My heart lifts at her question. Maybe she’s been looking forward to seeing me too.
“Tonight,” I reply. “After the President’s meeting, I report back to the AIS headquarters for a while. I’m out at sunset.”
For the first time, she looks directly at me. “Would you like to have dinner?” she asks. “It’d be nice to catch up.”
Our words are formal and stilted. Is it because it’s been so long? Because we’re older now? I give her a nod and try not to sound too eager. “I’d like that,” I reply.
She smiles a little. It softens everything about her, and I find myself wanting to lean in and pull her to me for a kiss. At one point in our lives, that had been something I could do naturally. Now? I feel like I’m stretched tight between two poles, unable to breathe.
“Great,” she says, and her voice stays formal. “Where should I meet you?”
“Tell me where you’re staying,” I answer in a low voice. This time, I’m unable to keep the pull out of my reply. “I’ll come to you.”
Her cheeks turn pink, and I find myself wondering how I managed to bear ten years without her in my life.
Then the President and the Elector are shaking hands and moving toward the elevators to head downstairs, and we’re all following along with them. Our units are about to diverge.
My heart beats rapidly at the thought of meeting up with her later. All I can do is give June a slight bow. “Commander,” I say to her, then wink once and turn away to join the rest of my fellow agents.
* * *
Sunset in Antarctica, of course, isn’t really sunset at all. It’s a simulation created by the biodome encasing Ross City. Still, it doesn’t make it any less beautiful, and by the time I meet up with June in front of the hotel where the Elector is staying, swaths of pink and purple are streaking the sky.
Their hotel is perched on the highest floor of a luxury skyscraper, a property that covers ten floors from the top down, with each of its walkways connecting to other skyscrapers adorned with lush, potted trees and strips of grass. From up here, you get a view of the entire twinkling upper half of the city as it dips into the clouds.
I’m perched in one of the trees lining either side of the hotel entrance when I see June emerge from the lobby. She’s changed out of her formal military uniform into a sleek, comfortable shirt and coat, her tall black boots pulled over her jeans.
My heartbeat quickens as she looks around for me. This angle, looking at her from a perch somewhere above, is so familiar. It’s how I’d first seen her, after all, with her hands on her hips as she challenged Kaede to a Skiz duel. I admire her for a moment, then step off from the branch and land lightly on my feet before her, my hands in my pockets.
She almost startles, but her expression turns amused an instant later at the sight of me. “You still like making your entrances,” she says.
I grin, relieved at her reaction. “Only for you, yeah?” I reply.
She laughs. “And still as insufferable as always, I see.”
Insufferable. Was I that bad? I think back, trying to pinpoint a specific moment when I might have been insufferable to her.
At my expression, she just laughs harder. “It’s fine,” she says. We pause for a moment, shuffling awkwardly, before she continues. “So. Where are you taking me?”
Even as we do this shy dance around each other, I can see poise in every line of her body. She seems like she has her entire life together in a way that I might never be able to do. I wonder if I should be acting more mature around her, so I give her a polite nod and start guiding us down the walkway.
“Someplace where we can catch up properly,” I reply.
Everything about her here feels both right and strange. The way her hair occasionally swings enough to brush my shoulder. The slight distance we keep between us when we walk beside each other. Even the way we keep trying to talk at the same time.
We take a seat at a restaurant at the highest point in Ross City, overlooking almost all the myriad skyscrapers. I can pinpoint exactly when the sunset fades into evening because the color of June’s hair shifts from a warm, dark brown to a midnight raven’s black.
Maybe this moment doesn’t affect her in the same way. I can’t be sure.
“How’s life treating you in—” we both say over our plates, then stop and laugh.
June continues when I stay silent. “You seem like you’re enjoying Ross City,” she says.
It’s not entirely true, of course. But I shrug and smile. “Can’t complain,” I reply. “I gotta say, it’s been a hell of an upgrade to sit in a place like this, looking out at a view like that.” I nod toward the stunning cityscape.
June gives me a wry grin. “I guess that means you’re not planning on moving back to the Republic anytime soon.”
“Well, I might for a while. Eden’s got an internship set up in Batalla. But the Republic’s still an idea I’m not sure I can ever get used to.” I pause, suddenly unsure if I should stay on this topic. Is it too sensitive to bring up between us now? My thoughts return abruptly to the argument I’d had with Eden, the way we’d left things hanging and unfinished. “You know how it is,” I decide to say instead.
June watches me in a way that makes me feel like she knows I’m keeping something from her. Then she looks away and out at the city. I’m quiet as I feel my heart sink. June is Anden’s most trusted officer. Someday, he may appoint her to lead the Republic’s entire military, to help restructure the whole country. She’s not leaving it behind anytime soon. If I want any chance of being in her life, the Republic is where I have to go.
Can I do that?
Immediately, I’m embarrassed at myself for my reaction. I have no hold or right on June’s life. We’re not dating. I don’t even know if she wants to. That old feeling between us now roars back to life in my head—that maybe there are just too many things that have changed in our lives for us to find a way back to each other. Or that maybe she’s just too good for me.
On the surface, I smile at her. “I hear rumors that Anden’s going to tap you to be First Commander someday.”
At that, she returns my smile. “Oh? Has that been circulating on the news here, or are you just asking around about me?”
I shrug and lean back against my chair, trying to hide my blush. “I ask around about a lot of people,” I say defensively.
When she doesn’t laugh, I drop my façade and ask, “Are you okay?”
She hesitates before she turns back to face me. Those dark eyes of hers fixate on mine, and I find myself feeling that strange sense of imbalance again, like I can never get my footing around her. “This isn’t you, Daniel,” she says.
I frown. “What do you mean?”
“This.” She looks around at the pristine restaurant, full of marble floors and white pillars, waiters in polished uniforms carrying silver trays. “You don’t feel like you’re comfortable here.”
A flash of déjà vu hits me in that moment—suddenly I’m remembering another restaurant from another time, when we sat across from each other and June asked me why I never told her about the illness that almost took my life. That took part of my memories.