A layer of tension peeled off his shoulders. He tapped out a quick message to the others that he’d found Mikey, then pocketed his comm and walked over.
“Hey, kid,” he said, sitting down beside him.
Mikey looked up at him, his cheeks blotchy and pink, his expression wary, clearly expecting to be in trouble.
“You okay?” Garrant asked him, keeping his voice soft, friendly. “Well, I know you’re not okay. Sorry, that was a silly question. What I mean is, is it okay if I sit with you?”
“Yes,” Mikey said.
“Thank you,” Garrant said. “Saturn looks very pretty today.”
“I was watching the ships.”
“I thought you probably would be. What’s that one?” he pointed to one of the closer shuttles.
“Medium Distance Transport Shuttle,” Mikey said.
“Probably some supplies coming in from Earth, then,” Garrant said.
He looked down at Mikey, who still had the meditation stone clutched in his hand, his forehead pressed against the glass.
“Do you know what this is?” Garrant asked, tapping a finger against the stone.
Mikey nodded. “I don’t remember the name. But you breathe the colours. I tried to do the breathing but…”
He huffed, a deep frown on his little face.
“Your head getting in the way, huh?” Garrant said, knocking against his skull. “That’s okay. That’s why meditation is a skill. You have to practise it to get good. And it’s easier to practise something when you aren’t upset.”
“I’m not upset,” Mikey said, sounding very much upset.
Garrant just smiled. “These come from my planet,” he said, gesturing to the stone. “When I was your age in school, they used to teach us how to use them. My people like meditating a lot. They say it helps you to clear your mind so you can see your path more easily.”
“Your path?” Mikey said.
“Yeah, you know - the way you’re supposed to go.”
“To the shops?”
Garrant laughed. “Kind of. But instead of just to the shops, it’s the way you go in your whole life.”
“What way are you supposed to go?”
Garrant sighed. “I wish I knew, kid. I’ve been trying to figure that out for a long time. But I’m not very good at meditating either.”
“Your head getting in the way?”
“Yeah, it is.”
Mikey considered him for a long moment, then took the cord from round his neck and held the stone out to Garrant. “You can use this if you like.”
“Why don’t we try it together?”
Mikey nodded. “Okay.”
“My teachers always used to say it helps if you sit right. Cross your legs, that’s it. Now you want your back nice and straight, no slouching. They call it sitting with your heart open. What they mean is having your shoulders back and your chest forwards, so there’s lots of space for air in your lungs. Like this.” He demonstrated. Mikey watched him closely, then mimicked his posture. “Perfect. Now we’re ready. Set the stone down there in the middle so we can both see it.”
Garrant watched the colours. They changed too rapidly for his lung capacity, so he started breathing in two, breathing out two. The look of intense concentration on Mikey’s face almost made him laugh, but he held it back, trying to keep his focus only on his breath for a few moments.
“When do you see your path?” Mikey asked.
“Hmm, that could take some time. You have to master the breathing first, then you’ve got to practise clearing your mind of all your pesky thoughts.”
“Will you teach me?”
“Well, I’m probably not the best person to do it. I’ve never been any good at it myself.”
Mikey fell silent, his chest still rising and falling in time with the colours. Garrant wanted to punch Ricky. His selfishness, playing at being a father, trying it on for size before discarding it, only left hurt in his wake. How dare he think he could be a part of Mikey’s life if his only motivation was his own upward progression.
As if Mikey could read his thoughts, he looked up, eyes watering. “Why doesn’t my dad like me?”
Garrant’s heart broke a little bit as he drew Mikey into his arms, hugging him. “Oh, kid. Grown ups suck sometimes, you know? It’s not anything you did.”
“How do you know?” Mikey said, resting his damp cheek on Garrant’s shoulder.
“Because you’re awesome,” Garrant said. Mikey drew back enough to shoot him a questioning look that reminded Garrant so much of Nell, he had to bite his tongue not to laugh.
“I’m not kidding,” he said. “You’re really cool. You can draw amazing pictures, you are really smart and funny, you’ve got a really big heart.” Garrant counted the things off on his fingers. “You managed to befriend Sassi, which you might not think is a big deal, but trust me, kiddo, lots of people before you have tried and failed. And you’re already better than me at meditation.”
Mikey giggled, just a little.
“Some people just don’t know a good thing, even when it’s right in front of them,” Garrant said.
“Am I a good thing?” Mikey said.
“You definitely are.”
A good thing.
Or maybe a sign.
Had he been looking at everything wrong all this time? He’d been so sure his path was to do with Hyperdisk, but what if Hyperdisk was just the means to bring him to this station, right now, in this moment?
Because what were the chances that a little boy picked out a Parshana Meditation stone for a souvenir, then gave it to his mother to wear to an event, where she’d be sat next to an Iparshana man who found her instantly and overwhelmingly attractive? A woman he’d assumed was Unmatched because who didn’t take the Match test these days? Except people on uninducted planets. Planets like the one Nell was from.
“Shall we try again?” Garrant said, his throat suddenly hoarse.
Mikey nodded, shuffling to sit in the correct position, the fierce concentration back on his face. Garrant smiled, even as his heart stuttered. He loved this kid. The realisation struck him hard, a hammer blow to the chest. He loved this kid, and his mother…
Well, he’d been falling in love with her since the first time he’d caught sight of her at the Opening Ceremony.
Garrant closed his eyes and settled his breathing - no easy task when his emotions were racing through him. Instead of trying to get rid of them, clear his mind completely, he concentrated on just one. The love he felt for Nell and Mikey. He took that emotion and wrapped himself in it, letting it crowd out everything else. The anger and disappointment that his career was over, his fear that he had nothing left in his life, the pain his shoulder was causing him - all of it vanished, replaced by the warmth of love.
And inside him, something shifted.
Garrant opened his eyes, stunned to see the world bathed in colour - strings of light stretching everywhere, connecting things. Mikey in front of him was glowing, a rush of red and yellows and greys swirling around him. Sadness, frustration, a little bit of anger. Garrant could see, written in Mikey’s aura around him, what he already knew - that what Mikey wanted more than anything in the Universe was a father.
And stretching between them, little threads of gold. They linked Mikey’s aura to Garrant.
Mikey wanted a father and Garrant wanted meaning. Something to fill his life now his Hyperdisk playing days were over. When the two things were laid side by side like that, the path seemed so obvious, Garrant thought he had to be a complete idiot not to have realised it before.
Garrant felt something in the back of his mind, a strange sensation. In years to come he would look back on the feeling and struggle to describe it. The best he could come up with was it felt like a smile. But not his own. Someone else’s.
Garrant blinked, his vision returning to normal.
“I still don’t see a path,” Mikey said.
“We can keep practising,” Garrant said. “But right now
I think we ought to head back to your suite. Your mother is really worried about you.”
“She’s going to be cross.” A little bit of fear tinged his words, but mostly just sadness.
“Oh, she’s going to be furious,” Garrant said. “But not with you, kid. Not with you.”
Nell burst into tears as soon as she saw Mikey, scooping him into her arms and holding him tight as she smothered him in kisses and apologies.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, over and over. “You don’t ever have to see that asshole again if you don’t want to.”
“You said a naughty word,” Mikey said, a cautious giggle escaping him.
“I could have said a much worse one,” Nell said.
Her anger still burned in her eyes as she turned her gaze to Garrant. Had that anger been directed at him, he would have been terrified, but safe in the knowledge that it had been caused by someone else, he only felt a fierce sense of pride in his woman.
His woman.
He’d been thinking of her that way for days, he realised. His heart had known what his head hadn’t been able to accept. Because he’d made the mistake of assuming that she’d taken the Match test. Because he hadn’t been a good enough Iparshana to recognise his Match when he met her.
He reached for the place inside him that he’d felt while he meditated, pushing himself towards the heightened state of awareness. Now he’d managed it once, it seemed his body remembered how to do it, slipping in to that heightened state as easy as changing the focus of his eyes from something in the distance to something up close. The world around him became bathed in colour, the lines and threads thicker here where more people were scattered about, inside their suites, or leaving or returning to them.
And Nell. She was surrounded by golden light, her aura full of it, threads of it reaching out to him, as if to draw him closer. She always looked beautiful, but bathed in that golden light, she looked otherworldly - a goddess sent by Parshana herself. He stepped closer to her and his face must have been a picture - eyes wide with awe as if he’d never seen her before - but he didn’t care, even as she raised her eyebrows at him, giving him a questioning look.
“Are you…” But before she could finish what she was saying, Garrant was beside her, putting his hand over Mikey’s eyes.
“No peeking,” he said, then caught Nell’s face in his other hand and drew her in to a kiss.
Distantly, he could hear Mikey laughing, feeling him trying to move Garrant’s hand. But everything else faded away at the touch of Nell’s lips against his. He kissed her gently, trying not to get swept up in passion or desire, but just kiss her with all the love and tenderness his heart felt for her.
“It was you,” he murmured against her lips. “It was always you.”
Epilogue
THE LAST FEW DAYS OF THE trip passed in a blur, and before Nell had time to fully process anything, it was the final day. The day of the Closing Ceremony. The next morning, they’d be making their way back to Earth.
But not quite in the same shape as they had come.
“How many toys did you need to bring?” Garrant called from the living room, where he was reaching beneath the sofa to grab something that had rolled under there.
“Lots!” Mikey called back from his bedroom, laughing.
Nell grinned, forcing their many clothes back into the suitcase. She looked over at the wardrobe door, where the green dress was hanging. She hoped if she put it in the suitcase last, laying it carefully over the top of everything else, it wouldn’t be utterly destroying in transit. She hoped to get a few wears out of it yet.
“I think that’s everything,” she called, heaving the suitcase off the bed. “Just need to throw everything we’re wearing today and tonight in tomorrow, and we’re good to go.”
Garrant walked in, holding a toy train in one hand. “Well, if we go back with a full complement of these, it will be a small miracle. How has he managed to spread them so liberally about the suite?”
Nell laughed, tiptoeing up to press a kiss to his lips, before taking the toy from his hand.
“Oh, no,” Garrant said, drawing her back, “that simply isn’t sufficient.”
He kissed her thoroughly, delicious heat rising through her.
“Ugh, gross,” Mikey groaned as he walked in, overstuffed rucksack in hand.
“No one’s telling you to look,” Garrant said, giving her another kiss for good measure.
“Are you almost done?” Nell asked Mikey, taking the bag from his hand.
“Almost!”
Nell perched on the edge of the bed and Garrant picked Mikey up before sitting down next to her with him in his lap. Despite Mikey’s protests about their kissing, Nell thought he’d never looked happier than he did in that moment, sitting with Garrant’s arm around him.
“What a mess,” Nell said, pulling out the toys he’d stuffed into it with no consideration for conserving space. As she pulled out one of his sketchbooks, a piece of paper came loose, falling onto the bed. On it, a drawing of the three of them together, the word ‘family’ printed in big letters above it.
“I asked Asha how to spell it,” Mikey said.
“It’s beautiful,” Nell said. “We should keep it safe, so we can frame it when we get home.”
Home. She looked up at Garrant, smiling.
“About that, kid,” Garrant said, shifting Mikey so he was sat on the bed, Garrant knelt down beside him. “I wanted to ask you something important.”
“Okay,” Mikey said, nodding, his expression adorably serious.
“Well, you and your mother are going back to Earth tomorrow. And I was wondering if I could come with you?”
“I already thought you were,” Mikey said, looking confused.
“I want to,” Garrant said. “I really want to. I’d like to come home with you and live in your house with you and look after you both.”
“And be a family?”
“Exactly, and be a family.” Garrant smiled. “But it’s really important to me that it’s okay with you. So that’s why I’m asking you - can I come with you?”
“Yes!” Mikey said.
Mikey tried to stay awake throughout the Closing Ceremony. Sassi, too, though her eyes were drifting even before Mikey started snuggling down in Nell’s lap. As the event drew to a close, Garrant lifted deadweight Mikey into his arms, cradling him carefully as they made their way out of the arena and back to the residential area.
“Shouldn’t have bowed to the pressure to bring them,” Allendi said, rolling her eyes. “Should have just got a baby sitter again.”
“I think they enjoyed the first half,” Nell said, biting back a laugh.
As they arrived back at the suite, Allendi drew Nell into a hug.
“I’ll see you tomorrow morning to say goodbye,” she said. “Sassi is going to be devastated.”
“Mikey, too,” Nell said. “We’ll have to come and visit you soon.”
“I know Cael wants to bring Asha soon. You’ll have to tag along. You’ll always be welcome to stay with us.” She grinned at Garrant. “Doubly so now it means I also get to see more of him.”
They said their goodnights then headed to their suites. Garrant lowered Mikey carefully into his bed and Nell tucked the covers round him, pressing a kiss to his forehead. He didn’t stir once, even as they backed carefully out of his room and headed to their own.
“It was a valiant effort on his part,” Garrant said, keeping his voice a murmur. “He made it past the halfway point. That was further than I expected him to last.”
Nell trailed a hand down his chest. “And now he’s definitely not going to stir for a while.”
Garrant’s hand swept from her thigh up and round, cupping her backside as he pulled her flush against him. “That is an excellent point.”
She looped her arms round his neck as he kissed her thoroughly, with every bit of longing that had built between them during the day. He removed her clothes, working slowly through the catches and buttons
, kissing every bit of newly exposed skin, until she was gasping and needy, her core aching for him.
“So beautiful,” he whispered, as he lay her down on the bed.
He took his time with her. It seemed to be almost a challenge, after the frenzied rush of their first encounter, to make their nights together last as long as possible. He built her up in waves, bringing her back down from the edge with expert precision, then driving her wild again, until they were both riding the edge of release, needy and gasping, finally tumbling over together.
“How’s the shoulder?” she asked afterwards, still draped over his chest, her hair a bird’s nest, her skin still tingling with aftershocks.
“Not too bad,” he said, rolling it.
The doctors had said it would improve, slowly, as he rested it. While he wasn’t playing Hyperdisk anymore, their bedroom antics were still very physical. Nell worried a little. But not enough to stop him.
He caught her hand, drawing it to his mouth, pressing a kiss to the inside of her wrist.
“How do you feel about tattoos?” he asked.
“Well, I’m very fond of yours,” she said, kissing one of the designs on his chest.
“I meant for you. I was thinking - we could have a family tattoo designed for you. Then, we can use it to design our family tattoo.”
He traced a finger down the bare skin of her forearm, making her shiver.
“I never really considered getting one before,” she said.
“Not sure you could hack the pain?” His eyes glittered, teasing.
“You might think you know exactly how to push my buttons, but I also know you know. The two cancel each other out.”
Garrant chuckled. “You don’t have to do anything to prove anything to me, you know that.”
“I know,” she said.
“If you were amenable to the idea, though…”
She pushed herself up, pressing a kiss to his lips. “If it’s something that would make you happy then, yes, I am amenable.”
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