Page 70 of Tethered

“I’ll be fine,” Maximus murmurs.

Julian hesitates before sitting back down and Marlowe drags me away—presumably before I can blunder again. We turn a corner, Liz trailing behind us, and Marlowe bursts into laughter.

“What?”

She just shakes her head. “What am I gonna do with you?”

We work exponentially faster with a third set of hands, especially because Liz is the best of both of us. With way more intimate knowledge of ship repairs, she offers improvements to our approach. I’m relegated to patching the smaller dents whilst Marlowe and Liz fill the bigger ones. Once she has her hands full, Liz turns out to be quite chatty, and she makes casual quips the whole time. At first, I’m envious of her ability to engage Marlowe in constant conversation, but I lean into that, and it quickly stops being a source of bother. I like my interactions with Marlowe; I wouldn’t want to change the nature of them.

A sudden prickling along my neck forces me to look around, and Liz is staring at me. She raises her eyebrows playfully. “You’re a bit strange, Captain.”

I don’t know what to say to that.

“Hey,” Marlowe says, turning. “You’d better be joking.”

“Come on. We had an hour-long conversation, I was butt-ass naked the entire time, and she didn’t look once. No strange glances since then, either. That’s weird!”

“How humble of you,” Marlowe scoffs.

I make a helpless gesture. “What was I supposed to do?”

Liz shrugs, then smirks a little. “I’m not into women, but I mean, I know I have a good body. It’s kind of insulting, if you think about it.”

Marlowe laughs in disbelief. “It’s really not. Besides, not everything is about sex. Our bodies aren’t inherently—”

“Are you crazy? Everything is about sex when you’re in space. There’s nothing else to do up here!” Liz turns back to me, cocking her head. “At first, I thought you might be straight and didn’t question it. But the way you two have been making googly eyes at each other all day, I’m starting to feel offended again.”

I turn to Marlowe, bewildered. “Is she being serious? This is one of those moments where I can’t read the room.”

“Even I can’t tell.” She shakes her head. “Best thing to do is ignore her. And you.” Marlowe points at Liz. “Don’t get to call Tanisira strange, or weird, or anything along those lines.”

I hear the unspoken:only I get to do that. We make eye contact, and I have to fight a smile. When did we start to have inside jokes? Also, googly eyes?

“My point is, you two are fucking, right?”

I gape. The EVA suit swallows her, and I remember what she said about being called timid. It’s amazing thatanyonehas ever had that opinion of her. Thankfully, Marlowe isn’t fazed. She steps in, figuratively, with a harshly raised eyebrow. “That’s none of your business. Anyway, what was so important you couldn’t grab a towel first?”

“Oh, the captain just wanted my advice on ships. Nice redirect, by the way. Definitely fucking.”

I sink my face into my palm, or at least try to, before the glove slaps into my visor. Marlowe huffs in amusement. “Ships? What about them?” she says to me directly.

“She doesn’t know?” Liz asks.

I find my voice. “Can you—stop talking for a moment, please?”

She rolls her eyes before turning back to her task. It gives me some space to gather my thoughts. I hate getting so flustered by the most mundane things; it’s exhausting.

“It’s no big deal; I’ve just always wanted my own ship.”

Contemplation crosses Marlowe’s face. “You should.”

“This wasn’t the plan.” I say, gesturing at the hull.

“Of course. I didn’t think...but it’s obvious.”

“Obvious?”

“Answerable to no one but yourself and the freedom to go where you want, when you want. No Dominiks.”