“Nope. I mean, some preliminary fact checking, seeing if there were any things to watch out for. They gave me the twenty-words-or-less on your ex.”

“They’re pretty restrictive,” Byron said. “The rules.”

“Sure. But we’ve talked a bunch of times now and I like you more each time. I think I’d rather try you and me with all that stuff in the way than hang back and wait for some other sexy black knight type to turn up. I worry there’s not enough time to wait for perfect.”

“I’m a blue knight more than a black knight.”

“Ehhh. Broody and introspective with a dark background?”

“Yeah, maybe. Conceded. Feels like I’m being called evil though.”

“You can be a dark knight without being evil. Trust me, if you were evil, it would be a total turn-off. Speaking of turn-offs, you were supposed to pay more attention to when I called you sexy.”

“That’s… harder to navigate.”

“Yeah. Just say you feel flattered.”

“I do. Really.”

“You can add something to the end, Mr. Taciturn. Like, ‘especially when it comes from a beautiful young lady such as yourself’.”

“You have no idea,” Byron said.

“That’s a good answer,” she said, her voice soft. “So, uh, that’s me. Now you do your thing, brood on it for a while—”

“Brood sounds so negative.”

“Introspect on it. Digest. See how you feel about it. Talk to Tristan, see how he feels about it. Tristan, you can talk to me if you want. If any of you have any concerns or doubts or if you want to let me down easy, just say it’s too complicated or there’s too much going on. I’ll understand.”

“Doesn’t feel very organic.”

“Nope,” Vista said. “But it’s what we get. Now I’m going to go find another cot, or I’ll be super self-conscious.”

“Nah,” Byron said, getting to his feet before she could. “Easier for me to get comfortable elsewhere than it is for you. Let me be the gentleman, as a way of thanking you for being cool. I’m not good at this whole thing, but it kind of made my week.”

Vista hugged her knees. “It making your week makes my month. So there, take that.”

Byron, wearing insulated footie costume feet and sandals, padded his way over to other mattresses, to find one that was unoccupied and in decent enough condition.

Vista, for her part, let herself tip over, until she lay on the mattress, and pulled the blanket over herself. She saw me looking and winked.

She did end up slipping off into dreamland, not too long after that. Byron wasn’t in a great position to watch both ends of the hallway, and Rain was reclining with intent to sleep, apparently having worked it out with Theo, so it more or less left Theo and I to maintain watch.