Beka Valentine was pacing her room trying to convince herself that she was not hiding from Rhade, merely putting space between them so that she didn't do anything stupid that she might later regret.
Of course, she was also trying to convince herself that she should go speak to him, as he would be in his room by now.
Not that she memorized his schedule so she could frequently "accidentally" bump into him at "random" completely "unplanned" places on her part or anything.
Noooo, that would just be crazy.
"Ahhhhhhhh. Okay, I'll just pop by his room and talk to him. But what if he doesn't want to see me? Gah, of course he does, what guy wouldn't? I mean, hel-lo, look at me. What man could say no after I put the moves on him? Then again, he did leave. Okay, so I might have overreacted a teeny bit with the whole him not being there. This is a warship, maybe he got called to do something, or he had an early shift. See, it was all just in my head. Darn the Valentine temper. And I swore I'd watch it after I beat up the poor Than on Vedas drift. The poor hot dog vendor, he never saw it coming. I hear he came out of the coma though."
Shaking her head to get rid of that train of thought, Beka left her room and walked down to Rhade's room.
'Okay, so I'll just ask to come in to talk about last night. I won't say anything about feeling either way about it until he does. Let the guy go first. Always a good rule, that way I don't get my heart gutted, stomped on, and crushed to bits. Then again, if he says it was an accident then it will be. Why is my love life always this hard?'
Beka passed a crowd along the way mumbling something about some chick yelling at Dylan.
'Oh god, did he sleep with one of the crew? This is so getting out of hand. Where's the guy who pined over Sarah and practically cried if you said her name?' Sigh. 'I'm starting to miss that boring old fossil. Hey, when's the last time Dylan played basketball or GO? Hmmm. Oh well, I'm here.'
'Okay, walk to door and stop in front of it.'
' Check.'
'Raise hand to doorbell.'
'Check.'
'Ring doorbell.'
'Not check, not check! Run away! You've done it before Valentine. Abort! Abort!'
'Oh my god. Okay, calm down. I can do this. I can even do it calmly if I try REALLY hard.'
'Yeah, or stop breathing.
'Okay, just ring the damn bell Becky. It's not that hard to push a little button.'
' Well, yeah, maybe, but what if he answers?'
' What if he isn't in there yet and comes up behind you standing at his door with your finger above his doorbell? Which is worse huh? Huh? Huh? Huh!'
'Okay okay, fine! You win!'
Beka presses the little button and chimes can be heard within.
'Okay, breathe, I can do this.'
The door slides open as Beka begins to speak looking at the floor.
"Hey, we really need to talk about what happened last night."
"Why, what happened last night? Ooh, was it something juicy?"
Shocked, Beka head snapped up to reveal a girl standing in Rhade's doorway in only a towel, looking fresh out of the shower.
"Umm, can you just, umm. Can you not tell Rhade I was here? We were going over paper work, and I just realized that I, um, already got his, ah, signature on something so, yeah, okay then."
"Sure, I'll tell him, but you can come in and tell him yourself if you want."
"No really, that's okay."
"Ooh, here he comes."
Sure enough, Rhade came into view also wearing only a towel and still dripping wet from the shower.
Beka only had enough time to register the expression on his face before she fled down the hall to lock herself in her room and cry on her bed – shock.
XxXxXxXxXx
Nadine winced once Dylan and her were in her room and his grip not only did not let go of her wrist, but also tightened.
"Dylan, that hurts."
His grip considerably lightened, but did not let go.
"I'm sorry Nadine, but why did you leave?"
"What?"
"This morning. Why did you leave after last night, last night was amazing. And I really want this, whatever this is, to continue between us. I don't know why you left, and you don't have to tell me, but could you please stay now? Please? God Nadine, I don't think you know what you do to me."
"Awwww, well go on, kiss him already girl!"
Glancing over, Nadine saw her roommate and on/off friend, Allison, on her bunk reading a magazine.
"Hey Allie, you want to leave for a little while?"
"Why? Oh, a little 'alone time'. Gotcha. Going to the gym, play nice kiddies. Or dirty, whichever rox ya sox."
Hearing Dylan laugh lightly as the door closed behind Allie, Nadine turned to Dylan.
"Did you really mean that?"
"Every word and so much more."
"And you aren't mad at what I yelled in the hallway?"
"Well, my male ego is bruised. But hey, what else is new?"
"Well", she said grabbing him and slinking backward, "There's my bed, want me to give your male ego a little boost?"
"We could give it a try."
XxXxXxXxXx
Dylan jumped little at the sound of another voice in the room, and was glad that neither of the girls noticed his light blush. Laughing lightly as, uh Allison, left the room, he turned back to Nadine to see her biting her lip.
A habit he noticed she often used whenever she was nervous, confused or uncomfortable. He thought it was the cutest thing ever. That, and he just loved they way she bit her cute pink lips.
Grinning as they leaned back on the back on the bed they kissed lightly, but it grew more passionate as they lay down completely. Breaking way from the kiss, to which she frowned, he uttered two words before taking her lips once again.
"Privacy Mode."
XxXxXxXxXx
"Great, now that Nadine's got Captain 'I have a complex where I have to save everybody but that's okay cause I got a nice ass', I'm the last one without a boyfriend."
Allison complained to herself as she walked into the gym.
'Ooh, speaking of nice asses, hello Rhade. Me-ow. I'd like to hit that. Hmm, why not? It's like he's seeing anybody. I would have heard about it, I always hear about these things. Oooh. He's so hot and broody and dangerous. I could so tame him. Hmmm, now to form a plan and put it in action.'
Allison "worked out" in the gym for 48 minutes, until Rhade starting to leave. Then she ran into the girl's locker rooms, waited a few minutes, and then came back out acting disgruntled and sad.
On cue Rhade asked her, "Is something wrong?"
"Yes" she pouted in what she hoped was a sexy way, "the showers are broken and I'm all icky and sweaty. What will I do now?" she fluttered her eyelashes.
He paused for a moment and then looked almost hesitant.
"Is there any where else you can shower?"
"No" she replied in a whispery voice
"Well, you can use mine then. Come on."
He turned and started to leave as she smiled and quickly ran up to him to walk next to him. Along the way she asked him questions about himself, and he really seemed to like her. After all, he did keep looking at her.
Once his room she barely had time to look around before he led her to the bathroom and showed her where the towels and soaps were. He then left her alone in the bathroom to shower.
She finished quickly and slipped the towel around herself as the left the bathroom and looked around for him.
He was on his bed.
'Good. That's where we would end up anyway'
"Hey, I'm all done", she said looking down at him through her eyelashes and biting her finger.
"Umm, thanks. Uh, I'm going to go, and um, use the shower now." And he slowly slid past her, looking at her the entire time.
'YES! It's working. He can't help but like me. Wow. I'm like so totally hot.'
The water started in the bathroom just as chimes went off.
'Oh my god. We have the same doorbell. It's like fate WANTS us to be together. This is so cool!'
She walked to the door and opened it to reveal the first officer, whatever her name was. She really did not remember everyone's names. Only hot guys and the occasional girl.
'Uh, thank god. For a moment there I thought something happened between her and the soon to be mine Rhade. Oooh, yeah, she's going to leave. I mean I already have a cute nickname for him, snuggle muffin. What guy wouldn't like that name? Ah, maybe I should be nice to her anyway, they are friends after all. And what if he asks her what she thinks about me? And she says she hates me and he isn't mine! I would like so die!'
Just as she was about to leave, Rhade came up. Tearing her eyes away from the vision that is Rhade dripping wet in only a towel across his waist, a tiny towel that hung low and only went to a little below mid thigh – 'God bless the maker of that towel' – she noticed that the first officer was already gone.
She turned back around smiling sexily to Rhade only to find him looking very angry.
'Ut-oh. Maybe I said the towel thing out loud.'
