Chapter 292: edit edit edit edit

Bridget caught me comparing freight times while sitting in our newly heated bath, which was how I discovered that looking innocent required more effort when the evidence glowed directly above your own nose.

I closed the internal display before she could read every detail. She couldn't see it anyway, but guilt apparently enjoyed making me perform useless little gestures for an audience of one drunk koala.

[System: Smooth as gravel, mate. Nothing says romance like planning a robbery while your girlfriend checks whether the bathwater's hiding another fucking injury.]

It wasn't a robbery yet, because I hadn't decided which bits belonged to me emotionally.

The heater downstairs had passed its check. Hot water reached the apartment without coughing, leaking or threatening to launch anything through the roof, and I felt the club had finally delivered on its most important promise.

Bridget sat on the bath's wide edge in a loose robe, with her wings carefully clear of the steam. She dipped her fingers into the water and watched me settle my sore side against a folded towel instead of the hard rim.

"You were going after that shipment," she said, without pretending it was a question I could charm my way around.

"I was thinking about it, sweetheart. There happened to be a warm place nearby where a very handsome snake could recover while somebody else's expensive cargo suffered a change of plans."

"That handsome snake could recover here, where the towels hadn't been shot at."

I considered offering to shoot one for atmosphere, then noticed the concern behind her teasing and let the joke die before it made me sound like more of a prick than intended.

"I liked making Hansen angry," I admitted. "He'd spent enough time treating me like something he could move around, and I liked being the reason his evening went to shit."

She didn't tell me that secretly made me good. She knew exactly how much of my helpful behavior began with somebody annoying me personally, and I liked her more for not trying to wash it into something respectable.

"Then call it revenge," she said. "You didn't need to put a cape on it before telling me why you wanted to go."

I rested my head against her hand. Her thumb moved along my cheek while the water supported the parts of me that had spent the evening losing arguments with machinery.

"I wanted the bath, the club and you smiling when I came home. I also wanted my uncle to choke on his own expensive little plans, which felt like a healthy range of interests."

She laughed properly at that, and I decided I would have stolen a second heater if it kept the sound in the room.

Old Mate chose that moment to suggest a third interest involving better pillows, because even he seemed capable of recognizing when a comment about explosions would ruin things.

[System: Get the lass the soft ones tomorrow, champ. You've spent more effort carrying a heater than making the bloody bed comfortable, and that's piss-poor boyfriend management.]

For a drunk koala who mostly lived to watch me fail, you occasionally made an annoyingly decent point.

Bridget helped me out without tugging the sore fin. I kept my normal size, coiling carefully beside the bath while she handed me a towel and reminded me that expanding to twelve feet indoors would only prove I couldn't measure a room.

"I appreciated that you noticed my potential, even when you expressed it as a furniture problem."

"I noticed that the door was smaller than your confidence," she replied, before kissing me slowly enough to stop the next joke leaving my mouth.

I let it stay stopped. There were times when being a clever bastard mattered, and times when a woman chose to stay close after seeing the complete disaster and deserved my undivided attention.

We moved to the bed after she checked the dressing once more. I listened when she told me what felt comfortable, kept my weight away from her wings and followed her lead when she drew me nearer.

The evening belonged to us after that. We shut the door, put the outside problems aside and took the privacy we had spent far too much effort earning.

Later, we shared fruit from a bowl balanced safely on the bedside table. She stole the piece I had been saving, then looked entirely untroubled by the outrage on my face.

"That was targeted cruelty, sweetheart. I'd spent several minutes building a future with that particular slice."

"You could steal another heater about it tomorrow," she said, and I realized she had become far too comfortable using my personality against me.

No new bond appeared, and no reward interrupted us. Being close didn't need to turn every quiet moment into a transaction, especially when I already had enough numbers trying to tell me whether I was winning at life.

My phone rang only after we had settled beneath the blanket. Lukas sent a clearer version of the freight photograph, with the cargo board visible behind the collection truck.

The industrial controller was one part of a larger pressure rig. Its listed route ran from the Drop Off testing basin back toward the water outside Ami, and an attached booking carried the same private equipment mark we had followed from Hansen's depot.

Bridget read the message over my shoulder once I showed it to her phone. She traced the departure time, checked the route and asked whether I intended to tell anyone before leaving.

"You'd get the actual destination, an arrival call and a return plan," I promised. "Lying about where I went would make it harder for you to find me and tell me I was being a dickhead."

She accepted the promise without pretending to enjoy the trip. I kissed her palm, booked a morning ride to the public survey depot and watched the confirmation arrive beside a warning about restricted crater access.

The warning included a photograph of something enormous dragging a steel fence into the dark, and Old Mate suddenly sounded much more interested in our little outing.