She loved her other friends, but she was the one they called in an emergency. Everyone other than Ísa, Sailor, and Veni just accepted that she’d look after herself. That’s what she’d taught people to accept, what she wanted them to accept. Only… Danny had never quite done that, had he? He’d somehow found an impossible balance between treating her as a fully capable adult while being there for her at the same time.

He’d baked her cookies because she was sad and angry and scared.

He’d pinned her against the wall for the best sex ever.

He’d tickled her without mercy when they had a tickle fight.

He’d shaken his head and told her to get out of her prostheses one day when he could tell they were bothering her. “I promise I won’t sell them on the black market, princess… though, come to think of it those are experimental, right? Maybe I’ll take up industrial espionage after all”—he’d begun to twirl a nonexistent mustache—“set myself up for life.”

She’d laughed despite herself.

So many moments, none of them in a stereotypical pattern.

Which was why she could message him, could suggest a visit.

He responded after his afternoon training session. Hell Yeah! Let me run this by team management and see if they’ll let me off on the training days too. Should be okay I think—we have that big gap because there’s a traditional holiday that all the local players go home for and not everyone will be back for training that week anyway. Message you once I have some news.

She smiled stupidly at her phone.

She was still smiling weeks later as she packed for the trip. She and Danny had decided to meet in Beijing as he wanted a bit more time to learn Japanese before he showed her around his adopted city.

“In Beijing, we’ll be equally lost,” he’d said with a laugh.

Odd that she, a woman who’d never liked being lost and who always wanted a roadmap, would be so compelled by the idea of being lost. But not just being lost. Being lost with Danny. This man who kept on upturning her world.

“He freaks me out,” she finally admitted to Ísa.

Her sister was sitting on her bed, keeping her company and offering comments on her clothing options as Catie held up various pieces. She’d left the kids with Sailor, who was apparently teaching them how to propagate plants.

While Connor was the more horticulturally inclined of the siblings, even mad-for-sports Emmaline enjoyed the small growing experiments. She was planning to gift her successful baby plants to friends.