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Everyone can tell.
Inara knows it. She just knows it.
She can't explain why they would, but they do. They must. It's a smear of her lipgloss on Kaylee's collarbone, or a streak of engine grease down Inara's neck. It's Inara's rich ginger and jasmine perfume on Kaylee, or Kaylee's papaya ice cream body spray on Inara, or even worse; a blend of the two on both of them. Everyone knows and they are all just being nice and tactful. Minding their own business.
Having Kaylee as a bedmate is…nice. It feels like an almost natural extension of their friendship, the logical next step. There's fond hand holding at markets and then there's hair brushing in the shuttle, and then there's cheek kisses to say goodbye, and then there there's cuddling during sleepovers, and then there's more. It's an indulgence for Inara that's so good it feels almost illegal: sex with someone who genuinely enjoys her company and not the status being with her brings, someone who she can be herself around, someone who will laugh with her when an elbow slips or the lube bottle makes an obscene noise.
And there has to be something said for the convenience. It feels clinical to say it, but Inara does like how quickly they can find each other, how easily a moment alone together can be taken during a slow day in the black. Being with Kaylee is easy and fun, with none of the emotional exhaustion that has always come with Inara's odd adventure into Guild-approved dating. So they do take those moments as often as they can.
Which is why everyone knows.
She has little speeches prepared for when it happens. She's tailored them to each member of the crew, and it pays to be prepared, because she has to perform the one she creates for River two days after Kaylee spends the night in the shuttle for the first time.
River doesn't say anything, but she lingers in the galley after everyone else has left, and keeps her eyes locked on to Inara and Kaylee as they sit together in the lounge area before leaving, and when they leave, walking softly towards Inara's shuttle, River is standing by the opposite shuttle, openly staring at them quizzically.
Inara's conversation with her the next morning is less of a conversation than it is just asking River if she has questions.
"No," River says, peering into Inara's eyes like if she looks hard enough she can crawl through them right into Inara's head.
"I would…we would really appreciate it if you wouldn't tell anyone," Inara tells her. "Not even your brother."
"I won't," River promises easily. "But he wouldn’t be mad. Mahogany armoires and all that," she says, and won't elaborate.
As far as Inara can tell, River keeps her promise, and Inara does her part by trying to be subtle, but it's hard, when everything about Kaylee is so irresistible.
So it isn't River's fault that everyone knows.
Inara sighs and runs through the speech she has planned out for when the Captain confronts her. When she's through with that, she makes eye contact across the dinner table with Kaylee and is rewarded with a slightly silly close-eyed smile, like a contented cat. Wash chuckles at them. Jayne doesn't notice.
And it hits Inara then that if Jayne hasn't made a joke about them or Mal hasn't blustered into her shuttle protesting about shipboard romances or servicing crew and Wash hasn't asked (half joking, half serious) if they want to go on a double date, then…they don't know.
Of course they don't.
Inara settles back into her chair and feels a weight lift off her shoulders.
At the other end of the table, River laughs.