Chapter 25 - Deathstalker

Luca's Risk board had survived two apartments, a dorm room, a cargo ship, and one incident involving Joey and a spilled beer that they'd all agreed never to discuss. He set it up on the lounge coffee table with the kind of reverence it deserved, lining up the colored armies in perfect formation, dice tower centered, cards fanned out. The whole thing looked gorgeous, almost professional even.

Now he needed victims.

Something had been off since dinner. He'd run into Emily between the storage bay and engineering, and instead of the usual back-and-forth, she'd gone quiet. Looked up at him with a smile that didn't reach her eyes. For half a second, he'd almost asked what was wrong, but then she'd squeezed his arm and thanked him, and he still had no idea what for. That was eating at him more than he wanted to admit.

The crew filtered in wearing their loungewear, doing the thing where everyone orbited the couches looking for the best spot. Emily dropped into her usual place next to him, tucked her bare feet under her, and curled into the cushion like she'd claimed it six months ago and had no plans to give it back.

Joey took one look at the board. "Nah, man. I'm too tired from, you know, doing nothing all day."

Luca stared at him. The guy had literally napped through half the afternoon. "What a guy," he muttered.

Chris came in behind Joey, already halfway through a protein bar that smelled like chocolate-flavored cardboard. "This game takes forever," he said through a mouthful. "And let's face it, nobody in this room can be trusted. Last time I played, I ended up with no allies and no armies. Pass."

That was because Chris had betrayed three alliances in one turn and then acted surprised when everyone ganged up on him. Luca chose not to bring that up.

Emily laughed and leaned her head back against the cushion. "He's got a point. Risk always ends with someone flipping the board." She patted the spot beside her. "Come on, Luca, sit. Nobody's playing."

He looked at her. He looked at the board.

Damn it.

"You guys suck," he said, and swept the pieces back into the box harder than necessary. The little plastic armies clattered around like they were protesting too. He dropped onto the couch next to Emily, and her arm pressed warm against his, and okay, yeah, the evening was already better than Risk.

"So, Joey," Luca said, keeping his voice casual while looking straight at Emily, "what exactly have you been doing for the last half hour? Besides taking up half the couch?" What he actually wanted to know was where Emily had been all day. Wanted to know badly enough that he'd constructed a whole diversionary question, which was pathetic, and he was aware it was pathetic.

Emily caught him looking. Her lips curved, and she didn't answer the question he hadn't asked. Instead she winked, and her bare foot nudged his leg under the coffee table, light and deliberate. She knew exactly what she was doing, and Luca's brain went offline for about two full seconds.

"Looking for something good," Joey said from across the room, completely oblivious, arms crossed, slouching so far back he was practically horizontal. "Everything's garbage."

Joey was never going to pick anything decent. The man's taste in movies peaked at whatever had the most explosions per minute. "Fine. My turn," Luca said, and grabbed the remote. He scrolled fast, half because he wanted control and half because Emily's foot was still right there against his calf and he needed something to do with his hands. He landed on Deathstalker and hit play before anyone could argue.

"Seriously?" Zoe raised an eyebrow as the opening credits rolled. "Isn't this movie kind of... rapey?"

Ryan shrugged, already grinning at the absurd dialogue. "It's an '80s classic. What'd you expect?"

"The girl is hotter in Deathstalker 2," Joey said, and the room groaned in unison. Luca bit down on his tongue. He had opinions. He was keeping them to himself. Emily was right there.

"What? No, the original's got a better rack and shows way more," Danny added, and then his face went red so fast Luca could practically hear the blood rushing to it. "I mean, uh, the special effects are better!"

Zoe's expression could have frozen nitrogen. "Danny. We all know you weren't talking about special effects." She crossed her arms, and something shifted in her posture, smaller. "Some of us don't exactly have these 'racks' to speak of."

Danny sailed right past red into something closer to purple. The man looked like he wanted the couch to swallow him whole. "Zoe, that's not... I didn't mean it like that." He scrambled to put his arm around her. "You're... you're perfect the way you are." He wouldn't look at her, and Luca had to press his lips together to keep from losing it. Danny was absolutely, catastrophically doomed.

"Oh, please," Emily said, leaning forward. "Seriously, though, this is what you guys focus on? Rack ratings?"

Luca's face went hot. There was an edge in her voice, and it was pointed at the entire male population of the couch. She turned and looked right at him, like she was daring him to say something stupid. He kept his mouth shut, which was possibly the smartest thing he'd done all week.

"Look, I'm just saying..." Danny started.

"It's fine," Zoe said, but her voice had gone flat.

Danny went white. He stood up fast, disappeared toward the storage bin, and came back with one of the soft blankets. He draped it over Zoe's shoulders without a word and tucked it around her, careful, like he was handling something breakable.

"There," he said, settling back beside her. "Better?"

Zoe's face softened a fraction. She pulled the blanket closer, and the gesture looked automatic, like she didn't realize she was doing it. "Just... think before you talk sometimes, okay?"

"Yeah." Danny stared at the floor. "I will."

Luca almost felt bad for the guy. Almost. Danny had earned every second of that.

"Will you all shut up so we can watch this?" Luca said, and it came out louder than he meant it to, because Emily kept shifting against him. Her shoulder. Her arm. The outside of her thigh an inch from his. Every small movement scrambled his ability to form coherent thoughts, and if he didn't redirect his attention to the screen he was going to do something embarrassing.

Chris leaned forward, eyes locked on the TV. "Look at those delts. Do you think he's a nattie?"

Danny snorted. "Were steroids even a thing back then?"

"Oh, they were a thing," Chris said. "But still, the discipline to get that shredded is insane. Respect."

"Respect for what?" Ryan sounded personally offended. "Dude barely moves his lips when he talks. He's a talking brick."

Luca tried to focus on the movie. The movie was not helping.

Emily rolled her eyes, and she was close enough that something faintly floral hit him and wiped out whatever he'd been thinking. He stared at the screen like it owed him money. "I'd rather talk about the magic," she said. "It's cooler than the sword-swinging. Honestly, I wish the System had given us magic."

"Magic's stupid," Danny said, fully serious, like he'd been personally insulted by the concept. "All it does is create shortcuts. With our abilities and the knowledge that comes from them, we can develop tech that surpasses any magical system."

Zoe smirked. "Yeah. Because planning is totally this crew's strong suit."

---

Somewhere during the second act, Emily moved into him. It wasn't a lean or an accidental bump. She shifted her whole body against his side, her shoulder pressing into his chest, and Luca lost the plot of the movie completely. He wasn't even sure what scene they were on. A sword fight, maybe. There were a lot of sword fights.

When she tucked her head against his chest, everything else went distant. The crew talking, the ridiculous fight choreography on screen, Ryan making fun of the dialogue. All of it faded to background noise. Emily was warm against him, and her hair smelled like whatever shampoo she used, and his heart was doing something medically concerning.

He lifted his arm and draped it around her shoulders, trying to look casual and cool, like he did this all the time, like his pulse wasn't hammering against his ribs.

Emily didn't pull away. She reached up, took his hand, and pulled his arm tighter around her. Her fingers settled on his forearm, and she curled her legs up and fit herself against him like she'd done it a thousand times before.

Luca stopped breathing for a second. Then he remembered that breathing was mandatory and started again.

"This is actually pretty entertaining," Emily said during some absurd fight scene, and she turned to look at him, and their faces were close. Way too close. Close enough that he could see the flecks of gold in her brown eyes and the small scar on her chin from when she'd fallen off her bike in fourth grade.

Neither of them moved. The movie played. Someone on screen was dying loudly. Luca didn't care.

She was leaning on him. He held completely still, convinced that if he moved, the moment would shatter like glass.

When the credits rolled, Emily stretched and sat up, and the spot where she'd been went cold immediately. "Well, that was sufficiently ridiculous," she said, standing. "I should probably get some sleep."

"Yeah, me too," Luca said. His voice came out rough. The whole evening sat heavy in his chest, two hours of sitting next to her, holding her, and not once saying the thing he actually wanted to say. He'd spent the entire night frozen between acting like her friend and doing something about it, and every time a real moment opened up, he'd let it close.

The crew started filtering out. Emily lingered by the door, her mouth opening slightly, like she was about to say something. Then she smiled, crossed back to him, squeezed his shoulder, and headed for the corridor.

"Night, Luca," she said. Soft.

"Night, Em."

He watched her go. The door slid shut behind her, and the lounge went quiet, and Luca sat there in the dent she'd left on the couch like an idiot.

He kept replaying the foot thing, the way she'd pulled his arm tighter, her head on his chest for an entire movie, the look when their faces were two inches apart. Emily didn't do mixed signals. She never had. She was the least complicated person in his life, had been since first grade, and the signals tonight weren't mixed. They were a goddamn billboard.

The only thing in the way was him. He kept hesitating, kept waiting for the right moment, kept telling himself that moving too fast would break the one thing he couldn't afford to lose. And every night ended the same way: Emily walking away, Luca sitting alone, and the distance between them exactly the same as the night before.

Coward. That's what he was being.

The lounge sat empty around him. TV off, blankets bunched on the couches, someone's mug abandoned on the side table.

The time for waiting was over. He needed a plan. Something better than hoping she'd make the first move again, because she'd made about fifteen of them tonight and he'd responded to exactly zero.