"The Surprise"
FemRyder/Reyes
Written for "Leather & Lace Challenge 2019" - Prompt - Unromantic Romance
Summary: Reyes Vidal has a surprise waiting for Kira Ryder in their new home.
"Reyes, you know I love surprises," former Pathfinder Kira Ryder mentioned as she let Reyes Vidal lead her through the kitchen within the home they shared together. "But why do I feel like every time the surprise comes from you, I can't help but feel a little… suspicious?"
"Kira, you wound me," Reyes replied, well aware that Kira wasn't serious when she said that. It wasn't the first time she uttered those words to him. "You should know by now that I've been better at surprises lately."
"Uh huh, suuuure," she teased.
Moments ago, Kira arrived home after a day in Ditaeon where she maintained her new job as an arbitrator - keeping the peace between the Milky Way species and the angaran here on Kadara. Reyes barely let her take two steps before he put a blindfold over her eyes and began to lead her to where the dining table was located.
Kira knew she was next to the table when her hip brushed against the edge. She heard Reyes pull a chair back. "Step carefully with your left-"
"OWE!" she cried out as soon as her knee made contact with one of the table legs. She hit it harder than she wanted to. "Ugh… wait until Luke hears about this little coincidence."
"How so?" Reyes asked curiously.
"This is almost exactly how Vetra surprised him with the first dinner she made for him over a year ago. Leading to the table… hurting one self before we could sit down. Now I just have to hope that dinner isn't burnt to a charred crisp."
"How do you know it's dinner at all?" Reyes teased.
Kira laughed at that as she carefully sat in the chair. "Reyes, you led me to the dinner table. What else could it be?"
"I could've set up a game of Monopoly for all you know."
"Ugh, I hope not. Luke and I got into our biggest fight over a game when we were about… thirteen or fourteen, I can't remember which. Let's just say the board had seen better days after it was all said and done. After that, we didn't speak to each other for two months. I never touched the game again after that."
Kira took a deep breath and she prepared herself for the surprise – not that she expected it to be bad or anything. "May I take the blindfold off now?"
"Not yet, just a moment," Reyes replied.
Kira heard him move around a bit in the kitchen before he came back to the table and set something down in front of her. She kept her eyes closed even as he finally removed the blindfold that covered them.
"Okay, you can open your eyes now," he declared.
Kira did just that and, upon seeing what was in front of her on the table, she nearly gasped in astonishment…
There, in front of her on a wooden serving board, was a perfectly arranged set of various types of sushi. There were two rows of nigiri with different types of fish (as well as two pieces of tamago) on top of each ball of rice right in the middle of the board, two sets of maki rolls surrounding the nigiri, and two other types of larger rolls – rainbow sushi and spicy tuna with vegetables.
Since waking up from cryo over two years ago, Kira craved sushi almost all the time. Six months ago, the Nexus had released the fish genomes that would be raised on various farms around the Heleus cluster. In all that time, no one - as far as she knew - opened up a sushi restaurant nor had anyone tried to make a variety using angaran fish. Kira knew it was a bad idea to even attempt to make some on her own, and the one time Luke tried to make a sushi dinner turned into a huge catastrophe for her and the rest of the Tempest crew.
She couldn't begin to imagine how Reyes managed to pull this off – collecting all the ingredients and putting it all together so perfectly.
"Yes, unlike the mistake your brother made a few months ago, the fish is sushi grade," Reyes explained. "There's a farmer on Meridian who does the proper freezing before shipping it to Kadara. I tried some earlier while putting everything together. It's as good as it looks."
"Reyes," Kira managed to say. "How…"
"I recalled a conversation we had not long before your brother woke up from his coma," he replied. "Sushi was on the top of your list of little things that you missed about the Milky Way. I tried to do this earlier, but -"
He was cut off when Kira suddenly stood up from her chair, threw her arms around Reyes' shoulders, and pressed her lips to his in a hungry kiss. Reyes was taken aback for only a brief moment before he wrapped his arms around her waist and returned the kiss.
They didn't stop until they were both desperate for air. "You've pulled off a lot of surprises, most good and some… frustrating to say the least," Kira said as she rested her forehead against his, a smile beaming on her face. "But this? This is the best surprise you've ever given me."
Reyes pulled her closer to him. "To tell you the truth, it was a pain in the ass to get everything together…" He followed those words with his own smile just as Kira was given him a 'really?' glare. "But seeing you this happy… it was damn worth it."
That earned another big smile from Kira, and it reminded Reyes again that his efforts were indeed worth it just for this moment.
And yes, the food was wonderful. So was their lovemaking later that night.
