me that kiss you ran from earlier,” he said.
“What kiss? We were dancing,” she protested, but she was already assessing him. His strength and size would be her biggest obstacle. Not insurmountable, but still a challenge.
“The one I was planning to steal when the song ended,” he said. “What do you want if you win?”
“When I win... I’ll leave and you’ll stop pursuing me. Deal?”
“Deal,” he said, dropping her hand and then moving a few feet away and bowing to her.
“Ready?”
* * *
DODGING KICKS AND blocking punches was exactly what he needed. He’d been feeling edgy as he looked around the ballroom earlier. He knew he was one of the top contenders to be named to the inaugural Cronus crew in the next phase, but he also saw the talent there and knew that it wasn’t guaranteed. He was going to have to work hard and concentrate.
That didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy the ride. His parents had never been much on instant gratification. When someone wanted something, they worked hard, earned it and the family celebrated. It was a lesson that had stood Hemi well all his life.
He didn’t pull his punches because he could tell that Jessie wasn’t. And it was exactly what he needed. She didn’t have strength on her side; physically he had to be at least twice her size, and he worked out constantly to ensure his body was in peak condition. But she was quick and smart.
She had the best reflexes he’d encountered in a sparring partner in a long time.
She clipped him in the jaw with a front snap kick and dropped to ready position as soon as she’d made contact.
“Sorry.” She grinned, knowing she’d bested him. “I thought you’d see that one coming.”
He rubbed his jaw and shook his head ruefully. “I was distracted.”
“By what?”
Her. But that was just hormones...or was it? “I was thinking that I could see why you’re so good at surviving.”
“You can?”
“Yes. You think fast and are constantly assessing the situation.”
She nodded. “That’s one of the most important lessons. I’ll be talking to your group about that on Monday.”
“What could be more important than that?” he asked, watching as she carefully controlled her breathing.
“Not dying,” she said.
He laughed.
“It’s not funny.”
“I know. It’s just that Mom used to yell that after us when we’d go off together on our bikes... ‘Don’t do anything that will get you killed.’ We were always doing something...stupid, as Mom said.”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
“Yeah, I guess it did. It was hit or miss a couple of times.”
“Really? I’d have guessed your brothers would always have been trying to keep you safe.”
“Sometimes. But I was the baby of our family so they also used to push me. Ace said that’s one of the reasons I can take a lot of ribbing from the others on the team. I’m used to it.”
And he was. Usually nothing fazed him. He rolled with anything NASA or the trainers or doctors threw at him. But he was feeling...different from his usual attitude. The cosmos still awed him. There was so much out there they simply didn’t understand yet. He was a mission specialist with a focus on celestial bodies. Since the beginning of his military career he’d been pursuing a degree in the space-related field of radio spectrometry. His part of the Cronus mission would be to identify the matter that made up the new places they encountered.
“You’re looking scary there, Thor.”
He shook his head. “Have you ever done anything because it scared you? To prove that you could?”
She gave him a smile that lit up her face. Until that moment he hadn’t realized the other ones weren’t genuine. This one was.
“Everything I do is for that reason.”
He shook his head. “But you seem—”
“Brave, brazen, fearless?”
“Yeah.”
“How many times have those same words been applied to you?” she asked.
“Many. They also tend to add in foolish and devastatingly handsome,” he said, because this moment was too heavy. He didn’t want to admit to anything real. But he was committed to the truth. Only this time he wanted to dodge it.
She was his trainer; he wanted to seem like the only one who was overqualified for the mission. Not someone who doubted himself.
“I bet they do,” she said. “Well, it’s time for me to hit the showers. Thanks for sparring with me.”
“We aren’t done,” he said.
“Sadly we are. I beat you, Thor. So this is where I leave you.”
She had beaten him. “Rematch?”
“Not tonight,” she said.
It was then that he noticed the sadness that clung to her. She had hidden it well at the party. In her icy blond looks, most men—himself included—would just see the beauty. Not the woman beneath it.
Maybe it was the gi and the fact that she looked tired with her hair falling out of its elegant twist. But he saw that there was something she was running from. Maybe she needed a friend more than a lothario.
“You okay?”
She wrinkled her brow. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
He shrugged, then went to the water cooler and filled two paper cones. “You look...”
Sad? He knew he couldn’t say that to her. He wasn’t dumb when it came to women; he’d watched his parents interact most of his life. They were the strongest couple he knew.
“Like...?” she asked.
“Like you need a friend. Like maybe you want to talk.”
She seemed startled by that. And inside he smiled. He didn’t want to be predictable, and he realized that he had been until that moment.
“Sorry about earlier. It’s just that you’re drop-dead gorgeous and for a moment I reacted like a guy and not the gentleman I was raised to be.”
She shook her head. “You are smooth, Hemi. I’ll give you that.”
She called him by his name when she was being real with him. When she wanted distance she used his call sign. Interesting.
“So, want to talk?”
“Not really,” she said. “I’m just...”
She took the cone of water from him, downed it and then crumpled the paper in her hands before meeting his gaze again. Her gaze was direct and he thought for a moment that she could see clean into his soul. What did she see in there? He’d been ignoring that part of himself for a while now. Concentrating on working out, doing everything he could to be physically ready for the fight for a spot in Cronus. But he wasn’t spiritually ready.
“Can you keep this between us?” she asked.
“Who would I mention it to?” he countered. “I’m not a gossiper.”
“I mean...can this just be us, not trainer and trainee?”
He nodded. “I’ve got your back. Always, Jessie.”
She looked over at him. “You surprised me again.”
“I did?”