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“What?”

“Operational language.”

He looked at me.

I crossed my arms, mostly because I needed somewhere to put them. “You kissed me.”

“You kissed me back.”

“That is true.”

Something moved across his face—small, quick, gone.

My pulse answered before I could stop it. I hated that.

“We should not repeat it.”

I nodded. “Probably not.”

He stopped. His mouth opened a fraction and closed again.

He had expected more resistance. He’d braced for it, and now he had nothing to brace against.

That should not have pleased me.

It did.

I picked up the medical kit, the plastic cool against my palm. “Your bandage is done,” I said, my voice steadier than I felt.

“Yes,” he answered, the single syllable hanging between us.

“Try not to tear this one open.” I kept my eyes on the kit, snapping it shut with more force than necessary.

A faint, dry sound escaped him—not quite a laugh. “I will attempt to avoid being attacked.”

“Excellent plan.” I turned toward the table, and my legs held. Mostly. Behind me, Veyr did not move. I could feel the weight of his presence like a physical thing against my back—that was the problem. All that talk about wanting not being weakness, about existing beyond duty and debt and whatever he believed he owed the dead… and then he’d kissed me. And I’d wanted him to. That complicated things too.

I glanced back.

Veyr was staring at the floor now.

Not the window.

Not the exits.

Then he touched his mouth once with his thumb and dropped his hand as though he had caught himself.

I looked away before he saw me.

But the image stayed. His thumb against his own mouth, slow, like he was checking a wound. Like he didn’t trust what he’d felt.

And somewhere behind me, Veyr stood perfectly still with the kind of silence I had learned meant his thoughts were anything but.

I knew mine weren’t. Mine were a mess. Run the analysis again. It changes nothing. It changes everything. He said it himself—it complicates the situation. It complicates me, and I don’t have room for complicated. I have a job to finish and a supervisor to find and no time for this.

The kiss had stopped.

That did not mean either of us had wanted it to.