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“I know what you’re thinking,” Motti said. Across their study table he was grinning at Piett, his coursework half-completed and his smile broad and toothy.
Piett’s elbow slipped. He sat up straighter, blinking to dispel the daydream that had transfixed him a moment ago and which, damn him, Cadet Motti seemed to have noticed. “I wasn’t thinking about anything,” he said quickly.
Motti’s grin widened. “You’ve got Blondie on the brain,” he leered. “Ever since Instructor Veers showed up to take over the Phys Ed. courses, you’ve been mooning after him with that same stupid expression on your face. Like a sort of braindead baby cow, with the dazed look and the drooling—”
“I don’t drool,” Piett hissed. He turned back to his coursework, his face flushed with heat. As ever, Motti had proven himself uncannily perceptive. For Piett had been thinking of Instructor Veers just moments before—which wasn’t his fault, really. They’d had sparring lessons with him just that morning; the sight of Instructor Veers straining in those fleet-issued exercise shorts was not something Piett would soon forget.
But he wouldn’t give Motti the satisfaction. With a deliberate shrug, he offered Motti his most casual look. “And I’m not mooning after Instructor Veers. You just don’t like him because he’s Army.” He glanced at Jerjerrod. “Isn’t that right, Tiaan?”
To his right, Jerjerrod was eyeing Motti’s math with a pained expression. At Piett’s remark, he blinked up. “Hmm?”
“We’re talking about Instructor Veers,” Piett explained. “I was just saying that Motti’s ridiculous grudge against him is, well. Ridiculous. Just because he’s from the Army, there’s no reason to discount what he has to teach us.”
“Instructor Veers,” Jerjerrod repeated, his cheeks pinkening considerably. “Oh, well, he’s certainly a much more agreeable presence than Instructor Kimura. So much younger. So friendly, too.” And then he went quiet, nibbling on his lower lip and gazing down at his own coursework with a far-away look. It was with an unsteady hand that he got back to jotting down his figures.
Motti was staring at him, scowling.
Piett huffed out a laugh, regretting it instantly when Motti jerked his head toward him with sudden violence. “What?” he snarled.
“Nothing!” said Piett. “Nothing, it’s just, ah, I know what you’re thinking, is all.”
His eyes were narrowed to slits. “And just what am I thinking? I’d really love to know.”
Piett’s gaze darted to Jerjerrod for just a moment. Motti colored, the wild red of his cheeks clashing horribly with the auburn of his hair. But his lips twisted in a familiar sneer, and there was no embarrassment in his tone. “So what?” he said evenly. “You got a problem with that, Piett?”
“None whatsoever,” he replied. He did not break eye contact, which was no small feat: Motti could be awfully intimidating when he was staring you down. “But I don’t think you’re in a position to throw stones, is all.”
“What are you all talking about?” Jerjerrod muttered. He did not look up from his work. Having finished his own assignment, he’d grabbed Motti’s sheet and was occupying himself by correcting the calculations. “Speaking in riddles and folksy aphorisms—what’s all this about stones?”
“Nothing, Ti,” Motti grunted.
“Incidentally, Conan,” he continued, crossing out a largish section of Motti’s math, “you oughtn’t tease Firmus about Instructor Veers. Just because Veers has taken a shine to Firmus but not to you—”
“I don’t want him taking a shine to me.”
“—it doesn’t mean he won’t,” he finished. “You’re very charming, you know. I’m sure he’ll warm up to you right away.”
Charming wasn’t the word Piett would use. Insidious, maybe; Motti had a way of getting under your skin and staying there, for better or worse. But he kept his mouth shut. He wanted to be on good terms with his roommates. And besides, the only time he’d seen Jerjerrod get truly upset was when he was arguing on Motti’s behalf.
Motti was watching Jerjerrod in the heated sort of way he seemed to reserve only for him. “You really think I’m charming, Tiaan?”
Jerjerrod hummed in agreement, his green gaze narrowed on a fiddly bit of math. “Exceedingly charming, when you put your mind to it. It’s very easy to love you, Conan. Ah, there we are,” he exclaimed happily, his lightpen moving at lightning speed, “I see where you’ve gone wrong on this one, now. I must say you are creative with your fractions....”
If Piett had thought Motti was red before, he’d been sorely mistaken. The preceding flush was a winter rose next to the lurid sunset blooming across his face. It was with a dreamy (and vaguely dopey) look that he leaned on his elbow, gazing at Jerjerrod’s curly blond head with a kind of mawkish reverence. “You’re doing real good fixing that math, Ti,” he cooed.
“Doing well,” Jerjerrod corrected automatically. If Motti’s sudden shift in tone registered to him as anything odd, he didn’t show it. His nose was about a half-inch from the flimsi, his long fingers stained black with ink and his teeth worrying his bottom lip. He looked a bit mad, in Piett’s opinion, but Motti was watching him like he was the prettiest sight in the galaxy.
Sighing, he turned back to his own work. He knew exactly what Motti was thinking, and it was none of his business.
Although he did wonder what would happen when Jerjerrod finally figured it out.