Our jaunt through time had shaken off most of my resentment, but the idea that our fate was set rankled. I couldn’t accept that everything was decided before I got to make a choice. Just because we could be together didn’t mean we would.

Or that we should. We’d both been forced into this arrangement and I doubted either of us wanted to blindly climb aboard.

No matter how tempting those future might be. And I couldn’t deny that they were.

“What about…?” Quanta echoed.

“Nothing.” I could hint around it with subtext, but I’d rather wait and ask her outright. There was no reason to start making half-baked theories until I had all the information.

She finally popped a mandarin slice into her mouth, silently observing me while she chewed. Both of us were doing a lot of silent observation.

“I don’t want to go shooting anymore,” Quanta finally said.

“No?” Then how were we supposed to get our moment alone?

“I want to play chess.”

I cracked a smile at the irony. “Aren’t we already?”

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Seventeen

QUANTA

I couldn’t choke down more than a few bites of breakfast, and neither could Tair. Apparently time travel messed with the belly.

Both of us pushed our food around for a few minutes while sneaking covert glances at the other. So much hovered unsaid.

My timeghosts were back to normal—or at least the post-Tair version of normal, with lots of visions of him in the mix—but none of them hinted what to do next, and at this point I wasn’t even sure what to look for.

Luckily, I had my own plots. We had to get some skin contact so we could chat and I could borrow his brain to help my focus. Not for any other reason. A crush wasn’t going to help us through this.

Especially a stupid, ill-fated, pheromone-y crush that I couldn’t let go anywhere. But just because I knew that, didn’t mean I couldn’t sneak peeks at Tair while we faked our way through the meal. He got to me whether or not I wanted to let him.

After we’d both put on enough of a show, Tair popped open the game cupboard. He started to set the board on the kitchen table, but I knocked back my chair, ready to get away from the breakfast smells. “No. Over there.”

He followed me into the living room and set the holo board on the plastic coffee table. “Will this be comfortable?”

I plopped onto the carpet and pushed my legs straight out underneath, hoping he’d pick up the hint. I’d probably pass out if we hit the shooting range, and this gave us a much better chance to talk. “You want a cushion?”