Chapter 8: Fire Dance
Sabo came back from his discussion with Dragon solemn, but resolute.
Koala had been waiting patiently in her quarters, packing up whether they got permission or not. Sabo needed this time away from the Revolutionary Army to get his head straight. They had to investigate, explore his memories with Ace, and understand the nature of this strange connection, and if she had to go awol for a while, then damn the consequences.
They’d make it up to the Army later.
She looked up as Sabo walked in, her smile warm despite the nerves hammering in her chest. “How’d it go?” she asked as she tossed one of her shirts into a bag.
He smiled softly at her as he closed the door behind him, and he relaxed his shoulder blades against it. “We got our leave.”
“We did? Good! We won’t have to sneak out in the dead of night then!” She shut her bag. “….was he upset?”
“I think ‘concerned’ is probably the right word to use.” Sabo frowned. “But he said that he understood my need to take time and grieve.”
Honestly, that sounded like Dragon. But the last thing they needed right now was for people to swamp Sabo and Ace with their concern when they had to figure out exactly what was going on between Sabo and the possible spirit of his dead friend.
“I understand that too,” Koala smiled up at him. “Even if things are a little more complicated than that, huh?”
“Things are a lot more complicated than that,” he sighed. “Which I would be happy to keep to ourselves for now. We do have a lead on Deuce, by the way.”
Koala snuck over, he looked like he needed some physical affection, and wrapped her arms around his shoulders with a quiet hum. “Really? You do? That’s great news!”
He wrapped his arms around her in return and nuzzled her shoulder. “It’s what took me so long. I was talking with the intel division. A blue haired pirate in a mask was seen leaving Marineford.”
She rested back against him with a little smile. “Well that’s really specific, that’s got to be him, right? Did they say what direction?”
“It does seem like it must be him,” he muttered– his tone had changed slightly, and Koala picked up on the tell-tale signs that Ace was present now, either with Sabo, or instead of him. “It also means that he’s real—”
“Ah—” he paused as if interrupting himself. “Yes, he was on the same ship as Crocodile apparently, and we know where they came ashore. ”
“Hey Ace,” Koala murmured, still looped around their shoulders. “sounds like he is real—and it sounds like we should head right to that island as soon as we can. Before the trail gets cold.”
They nuzzled against her. “Hey, Koala. Sorry to intrude. Just, really curious about how this will work out. You’re right— we’ve gotta get our asses in gear.”
“Lucky for you I’m smart,” she gestured with one hand over her shoulder at the pre-packed bags. “We can head out as soon as you’re able, alright? I’m… I’m pretty curious too.”
They glanced over at the bags, and Sabo’s voice and smile snuck back in. “I had a guess you’d already be getting us ready. And I appreciate it.”
Koala wiggled excitedly with a nod. It was actually kind of exciting. Yeah, the situation was weird, and it threw a bit of a wrench in her comfortable and practiced back and forth with Sabo. But Ace was a fun presence, and there was nothing quite like a mystery to solve to inject a little excitement right?
“Maybe I’m a little eager to get going too.”
“Want to have us all to yourself?” The voice was unclear but the sharp, teasing look seemed to belong to Ace. “We’re pretty eager to get moving too. It’s… weird to be here right now.”
“Well, .what can I say? A girl has to have her fun, right? And maybe I want you all to myself for a moment.” She chuckled softly under her breath. “…I bet. It’s not exactly somewhere you can be open. So—let’s go.”
They traveled as members of the Revolutionary Army often did, incognito, taking passage on a merchant ship bound for the island where Crocodile’s stolen ship had landed.
The two of them made themselves scarce but unobtrusive. Helping out, as passengers often did here and there, while keeping their personal lives quiet from the bustling merchants who never asked questions. As far as anyone was concerned they were a traveling couple on their way to sightsee through the Grand Line.
Koala had been getting more comfortable around Ace, finding a teasing sort of rapport growing between them. It was easy to see why Sabo liked him so much.
Sabo and Ace, in return, seemed to be getting more comfortable switching back and forth between themselves, and it was getting clearer and clearer to Koala how to notice the differences between them. Ace seemed hesitant to fully take over, however, worried, he said about getting stuck like before, and usually only interjected in a conversation. Though sometimes Koala would catch him on his own, noticing an unusual posture for Sabo.
She didn’t exactly call him out on it whenever she saw it, though once she couldn’t help but teasingly greet him a little bit. Whatever the truth of the matter was, Ace certainly seemed like a separate force from Sabo. Their body language, their speech styles, everything was too different to be taken as one single man.
The more she got to know Ace, through the snippets of stories and chatter they shared, the more she enjoyed seeing him around too. Now that she knew she wasn’t going to lose Sabo, the anxiety over the whole thing had lowered to a bare simmer.
Ace, on the other hand, seemed a little anxious around her. Or maybe skittish was the right word. Embarrassed. A few times he’d interjected something into the conversation right as Koala had been putting her hands on Sabo, or going for a kiss, and that seemed to fluster him despite his cavalier and joking attitude about it.
The perils, she supposed, of sharing a body. Those moments tended to send her off balance too, unused to the surprise of going to kiss your boyfriend and his childhood best friend and honorary brother is there gawking nervously at you instead.
But she embraced them with good humor, laughing it off, or giving him a hug and a pat on the back before swiftly changing topics to try and ease his nerves. This was just as awkward for him as it was for her—she had to remember that.
In the last hours of their voyage, Koala found herself standing beside them, looking over the rail at the island as they approached it. A moment ago she’d been with Sabo, but she’d watched the subtle changes in the muscles of their face, the shift in shoulders, and the change to his smile that meant Ace was there with her as the cool breeze tugged at both their hair.
“Enjoying the ocean breeze, Ace?” She asked cheerfully as she let her shoulder playfully bump his. She kept her eyes out on the ocean, the beautiful and rippling ocean far beyond them framed the rising landmass of the island ahead.
His smile grew bashful and he gave her an amused aside look. “Caught me again. Yeah, I am. I missed it.”
Koala giggled under her breath. “I’m starting to get a real sense of you guys, you know. Your faces, everything like that.”
She hummed softly and leaned on the banister. “I can’t blame you though. The ocean’s beautiful. When I was a girl my favorite thing was to stand on the deck with the…” she murmured low and out of the ear-shot of the other merchants. “The sun pirates, and watch the ocean fly by.”
Ace smiled and leaned close to her– though not too close— and he nodded. “Sounds like a nice memory. When I was little, we used to sit on the beach sometimes, and look out at the sea together. Talk about sailing away.”
“It is. I miss them a lot sometimes,” she smiled warmly over at him. “You used to dream about sailing off together, huh? I heard a little about how things went—but do you ever wonder what it’d have been like if you had earlier?”
His expression turned sad, and hard— like he was fighting back tears. “All the time.”
She reached out and squeezed his shoulder.
“Hey. I’m sorry. But at least you’re out here together now, right? Sailing the seas in the ocean breeze.” With a laugh she hoped wasn’t tense she squeezed again. “and this time you’ve got a cute girl along for the ride! Lucky lucky!”
He smiled, though something sad remained in his eyes. He slung his arm companionably around her shoulders. “Hey, I’m not going to complain about that. Sorry to get all tense there, it’s just. Yeah, thought about it a lot. But we’re together now.”
“You are, Ace. And you’re going to make the best of it, I absolutely insist!” She poked him lightly in the side before she leaned into his arm with a soft huff of breath.
It was difficult, wasn’t it? Difficult to navigate with the limited context she had. She didn’t want to make either of them sad, but there was so much history there that even the stories Sabo told her didn’t hold.
He chuckled, bashful again as she poked him. “Alright, alright, I promise. Hey— speaking of enjoying…”
He gave her an appraising look with Sabo’s dark eyes, most of the sadness having vanished for the moment.
Koala tilted her head to the side with a curious smile.
“Hmmm? What is it?” She wondered what exactly he was going to ask, was it something about the island they were coming up on?
“We’ve been on the ship a few days. Ship food, all that,” he chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand. “Maybe if we don’t have an urgent lead, we could go out for dinner?”
Koala blinked, her eyes going wide as a smile lit up her face. Dinner—anywhere other than a ship’s galley—sounded absolutely delightful. And he was asking her, in a way that seemed almost a little bashful—she felt a very slight heat against her cheeks as she chuckled.
“That sounds like a blast, Ace! Could we?”
Ace’s smile brightened even further and he gave her a thumbs up, his other arm still around her shoulders. “Hell yeah we can! Assuming we don’t have to run for the shore chasing our lead, we’ll get dinner in town and have a good time.”
Koala nudged him playfully. “Then I’m hoping your first mate isn’t going to make this whole thing a big rush for us, Ace. I could use a good time after that last job got a little hectic.”
He laughed softly and reached up and adjusted the hat on his head– a gesture of his she’d picked up on already— “well, Deuce was never one for moving all that fast.”
“Oh yeah?” Koala asked with a playful grin. “Kind of a slow guy, then? Or just living at his own pace?”
“He’s a perfectionist,” Ace chuckled teasingly. “So he spends a lot of time spinning his wheels before he gets going.”
“Well, if we’re extra lucky maybe he’ll still be in the pub somewhere spinning his wheels waiting for us to corner him~. All the way through and till after our date of course.”
She couldn’t help but tease a little, her smile creeping a little wider.
He went bright red and adjusted his hat, grinning wider. “After our date, huh? Yeah. After our date.”
Yeah, it was worth teasing the guy a little. She laughed into her hand as she watched him go scarlet with Sabo’s face. She hadn’t quite forgotten that ‘equal share of the treasure’ joke of his the other day, and turnabout was fair play for how it had flustered her.
She nudged him playfully. “So take me somewhere good, Ace. I’m really sick of galley food.”
Ace was getting more familiar with piloting Sabo’s body around. He wasn’t exactly comfortable with it-– he didn’t know if he would ever be, or would ever want to be completely comfortable with it— but at least it was becoming less of a completely alien and unnerving experience.
He kept in control while they scouted for information at the docks about Deuce. It didn’t take much to find news. He had to give Koala— the revolutionary army seemed fantastic in terms of finding and using contacts. It only took a few quiet words and greased palms before someone gave them information. A man matching Deuce’s description had left a couple of days before, on the ship of Emperor Shanks.
Koala was good at this too. The way she interacted with information networks, the way she knew when to push and when to yield in a negotiation. She was every inch the master spy she claimed to be when they were on their way there.
She was dogged, too— determined to hunt down every last lead for his benefit, all the way until they’d gotten the word that Deuce was probably with Shanks—it was then that her expression got thoughtful and pensive.
Ace could really see what Sabo saw in her. Ferocious, determined, sly, even calculating. She reminded him, just a little of Deuce, in a way.
He caught her expression as it changed from stubborn to reflective, and as they lingered in a wet alley at the edge of the docks after their last contact departed, he caught her eye.
“Berry for your thoughts?”
Koala smiled at him. “Nothing bad, but complicated. Emperor Red Hair Shanks is—he’s capricious. He’s got a dangerous reputation, and I don’t know how well he’ll take to us trying to follow him.”
“You’re not wrong,” Ace said, thinking back to the last– and only– time he’d met the man in person. “He didn’t like it when I chased him down last time either. Not until he heard why anyway. Then we had a few drinks.”
“You—” Koala blinked at him,”you chased him down?”
“Yeah, right after I became a pirate,” Ace nodded. He rubbed his, well, Sabo’s, chin. “I mean, if my memory can be trusted I did. I went to thank him for saving Luffy’s life. It was because of him that Shanks lost his arm.”
It was strange to think that it was possible these memories weren’t his– that they weren’t real. He believed them; he believed himself. Despite everything he felt real. But once they found Deuce, he’d know for sure.
Koala bit her lip thoughtfully, chewing it as she tilted her head to the side. “He saved Luffy’s life, huh? And—I always assumed it was a battle injury, possibly from Hawk Eyes.”
“You’d think, but no.” Ace shook his head, remembering Luffy telling him and Sabo about it in the woods all those years ago. That part, at least, he was sure was true. “It was saving Luffy’s scrawny little seven year old ass from some pirate he pissed off– and then the fucking sea king that ate him.”
Koala rubbed her neck with a furrow of her brow again. “Well…ah…I’m gonna be honest with you Ace. This is going to be REAL easy to verify because that is NOT in any of the intel I’ve ever seen.”
“That part Sabo could tell you, too,” Ace grinned. “The part about him having saved Luffy. Sabo was there when Luffy told us. It was while we were all living rough together. But anyway, I think a meeting with Shanks should be fine. Well as close to fine as any kind of meeting with an emperor anyway.”
Koala scoffed softly.
“As close to fine as any meeting with an emperor.” She leaned on a wall with a small smile “we’ll make do. Worse comes to worse I can try calling in a few favors.”
“I bet you could,” he nodded. He didn’t ask what kind. The Revolutionary Army wasn’t real cozy with pirates— he couldn’t imagine it was different for the biggest pirates in the world. “Hey, on another note, we can’t exactly follow up on this until morning, can we? So how about we get that dinner we were talking about?”
Koala snapped out of whatever mental pathway she was traveling down, likely thinking of favors to pull in, and flashed a broad smile at him. “Oh!! That’s true isn’t it? We won’t get a ship till then anyhow. We’ve got some time to kill, so let’s do it! I’m famished.”
“Hell yeah. Let’s find some place.” Ace looped his arm over her shoulder companionably. He was getting more comfortable with that kind of thing too. After all, he was a physical person, and he wasn’t used to keeping his hands off people he was friendly with.
Koala didn’t seem to mind it.
Ace’s arm was warm around Koala’s shoulders as the two of them set out to find a place to eat. He was touchy, physically affectionate. Admittedly she didn’t mind that at all.
Even if he was using Sabo’s body, there was a tangible difference there. In the way he held himself, in the way he held her—and so on. The two of them wound their way through the streets, checking every sign for the best possible stop for this…
Was it a date? Koala bit her lip again, glancing at him from under the fringe of her hair. Ace was funny, lighthearted, friendly. He had that casual air about him that Sabo kept more buttoned down, even when they were together.
He was clearly close with Sabo—and the two were sharing a body. There was some part of her that wondered things like ‘is this just a casual dinner? Or is it something more?’
The word date had been used when they talked about going out. Koala had been the one to say it even, it had slipped out of her mouth. Ace had echoed it. Their ‘date’. But what did that mean to either of them exactly?
Ace was whistling a pleasant tune as they made their way from the docks into the slightly less rough area of town, and smiling quite broadly. He seemed to be pleased. Whether by the dinner, the information, both, or something more. Sabo wasn’t much of a whistler, and Koala had never heard the tune on their lips before.
Koala leaned over with a small smile, shifting under his arm to look up at him. “That’s a pretty tune even out of unpracticed lips.” she teased. “What is it?”
Was he pleased by the dinner—maybe? More likely he was pleased about his first mate being close at hand, she was sure.
Ace looked a little embarrassed and shook his head. “I don’t know what it’s supposed to be called, actually. It’s from a tone dial my crew found in some treasure one time. Just piano and violin. We never heard anyone else play it and never found out what it was supposed to be.”
“Huh.” Koala tilted her head as she listened in. “I guess you can say that if it stuck with you this long, that song’s a real treasure, hm?”
“That’s how we felt about it,” Ace nodded with a nostalgic smile. “We used to joke around adding lyrics to it, but never came up with ones that stuck.”
“Maybe when we find Deuce you can finally find the words for it, huh?” She squeezed his arm. “Maybe you just needed more time and experience.”
“Maybe,” Ace chuckled. He walked close with her and the way he smiled, she almost felt like she could see his ‘real’ face peeking through Sabo’s.
He gestured at an inviting looking tavern a little further up the road. “Oh hey— that place smells good, don’t you think?”
Koala felt her face heating up. Her whole life, aside from Revolutionary Army dallianes that both she and Sabo sometimes enjoyed, she’d never been ‘on a date’ with anyone but him. She looked up again to meet that smile. It reminded her very much that she was about to head in on what she’d accidentally called a ‘date’ with a man who wasn’t Sabo, whether he was ‘real’ or not.
It didn’t help that the glimpses of his ‘real face’ in Sabo’s expressions were admittedly pretty handsome.
She sniffed the air and quickly nodded. “Yeah it sounds f-fantastic!”
Ace pulled her with enthusiasm into the restaurant, which turned out to be a rather cheerful and handsome little place with a roaring fire and a small band playing in one corner of the dining room. They sat at one of the rough tables near enough to hear the performance, but not near enough to drown out their conversation, and soon enough they were settled into a hearty supper comprised mainly of fried meat and fish skewers, roasted vegetables, and large mugs of ale.
“Woah—” Koala said as she held up one of the fish skewers with a broad smile. “You know for tavern fare, the cook here sure knows what they’re doing! This is fantastic!”
She took a nibbling bite of it while listening to the band, her eyes locked on the man before her.
Ace— who had finished his collection of skewers and had just waved for more— was leaning on his hand, grinning at her over the table. “Yeah we really lucked out, huh? The band’s pretty good too.”
“It’s a heck of an atmosphere, huh?” she flushed. “The music’s great. It reminds me a little of the first restaurant I’d ever gone to as, you know—”
As someone free. She took a big bite of her skewer to try and catch up to Ace.
“Yeah?” his grin softened. “That sounds like a special memory by itself. Any highlights?”
His foot brushed hers under the table— she wasn’t sure whether it was an accident or not.
She flushed deeper, and carefully she tested the waters by bumping his foot with hers, her eyes averting to her plate as she fumbled for her mug of ale.
“Well, it was with the Sun Pirates,” she lowered the tone of her voice. “Fisher Tiger had stopped in a town that was friendly enough, you know? For gathering supplies and such–and to celebrate freeing us all from the …you know… he took us out to the tavern. It was a little more tense than this, you know how people are…but Hatchan managed to liven it up when he got the band to strike up”
His foot played against hers under the table, It wasn’t an accident.
“Yeah? I bet. Music has a good way of loosening people up.” He smiled at her widely again, and his voice dropped low. “Funny to think technically you were a pirate long before I was.”
It wasn’t an accident at all. He was flirting with her; or at least being intimate and cozy. She didn’t pull her foot away, even as her fluster grew.
She laughed quietly and nodded, sipping her ale. “Since I was a little girl. It’s true huh? I wasn’t a Sun Pirate for long, and some of them would say I never was—but….I was part of that crew. I wear their flag. And Hatchin, he always knew how to loosen people up. One of the kindest men I’d ever known. Fisher Tiger too…”
“It sounds like you remember it fondly,” he said softly, watching her with Sabo’s big dark eyes that seemed to shine with a light all Ace’s own. “There’s nothing quite like sailing with a rowdy crew of pirates.”
“I do,” Koala said with a lopsided and unsure smile as her foot bumped his again. “I remember eating my fill for the first real time since— geeze, even before I was sold… in that tavern, on meat like this. And the Sun Pirates were rowdy, and fun, and interesting! There’s nothing at all like it. I know a lot of the Revolutionary Army doesn’t like them but, but-– I dunno. Sometimes I miss it.”
“Well, you sure don’t have to sell me on it,” he teased. “There’s nothing I ever loved better.”
She watched his head jerk and the tousled hair fall in his face as he noticed the band strike up a new song, this one more lively than the last.
He reached across the table and caught her wrist in his hand. “Come on— let’s dance!”
Koala blinked her big, bright eyes before she stumbled to her feat with a flustered laugh
“Dance?? You wanna dance?” She stuck out her tongue as she wobbled to her feet “Sabo’ll tell you—I’m a better dancer than I look like!”
“You must be a hell of a dancer then,” he teased, pulling her out to the empty space on the floor around the band. “Yeah, I wanna dance, why not? It’ll be a few minutes until we get our next round of skewers.”
He hadn’t quite waited for her to say ‘yes’, already pulling her into the dance. Koala wasn’t sure how to take it, or rather, she was, in a way but—
Her head was spinning a little as a butterfly-like feeling wibbled in her stomach along with the growing heat behind her flustered half smile. “Alright, well, because you’re so eager I’ll dance with you, ok?”
“Fantastic!”
She glanced out at the other patrons of the restaurant before she looked up to meet his eyes and catch his hand in hers.
It wasn’t underheard of, certainly, dancing in an establishment like this, but they were the only ones up at the moment, and it was definitely an exposed feeling.
Ace didn’t seem to feel it though. He just smiled and danced thoughtlessly across the floor, pulling her with him, his movements brisk and sharp and excited.
Despite the eyes on her, just like that day way back when she was young, she did her best to ignore them and follow along in his dance. She clung tight to his hand as she swept across the floor with him, following his movements and the lively brass of the band.
“You’re not half bad,” she said as she took a dance-step closer.
“You’re even better than I expected!” The firelight flickered across his face— across Sabo’s face— making it seem foreign and unfamiliar. Somehow making it seem more like Ace’s face as they danced together to the passionate sound of the band.
Wasn’t he the man made of flame? The infamous Fire-Fist cast in his own blazing inferno—as the light of the fire danced across his features, Koala almost believed it completely. Without the verification from Deuce, without the firm evidence.
She felt like she was looking into the eyes of Ace, Sabo’s handsome yet deceased brother. A man who danced and smiled as brightly as the flame.
The song came to an end and Ace had his arm looped around her waist, breathless and face to face. Suddenly he moved in to kiss her.
She was halfway through a caught breath when their lips almost caught. Koala’s eyes widened, and all that flustered attraction came rushing to the forefront as she squeaked out in surprise.
Ace immediately stopped and pulled back, his grin taking on an awkward quality, looking just as flustered as she was.
“Whoops! Got a little over excited there. Sorry about that, Koala.”
He laughed it off, but the red of his face made it clear he was embarrassed. “Let’s grab another drink and see if those skewers are back from the kitchen yet.”
She’d wanted to kiss him, that was the thought that had fluttered in her mind when their lips nearly touched. The urge was there, the willingness to let herself be taken by the flow of the tide and finish their dance but at the last minute she’d frozen up.
She’d gotten too flustered, too worked up to make the move. She knew her face was red as his was and smiled nervously. “Sure, I mean—I could use another drink, yeah?”
Wasn’t this a bit fast? What would Sabo think? What was she thinking?
Maybe after another drink or two her head would be clear enough, and her heart would still enough to figure it out.
Back at their table there was fresh cold beer with a tall head of foam, and steaming fried skewers. Ace’s feet didn’t touch hers under the table, and he was flushed red behind Sabo’s face, but he immediately launched into a story about, as he said ‘a mutual friend’ and the time he and Jinbei had apparently fought for more than a day straight.
She was pretty sure it was an effort to cover his nerves– and potentially to deflect any perceived embarrassment from her, too. It was almost gentlemanly, in its way.
It was charming. Almost-gentlemanly, from a rambunctious and free-spirited pirate. She flushed again, but listened with interest, interjecting with her own observations on the Whaleshark man— and how impressed she was that Ace held out that long against his fishman karate.
She thought, more than once, about brushing her foot on his or leaning across the table to give that kiss she’d abruptly ended— but each time she felt seized with that butterfly in the stomach feeling. An unfamiliar one.
She and Sabo had fallen together so naturally, so early and so completely; she’d skipped right over these sorts of nerves.
The food was still good. The music was still good. The company was still good. They chatted their way pleasantly enough through the rest of the dinner but it was impossible to deny it was just a little more awkward than it had been before– Ace was a little more shy.
As they finally headed out into the crisp air of the dark evening street to go find a room for the night, Ace smiled at her, walking close, but not touching her.
“I had a lot of fun. Thanks for treating me to dinner.”
The awkwardness became a wall. She’d struggled to get herself past it enough to cling to his arm like she had on the way there, or to make any further move. She instead walked with her hands folded behind her back as she glanced up at him under the rim of her cap.
“I was happy to. I’d like to do it again, yeah? Even if you do eat your way through our finances like crazy.”
He laughed. “Sorry about that. As you saw, I just have too much energy. Burn off everything I eat, and then I want to sleep the rest off. Speaking of which–” he paused and gave her a shy smile. “I’m gonna grab Sabo for you. I’m beat and I’m sure he’s pining for you.”
“H-huh?” Koala blinked up at him before she rubbed her neck with a shy smile. “Oh ah, alright! That sounds like a good idea, Ace. I enjoyed my night with you, though! Very much!”
“I’m glad. We’ll do it again some time.” She saw a shadow of his fire-light smile in the awkward edge of his mouth, and he squeezed her shoulder briefly. Companionably.
Then Sabo sagged against her, almost as if dizzy.
“Fancy seeing you here, Koala.” It was so jarring. The difference in tone of voice. The way the muscles in his face all rearranged. A moment ago it had been an awkward date with Ace, and now here was Sabo, her long time partner, who she hadn’t seen all day.
Koala looped an arm around him. At least that awkward wall had dissipated, even if she still felt like she’d somehow fucked that whole thing up.
She leaned against him with a thin smile. “Fancy seeing you too, Sabo. You’d been out some time.”
He chuckled, looping his arm around her and straightening out as they started to walk again,. “I promised Ace I’d let him have the day. He’s been getting restless.”
“I could tell, he got pretty animated during dinner! For ah, for a while at least.”
She leaned against him, letting him lead as she closed her eyes. Until she froze and broke the mood they’d had going between them.