna, then someone else. It was just a matter of time.

She thought back to what Jordan had said about tenacity and how she’d rescued herself when no one had come for her. She had been stronger alone.

“Take the money,” she said, looking him in the eyes so he would know she meant it. “We need all the resources we can get.” She shifted her arm from beneath his hand and skirted around him toward the door. “Please tell Gage to be quick about it. I’m done with this place.”





Kane had just lifted the lid to the breakfast porridge when Renny abruptly shouldered him aside and swiped the ladle from his hand to fill the first bowl. Ignoring Kane’s grunts of offense, the captain reached into the spice cabinet for a pinch of nutmeg and asked, “Where do we keep the sugar?”

Kane rubbed his sore upper arm. He had at least ten pounds on Renny, not to mention a four-inch height advantage, but the captain packed a surprising wallop. “The same place we keep the unicorn meat and the mermaid tears. On the shelf of make-believe.”

“We don’t have any sugar?”

“What can I say? The captain’s a cheapskate.”

Before Kane could ask what was going on, Renny darted a glance at the stove’s metallic hood, where Arabelle’s reflection appeared from the opposite doorway. Her footsteps halted when she noticed him, but she recovered and sat alone at the table, folding her hands primly atop its surface and pretending to study a rust stain on the wall.

Now Kane understood about the sugar.

“What about honey?” Renny whispered.

Kane took pity on the captain and retrieved the secret stash of vanilla syrup he reserved for Cassia’s coffee. He shook a few generous squirts into the bowl and watched with amusement as Renny bore the porridge toward Arabelle like a priest preparing a ritual sacrifice. After placing the bowl in front of her, Renny set a jasmine blossom beside it—a live flower that’d probably cost more than their entire galley budget for the week.

Kane shook his head. It was a good thing he’d locked up his signing bonus.

“I made it special for you,” Renny told Arabelle, who refused to acknowledge him. “But if you’re tired of porridge, I can have Kane fix something else.”

Fix something else? Like what, beans?

By way of answer, Arabelle stirred her porridge and began eating in silence. Renny must’ve known better than to push his luck, because he patted the table and gradually backed out of the galley until he disappeared.

Poor guy.

At the same time, the rest of the crew made their way to the table—Solara jogging up the stairs from the engine room, Doran shuffling in with his hair still damp from the shower, Acorn scurrying into the galley with something thin and silvery between her teeth, and Cassia chasing after her. It seemed Acorn had stolen Cassia’s com-bracelet, the one she used to chat with that * general of hers.

Two days had passed since they’d left Gage’s compound, and Kane still felt the urge to vomit each time he remembered the snippets of conversation he’d overheard. Cassia had gobbled up her general’s words like spiced cake at a harvest fair. But had she bothered to listen to her best friend for a few minutes afterward?

No. And she hadn’t spoken to him since.

Kane filled four bowls with porridge and snuck a glance at Cassia as she pried open Acorn’s jaws. She barely looked at him anymore. His kiss with Shanna didn’t mean anything to him, but it clearly meant a lot to Cassia. In a way he was glad for that, because it proved she thought of him as more than a friend. But he certainly couldn’t say so, and another heartfelt apology would only blow up in his face.

That left one option: picking a fight with her.

After setting her bowl of porridge on the table, he returned to the stove and fixed a mug of coffee with three squirts of vanilla syrup and a pinch of cinnamon. To ensure she didn’t leave the mug untouched as she’d done the last two mornings, he plunked it beside her bowl and then leaned down until their noses almost touched.

“We both know you want it,” he said. “So quit punishing yourself. You can still be mad at me and drink your coffee.”